The Department of Family and Community Services was the new name chosen by the New South Wales Government for the Department of Youth and Community Services in 1991. In 1991 the Department’s name was changed to the Department of Health and Human Services.
The Carpentarian Reformatory was established by the Department of Charitable Institutions at Brush Farm, a historic property in Eastwood, in 1894. It was located in an area sometimes referred to as Dundas Heights, so is often described as being in Dundas. In 1897, the management of the Reformatory was taken over by the State Children’s…
The Children’s Court of New South Wales was established in 1905, with the passing of the Neglected Children and Juvenile Offenders Act. Children’s Courts were proclaimed at Sydney, Newcastle, Parramatta, Burwood and Broken Hill. A Children’s Court is a hearing, intended to ensure children receive specialist support and they are sheltered from adult courts. While…
Kinchela Training Home, near Kempsey, was built in 1923 by the Aborigines’ Protection Board. It was intended to offer training in farm labouring to older boys who had been removed from their families under the Protection Board’s policies of apprenticing Aboriginal youths. Later it became a home for school-aged boys who had been removed from…
The Department of Public Instruction controlled reformatories, industrial schools and training vessels from 1881, until the responsibility for such institutions were transferred to the Child Welfare Department in 1923. The Public Instruction Department was created by the Public Instruction Act 1880. This Act removed government funding from religious schools and made it compulsory for all…
The Dreadnought Trust was one of the first organisations to be involved in child migration in New South Wales. It raised funds to bring British child and youth migrant boys to Australia. The first Dreadnought Boys arrived in 1911. The scheme ended around the time of the Great Depression, in 1930. The Dreadnought Trust was…
The University of Newcastle Archives was founded in February 1975 to safeguard the permanent value records of the University of Newcastle. The University Archives within the Auchmuty Library at the University of Newcastle holds some 2,000 shelf metres of priceless manuscript material dating from the year 1826. The collection includes the records of the Anglican…
Government Agricultural Farm, Scheyville, located at Pitt Town, was a training farm for youth from 1905, and, from 1911, a camp for British migrant boys and youth in the Dreadnought and Big Brother schemes. During World War II it was converted to a military training camp and after World War II became a Commonwealth migrant…
The Young Women’s Hostel was a Salvation Army Hostel for girls and young women that was opened in 1912 in Elizabeth Street, Sydney. It closed in 1924 and moved to Moore Park, where it held up to 130 girls. It operated until 1973 as a hostel for working girls.
The Big Brother Movement (BBM) was established in 1925 by Richard Linton, a Melbourne businessman, to sponsor youth migration from Britain to Australia. It was one of several non-government organisations involved in immigration to Australia in the 1920s. The Big Brother Movement was originally conceived as a form of sponsorship, by which each youth migrant,…