Celebrations mark 191st anniversary of Australia’s first industrial riot

MORE than 100 Female Factory workers and prisoners stormed prison walls, ran mad through the streets and smuggled themselves away during Australia’s first ever industrial riot. Read the story of a largely forgotten part of Australia’s history.

Pauline Garmonsway and Lynette Watkins are friends of the Parramatta Female Factory, reliving the riot as part of the city’s Riot Day. Picture: Angelo Velardo

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IN 1827, at 7am, Australia witnessed its first case of industrial action. Women from the Parramatta Female Factory, who were both prisoners and factory workers, led a revolt against the matron after their rations of tea and sugar were cut.

The women, who had been negotiating with the previous matron Elizabeth Raine, had driven the official from the building, leaving her understudy matron Ann Gordon to take over the tense talks.

The Factory had already been embroiled in scandal, when then superintending magistrate Dr Henry Grattan Douglass was accused in 1822 of taking a young girl from the factory into his house as a servant and seducing her.

Matron Ann Gordon was in charge during the riot.

Dr Henry Grattan Douglass, surgeon and superintending magistrate at the Female Factory in Parramatta in 1822.

RIOT DAY

Playing hard ball with the inmates and factory workers led to full revolt, with newspapers at the time describing 100 women storming the walls of the factory and rioting in the centre of Parramatta.

President of Parramatta Female Factory Friends Gay Hendrickson called the event a turning point for Australian history.

Life in the factory was tough, with rations cut and working conditions leading many women to riot.

“These women are you and me in a disastrous set of circumstances. These are the same women who became ‘the quiet revolution’ passing on to their children and children’s children, the values we hold dear as Australians today — a sense of equity, mateship, judging people on their actions not on they circumstance of birth, and a sense of humour,” Mrs Hendrickson said.

An excerpt from the Sydney Gazette the week of the riot.

“They are stories of the women and their choices that are still relevant today.”

The response from the military was harsh and swift. A The Sydney Gazette report stated soldiers fired indiscriminately into the crowd of women who had been branded “Amazonian banditti”.

The report said soldiers were “seen flying in all directions with fixed bayonets, for the double purpose of securing the fugitives.”

The Female Factory riot was the first industrial riot in Australia. Newspaper excerpts, images of the factory in its infancy and diagrams of working life.

“A Captain, a Lieutenant, two Serjeants, and about forty rank and file, were in immediate requisition by the Magistrates.”

“Nothing less was expected but that the soldiers would be obliged to commence firing on them.”

To mark the 191st anniversary of the day the factory will be holding its annual Riot Day at the Female Factory in North Parramatta on Friday from 10am-3pm.

Bookings for tours are essential, but visitors should bring a rug and enjoy the day.

Book at eventbrite.com.au/e/its-a-riot-2018-tickets-49466580875

Timeline

October 21, 1827:

Unrest in the factory. Matron Raines reduced the tea and sugar

October 23, 1827:

Women in 3rd class riot and take over the yard, expelling a constable

October 26, 1827:

Matron Raines resigns and is escorted from the factory by constables

October 27, 1827:

Matron Gordon begins as matron and at 7am stops the allowance of bread and sugar altogether. The women threaten to tear down the factory if the rations are not reinstated immediately.

30 minutes later 200 women attack the workmen taking hammers and sledges. The women break down the gates and run through Parramatta, attacking bakers shops and butcheries.

October 31, 1827:

More than 20 women who fled to the bush in Toongabbie are caught and brought to the prison, leaving 19 women still at large. Major Lockyer ordered the women to hand the ringleaders forward for punishment, but like Spartacus they told the major that “if one suffered, all should suffer”.

December, 1827:

Two escaped women are found 150 miles away hidden in a cart.