Cumberland Hospital is a public psychiatric

Psychiatry

Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...

 hospital located in Westmead

Westmead, New South Wales

Westmead is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Westmead is located 26 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Parramatta and is part of the Greater Western Sydney region....

, in Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

's west. Along with Bungarribee House, Blacktown Hospital

Blacktown Hospital

Blacktown Hospital is an acute care hospital in Blacktown, New South Wales, Australia. Together with Mount Druitt Hospital and associated community health centres, it forms Blacktown-Mt Druitt Health, which is a unit within the Sydney West Area Health Service .Blacktown hospital has approximately...

 it serves the mental health

Mental health

Mental health describes either a level of cognitive or emotional well-being or an absence of a mental disorder. From perspectives of the discipline of positive psychology or holism mental health may include an individual's ability to enjoy life and procure a balance between life activities and...

 needs of Western Sydney

Western Sydney

Western Sydney is a major region of Sydney, Australia. It has a number of different definitions but one consistently used is the region composed of the 11 councils which until recently were all members of the Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils:* Auburn Council* Bankstown City Council*...

. As a public hospital it is part of Sydney West Area Health Service (SWAHS).

History

The site was formally the residence of female convicts. Female convicts were housed separately from the male population. In 1817 Governor Macquarie commissioned the building of more permanent structures. Female convicts housed on this site were made to work and the site became known as The Female Factory. The Factory housed unassigned, unmarried female convicts, and their children.

Although transportation of convicts to New South Wales ceased in 1840 the site was maintained as a place for female convicts until 1847.

In 1849 the buildings were redesignated a Lunatic Asylum. The site has remained as a mental health institution to the present day, only taking on its current name in 1983.