The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #66536 Message #1818712
Posted By: Bob Bolton
25-Aug-06 - 10:05 AM
Thread Name: BS: Convict ancestry?
Subject: RE: BS: Convict ancestry?
G'day Kat and Sandra,
The song Sandra is thinking of is A Bunch of Damned Whores ... by Ted Egan - currently Administrator (~ = Governor) of The Northern Territory!
The song is based partly on the exploits of the Class 3 women at the Parramatta Female Factory ... and more specifically on the equivalent group of "intractable" women at the Cascades (Hobart, Tasmania) Female Factory (Prison / Workhouse Laundry). It's sung on various Ted Egan records by his lady Nerys (as the Welsh convict girl) - Margret RoadKnight - and various others - as English, Scottish and Irish women convicts.
The Judy Small song, which also appears on Ted Egan's Convicts CD, is Mary Parker's Lament - and that's also on Judy's 1982 A Natural Selection. I think this one is from Judy Small's family history ... but I don't have details in front of me ... and it just went midnight ...