The Matron and the mattress
In 1834, the office of Matron at Newcastle Gaol was advertised as vacant. It was an important if onerous position. The work would be hard, monotonous, and often physically challenging.
Each morning the matron would pass down the wards, unbolt and open each cell door, checking on the prisoner and dealing with any issues that might have arisen overnight. Prisoners were supervised at all times. Where a ‘separate system’ operated, each woman would remain alone in her cell, working, without contact or conversation with other prisoners. Matrons would supervise the women prisoners attending chapel and taking exercise in the yard. At night, the matron (possibly a different matron for night-duty) would make sure that all prisoners were confined to their cells, then make slow rounds of the prison, passing each cell, alert for problems, whether sickness, distress, or breaches of discipline. A matron would also supervise any subordinate officers in the women’s wing. Hours were long: one mid-nineteenth century account referred to a matron working from 6am until 9 or 10pm, on three days a week, then on alternate days from 6am until 6pm, with the period between 6pm and 10pm being left to their own disposal, in or out of prison. Matrons were on duty seven days a week, with an occasional Sunday ‘out’, and paid holiday. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there tended to be a frequent turnover of prison matrons.
There is, unfortunately, relatively little research into the life and role of the matron of an early-nineteenth century gaol. It is difficult to establish details of the conditions in which they worked, for example, or the exact nature of their duties. However, it is possible to gain some ideas from publications such as Henry Mayhew and John Binny’s description of the matron at the Female Convict Prison in Brixton, in The Criminal Prisons of London and Scenes of London Life (1862), or biographical accounts written by some matrons or other accounts, such as Frederick William Robinson’s Female Life in Prison (1862), Memoirs of Jane Cameron: Female Convict (1863), and Prison Characters Drawn from Life with Suggestions for Prison Government (1866) published as ‘by a Prison Matron’, although most date from around the mid-nineteenth century.
Prison reformer Elizabeth Fry’s guidance on the role and character most desirable for a matron reveals some of the difficulties inherent in the role. Fry thought that the ideal matron should be a woman who knew their own station well, with sufficient basic education to be able to instruct the prisoners, able to ‘command their respect and obedience’, whilst also willing to submit to orders from above (Elizabeth Fry, Observations on the Visiting, Superintendence, and Government of Female Prisoners (1827), p.29). Most of those orders would come from men; matrons were subordinate not only the prison governor, but potentially also the deputy governor, chief warder, prison inspectors and medical officers, for example; matrons could also be subject to lady superintendents, usually upper-class women.
There were some positive aspects of the role, not least that matrons received a regular salary, offering women the rare chance of financial independence in a time when women were often financially dependent on husbands or fathers. Accommodation was also provided, sometimes large enough for a matron to bring her children, if she had any; she would be expected to sleep at the prison. Many who worked as matrons may have been compelled to find paid employment, whether because they were orphaned at an early age, were of a family which had experienced financial difficulties, or had widowed mothers or sick family members to support. Many were widowed, often with children to provide for. One such would become the new matron of Newcastle gaol, in response to the advertisement.
An application for the office of Matron at Newcastle Gaol in 1834 was received from a Catherine Armstrong, who lived around 300 miles away, in Gravesend, Kent, and presented ‘an excellent character’ (i.e. reference). Catherine Armstrong seems to have had a remarkable life. She was born in 1792, in New Brunswick, and lived in Nova Scotia, Canada. Her name before marriage was Goldsmith: she was the grand-niece of Oliver Goldsmith, the poet (and would be the great grandmother of Warwick Windridge Armstrong, the Australian Cricket Captain at the turn of the 20th century). In 1814 at St Andrews Presbyterian Church in Quebec, Catherine had married a sea captain, Captain William Askew Armstrong, from Wallsend, near Newcastle, in North East England. They had five children, who were all baptised in Gravesend, Kent. It is not clear how the family came to live in Gravesend, but it was most likely related to William’s career. Sadly, he died at sea in 1825, aged 34 or 35.
When Catherine Armstrong was appointed Matron at Newcastle Gaol in 1834, she was a widow with four surviving children, three sons and one daughter. With her to the Gaol came her youngest son (William, aged about 17 or 18) and her daughter (Mary, aged about 12 or 13). Catherine and her family had not been in Newcastle long before their story took a dark turn. Amongst other duties, the Additional Rules For the Gaol and House of Correction (1830) provided that Matrons had ‘charge of the Laundry, the Prison Linen Bedding and Clothes and [shall] give an account of them to the Keepers of their Prisons’. So, when on 2 or 6 March 1835 (the accounts vary) a ‘bed-tick’ went missing from the storeroom at Newcastle Gaol, attention focussed on Catherine Armstrong. A ‘bed-tick’ was in effect a mattress cover, comprising a simple sack (the ‘tick’) made of canvas or more likely a strong, closely-woven cotton, often striped, known as ticking. The tick cover would have been stuffed with straw, feathers or wool.
Catherine Armstrong faced trial in Newcastle at the Easter Sessions on 8 April 1835. On the same day, Catherine’s son William also faced trial, charged with having stolen several tools belonging to his master, a cabinetmaker. William was acquitted by the jury, but Catherine’s outcome was not so good. It was proved in court that the ‘bed-tick’, was ‘pawned by her daughter’, Mary Goldsmith Armstrong, and that several other pawnbrokers' duplicates had been found in a drawer in Catherine Armstrong's room. The Recorder, in passing sentence, observed that Catherine had violated the trust placed in her, and that her case was further aggravated by having employing her own daughter to dispose of the stolen property. The Newcastle Courant (11 April 1835) noted that the Recorder, ‘said the court had reason to know this was not the first time she had been engaged in such transactions’, and the Court was of opinion that she had better be separated from that daughter. (This is interesting, as there is no evidence of other criminal convictions against Catherine.)
The sentence of the Court was that Catherine was to be transported for seven years for Larceny. According to the Newcastle Journal (Saturday 11 April 1835),
‘a scene then took place which baffles description. The daughter shrieked and clung to the prisoner, who fell down at the bar, and the son, who had just been acquitted upon a charge of felony, fainted.’
Catherine Armstrong was part of a significant increase in the number of women transported in the 1830s-40s. She was also not unusual in being sentenced to seven years’ transportation: about half of all convicts (male and female) were transported for that period.
Catherine Armstrong was transported on 11th June 1835 on the convict ship Hector, departing from Woolwich, arriving in Van Dieman’s Land (Tasmania) on 20 October 1835. 134 female convicts were aboard the Hector (a ship built in Newcastle). Records kept by Ship’s Surgeon Morgan Price reveal that on the journey an ‘Elizabeth Armstrong’, aged 42, was treated for dyspepsia from 25 July - 4 August 1835, when she was noted as cured. As this is the only Armstrong recorded as being on the Hector, it is reasonable to assume that it was in fact Catherine who suffered and was treated for this illness. The wonderfully-well preserved records of women transported to Van Dieman’s Land offer a physical description of Catherine Armstrong, aged 44 and described as a widow with 4 children:
Height: 5 feet and ¾ of an inch, without shoes
Hair: Light brown
Eyes: Dark hazel
Complexion: Sallow
Nose: Wide
And a Remark that she had lost several front teeth from her upper jaw.
On arrival in Van Dieman’s Land, her trade was given as ‘laundress and needlewoman’. The Female Convicts Research Centre notes that she was imprisoned at the Cascades ‘female factory’: housing up to 1,000 women, it was Van Diemen’s Land’s largest institution for the punishment and reform of convict women. Built in 1828, it was sited – intentionally – in an isolated location on the outskirts of Hobart, to put some distance between the town and the female convicts. It was designed to be almost totally self-sufficient. Living conditions were appalling – damp, unhygienic and overcrowded - and the diet was limited and inadequate. Inmates suffered a high death rate. There was little for them to do; a ‘class system’, determined by reference to offence, behaviour and character, regulated diet, clothing and daily tasks of the women while in the factory.
The female factory from Proctor's Quarry; detail showing the Cascades Female Factory in Hobart, Van Dieman's Land (now Tasmania), hand-coloured lithograph; sheet 38 x 56 cm. John Skinner Prout (1844). Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Although the ‘Female Factories’ were established primarily as places of punishment for women charged with further offences, women were also placed in the factories before they were sent out to work, or ‘assigned’, most usually as domestic servants in private service; settlers gave the women room, board and clothes, but they were not paid. Only women placed in the ‘first class’ were considered assignable; these included women recently arrived from England who the surgeon on the convict ship reported as having behaved well on the journey. Records show that Catherine worked in the Police Office in New Norfolk, near Hobart, perhaps as a domestic servant. If a female convict misbehaved while under assignment or service, she would be sent back to a female factory for punishment; there is no record of this having happened to Catherine. In fact, her records reveal no absconding or other punishments.
If well-behaved, as Catherine seems to have been, convicts were not usually required to serve out their full term and could apply for a ticket of leave. Generally, women transported for seven years received a ticket-of-leave after four years. Catherine obtained her Ticket of Leave on 23 August 1838. The ticket allowed prisoners to integrate into society, for example, to earn money for themselves, but came with some restrictions; for example, the ticket had to be carried at all times; convicts failing to produce it when required would be returned to government service. Tickets of leave were renewed annually and, as they were considered an ‘indulgence’, could be revoked as a punishment for any breaches of the convict laws, including absconding, being absent from muster or, for women, being pregnant. There is no record of Catherine receiving any punishments; in fact, the records indicate that she was well-behaved as she was granted a further ‘indulgence’ in 1837.
In 1837, Catherine received permission to marry a Thomas Hayes, a bachelor and fellow convict who had been transported on the convict ship Atlas. Convicts (including those holding a ticket of leave) needed official permission to marry. Marriage was often encouraged by the authorities as a way to settle down both female and male convicts, with permission seen as an ‘indulgence’ or reward for good behaviour. As applications to marry would not be considered unless the female convict had, ‘conducted herself properly in service for the period of at least one year, without any fault being recorded against her’, this permission is evidence of Catherine’s good behaviour. The marriage took place in Hobart on 28 August 1837.
The ultimate goal of a transported convict was usually to obtain their Certificate of Freedom: proof that she or he was a free person. Certificates of freedom were issued at the end of a sentence or granted on the basis of good behaviour under a ticket-of-leave. The Tasmania Convict Musters reveal that Catherine Armstrong was ‘free by servitude’, meaning that she had served out her sentence, and won her Certificate of Freedom on 11 April 1842. The certificate meant that the convict was free and could travel as they wished, whether choosing to remain in Australia as a settler or return to their home country. Records show that Catherine chose to remain in Australia, and she died in Hobart in 1871, aged 79, of ‘natural decay’ (in effect, old age), at the home of her son-in-law, Mr C. A. Galt, the husband of Catherine’s daughter Mary, who had featured so heavily at the trial in 1835. Indeed, it is striking that all of Catherine’s four surviving children are recorded as having followed their mother and settled in Australia, further evidence of the strength of the bond between Catherine and her children, and of an extraordinary life.
Many records are accessible to help trace the life stories of women like Catherine. An excellent place to start is The Female Convicts Research Centre, a not-for-profit, volunteer-run organisation, based in Australia
(https://www.femaleconvicts.org.au/about-us/about-us) and, for information on the Cascades ‘female factory’ (https://femalefactory.org.au/).
Dr Clare Sandford-Couch
Leeds Beckett University
