Gay Hendriksen has worked in museums and galleries for the last 25 years in the roles of director, curator and educator. These have included Tongarra and St George Local History museums, Penrith Regional Gallery, Norman Lindsay Gallery and Museum and Parramatta Heritage Centre. She is currently running her own business – The Rowan Tree Heritage and Cultural Services business and is president of the Parramatta Female Factory Friends.
She has specialised in women’s history within Australian cultural heritage and has researched and developed 50 art, cultural and social history exhibitions, from Colonial times to the present. Three of these have been touring exhibitions covering 5 states. She has won national and state awards for the Women Transported touring exhibition and accompanying publications which presented the largely untold story of Australia’s convict female factories.
image: A watercolour titled, Female penitentiary or factory, Parramatta, by Augustus Earle, 1826.
Courtesy of the National Library of Australia.
Did you know an estimated 1 in 7 Australians are related to Convict Female Factory Women? They helped make the Australian nation and its identity.
Gay Hendriksen will share some of the history of the Convict Female Factory Phenomenon and the extraordinary lives of the ordinary women who experienced the factory system with a focus on the Parramatta Female Factory.
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SMSA (Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts)