One Free Woman

Description

These women are twice convicted, and among them are no doubt some of the most depraved of their sex. — James Backhouse.'A heartbreaking and compelling story of a spirited convict woman.'Hannah Rigby was a poor Liverpool seamstress, a prisoner and a serial thief. Exiled from her homeland, oppressed by poverty and rigid social mores, used and discarded by a series of men. An "exemplary" servant who was fond of a lark – and a single mother determined to keep her family together.One Free Woman tells the compelling true story of the only female convict to stay in Moreton Bay when the penal settlement closed – a woman who notoriously served three separate sentences of transportation, including two at one of the harshest establishments in the country.It is a heartbreaking and sensitively told story of a life that was typical of many women of the time struggling against poverty and gender inequality – women whose voices throughout...