caught the colony's Chief Constable climbing over the walls by means of an "ingenious ladder", which prompted him to reduce the numbers of women in Brisbane Town to 14 of the oldest. There are conflicting reports about when the first female convicts started working at the farm and factory. The Queensland Heritage Register says by 1830, the Australian Heritage Database says by 1834. Prangley notes there is mention of three dairywomen in the work list for 1828, but these may have been associated with the principal colony farm at New Farm. All sources agree by 1836 there were 40 women, when conditions of the farm and factory were documented by the Quaker missionaries James Backhouse and George Walker. Women worked in the fields and in the prison, doing needlework, laundry, unpicking ropes and even in road construction. Several timber slab buildings included the farm superintendent's house, a two-room building for male prisoners who did heavy work, the Matron's Quarters, a female factory with four rooms and sundry separate buildings including a one-room store, a one-room school and a one room hospital. The cook house had two rooms, one being a needle room where prisoners worked at sewing. The actual prison where women were locked up at night was a building containing six cells with a tall stockade or pallisade type fence, the outer wall high poles, the tops of which were sharpened. Stationing female felons at Eagle Farm was an attempt to reduce fraternisation between the women and male convicts and the military, with the latter being forbidden to cross the bridge at Breakfast Creek. Despite these precautions, assignations were frequent, occurring in the long grass around the farm. In the first years of the penal settlement there was a substantial population of local Aborigines in the area, their numbers depending on the season. In April 1836 Dr Robertson, the penal surgeon, wrote of the long road between Brisbane and Eagle Farm passing through "the fishing ground of a tribe of aboriginal natives; at seasons of the year they are very dangerous and troublesome." This was at odds with the observations of Commandant Cotton the following year who wrote "the tribes which occupy the lands immediately adjacent to Brisbane Town, after an acquaintance of several years, come amongst us in confidence, a good understanding prevails between them and us… These tribes were formerly extremely hostile…". By August 1836 the number