They were a resilient and diligent bunch, the 179 female convicts who were herded aboard the HMS Rajah and set sail from the port of Woolwich for Van Diemen’s Land in April 1841. Alongside their meagre personal belongings, they carried nine metres of fabric, seven balls of cotton, sewing tape, black wool, 24 hanks of coloured embroidery thread, 100 needles, almost 10 metres of patchwork pieces, miscellaneous pins and scissors, and a thimble.
All this had been donated by the British Ladies’ Society for Promoting the Reformation of Female Prisoners, founded by English advocate and Quaker Elizabeth Fry. Three months later, when the women disembarked in what would become Tasmania, they carried
