This is a picture of Louisa and William. They took us on an interactive tour of the Cascades Female Factory. In 1828, Tasmania realized that they had far too many males on the island so they set about sending female convicts from London to serve their sentence there. Louisa stole a loaf of bread and was sentenced to 7 years, leaving behind her 3 children (14, 11, 7 - the magistrate thought the 14 year old could care for them). At the prison, people like Louisa were assigned as servants in the community to do the "Women's work" for the men. Then if the men or masters decided to have their way with them and they became pregnant, they were sent back to prison. After having their babies, they were given two weeks to wean them and then were put in solitary confinement as punishment. 3 out of 4 babies died and we were told that 1200 babies were buried there during the run of the prison. This tour definitely made an impact on me.