'Many thousands of abandoned children were treated as free labour in late 19th century Australia, yet their stories have been hidden until now, even to their descendants. Lucy Frost's painstaking research has uncovered what really happened to the convict orphans.
'This moving story of thousands of cast away children is a vital part of our nation's history.' - David Hill, author of The Forgotten Children
'All families have their secrets, and a convict ancestor or an illegitimate birth were shames that families once buried deep. Among the best-hidden stories in Australia's history are those of the convict orphans.
'Agnes arrived on a convict transport aged four and was abandoned when her mother needed to escape an abusive husband. After their mother died and their father deserted them, Maria and Eliza Marriner were taken into state care too. Cut off from family, behind the walls of the imposing sandstone buildings of the Queen's Orphan Schools, they were among hundreds of young children entrusted to the much feared Matron Smyth.
'At the age of twelve, the children left the orphanage to work without pay on farms and in homes—some of them places where no child should ever have been sent. Although colonists called it white slavery, the authorities turned a blind eye to what was really happening.
'These are stories of abuse and abandonment, and also of great generosity and kindness from individuals who rescued and supported children. Some children managed to build happy lives for themselves, but many could not navigate a system stacked against them. There are disturbing parallels between the Queen's Orphan Schools in Hobart and other children's institutions in Australia into the 21st century.' (Publication summary)
Table of Contents:
Introduction
1. Lessons from the Cook-house
2. In the Homes of Strangers
3. Up and Down the Stairs of Boarding-houses
4. Jobs for the Boys
5. Braving the Wilds of the Huon
6. The Children Who Ran
7. Children at Risk
8. The Perils of Being a Girl
9. A Legacy of Trauma
10. On Their Own
11. Agnes and Sarah
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Select bibliography
Index
'Convict Orphans presents a micro-history approach to understanding the lives of children in Tasmania’s Orphan School, an institution known under different names across time, but which was one of the colony’s most important institutions for children separated from their parents. As Lucy Frost notes, most of the children who passed through its doors were neither convicts nor orphans. Rather, they were children whose parents were unable to maintain custody of their children, or prohibited from doing so. A clear majority – 702 of the 997 children in Frost’s database – had at least one convict parent, and Frost illustrates the ways in which removal of children was used as a punishment for female convicts, as well as the ongoing effects of having been a convict on parents’ abilities to maintain stable family lives after their emancipation.' (Introduction)
'A historian tries to hear the voices of lost children'
'A historian tries to hear the voices of lost children'
'Convict Orphans presents a micro-history approach to understanding the lives of children in Tasmania’s Orphan School, an institution known under different names across time, but which was one of the colony’s most important institutions for children separated from their parents. As Lucy Frost notes, most of the children who passed through its doors were neither convicts nor orphans. Rather, they were children whose parents were unable to maintain custody of their children, or prohibited from doing so. A clear majority – 702 of the 997 children in Frost’s database – had at least one convict parent, and Frost illustrates the ways in which removal of children was used as a punishment for female convicts, as well as the ongoing effects of having been a convict on parents’ abilities to maintain stable family lives after their emancipation.' (Introduction)
