Children of convicts remembered

Many thousands of abandoned children were treated as free labour in late 19th century Australia, yet their stories have largely been hidden, even to their descendants.

In Convict Orphans, Lucy Frost reveals the heartbreaking stories of the colony's forgotten children, and those who succeeded against all odds.

Frost's painstaking research uncovered what really happened to the convict orphans, such as Agnes, who 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 12, 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.

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.


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