Early years in the second factory in all classes the women could keep their children until they were three years old or weened, at which time they were forcibly removed ‘from the corrupting influence of the mothers’ and sent to orphanages.
At Parramatta, the girls went to the Female Orphan School and the boys to Cabramatta. Some women never saw their children again.
If the women were sent on assignment from the factory they may not be able to take their children with them. It was at the discretion of the master.
As transportation increased in the 1830s and 1840s children stayed longer with their mothers in the factory, sometimes up to the age of nine. By 1842 nearly 200 children were recorded at the factory.
Parramatta Female Factory 