Lord Stanley devoted commendable and humane attention to the management of female prisoners. They were comprehended in his scheme of probation. He resolved to establish a penitentiary, on a large scale, within twenty miles of Hobart Town. The women were to be carefully classified and separated, and trained for the duties of domestic life. The discipline intended rather to restore than to punish: those remitted in disgrace to the government, were not to re-enter this place of reform. Instructions were forwarded to prepare the ground and collect the material (1843); but the local officers were averse to the plan. They complained that the contemplated site was remote and inconvenient, and they succeeded in postponing and finally defeating the project.

Mrs. Bowden, a lady of majestic presence and enlightened mind, who had acquired considerable experience in the management of the insane, was appointed matron. Her fertility of resource, courage, and zeal, had been greatly admired at Hanwell, where many hundreds of the unfortunate were relieved from the greatest of human calamities. The reputation of this lady recommended her to the confidence of government: with her husband, Dr. Bowden, the medical officer, and a chosen staff of assistants several only inferior to herself she arrived in this colony with high expectations of success. As a temporary expedient, the Anson, a ship of war, was appropriated to the project. The decorum of the ship, and the healthy and cleanly appearance of the women, were striking to a stranger; but the early lack of employment ruined the enterprise. The government, with its usual negligence, failed in details, and thus failed altogether. Towards the close of the experiment, the making of clothing for the prisoners was more successfully attempted; but the local authorities were always hostile to the institution. It was protected by Lord Stanley and Mr. Gladstone, but Earl Grey consented to its extinction. The results were certainly not encouraging. The women, discharged from the ship ignorant of the colony, were at once thrown into every temptation of convict associations. They had been instructed in the principles of religion, reading and needlework, and the fruit of these labors will hereafter perhaps, appear; but whoever expects much from mere dogmatic knowledge, will be doomed to disappointment. On the death of her husband Mrs. Bowden returned to England, convinced that moral insanity is far more hopeless than the diseases of Hanwell. This lady and her friends and coadjutors, the Misses Holdich, found the women generally submissive and docile: they were haunted with all kinds of terrors, and had less than the ordinary courage of women. Mere children in understanding; some, such only in years; but their actual reformation, for the most part, only remained an object of confident expectation, while their true tendencies were repressed. The lady officers, who expected to reap a harvest in this field of mercy, began by blaming the colonists for scepticism, and after 3,000 women had passed through their hands, they, alas! ended in becoming sceptical.

A great number of these prisoners are married. During the probation system, the local government of the colony became far less scrupulous in reference to their character, previous engagements, and means of living. As a choice of evils this course was the least; but many of these marriages were a disguise for licentiousness, and of a very temporary character. The freed man united to a convict woman could not be detained in the colony; indeed, he was often compelled to leave it, and his wife was not permitted to accompany him. From this cause alone, infinite vice and misery has arisen; and a total disregard of ties so modified by a police regulation; which, while encouraging women to marry, subjects them to lasting desertion.

Before the introduction of Lord Stanley’s probation system, several pious ladies established a committee of visitation. They entered the factories and cells, and conversed with the female prisoners. Official teachers superseded these efforts of private benevolence; and lessons, however excellent in themselves, lost the attraction of spontaneous sympathy and disinterested toil.

It is with deep regret these observations are recorded. It is not intended to assume that the reform of female prisoners is impossible. A considerable minority are probably not inferior to the lower classes of poor and uneducated women in the cities, or more uncivilised provinces. Re-convictions are not numerous; though, of course, many are deeply implicated with colonial crime. The law which consigns all to one penal fate, devotes all to one common ruin. Were it possible to escape the contamination of a gaol, what could be hoped, where the male population is contributed chiefly by prisons? What can be done to obviate these evils? Such is the enquiry of the philanthropist: would to God it could be successfully answered.’