BSC Historical Criminology Network Speakers’ Series 2024/2025
4 December 2024, 11am. Matrons and Murderesses – Women Guarding Women in Gladstone Gaol – Dr Alice Neikirk.
Dr Neikirk is a Lecturer in Criminology in the School of Law and Social Justice at The University of Newcastle, New South Wales.
The women working in, and the inmates housed in prisons during colonial era in Australia led different lives but had many shared experiences. Drawing on the diaries of two prison matrons, newspaper articles, and the surgeon’s log this research reveals the everyday experiences in Gladstone Gaol (Australia) from 1882-1892. Birth, illness, life and death chronicled in these sources show the complex relationships and shared experiences that existed between the women who guard, and the women being guarded. Through the lens of motherhood these relationships underscore the shared and divergent lives of women in prisons.
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