These women are twice convicted, and among them are no doubt some of the most depraved of their sex.
-- James Backhouse.
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 true, compelling 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 to 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 history have seldom been heard. One Free Woman reveals new information and celebrates a remarkable woman who, despite a lifetime of immeasurable suffering and loss, could somehow still summon the joy to dance until she dropped.
