Arden Girls' Home

Arden Girls’ Home was opened by the Church of England Homes on 5th August 1919 at Forsyth Street, Glebe. It was both a girls home, as well as administrative headquarters for the Church of England’s management of its other Homes on the opposite side of Forsyth Street (Avona Girls’ Home, Tress-Manning Girls’ Training Home, Strathmore Women’s Home and later Strathmore Girls’ Home). The first girls at Arden were transferred there from the Church of England Children’s Home at Carlingford (Minden), enabling that home to be used as a Home for boys.

Girls at Arden did school work in the morning, in the afternoons were taught lace-work, clothes making and mending, chair-caning, wood carving, and singing, and were also expected to do all of the housework. The items that the girls produced, particularly the lace-work pieces, were sold to help finance the home. The sales brought in a significant amount of money, however the primary source of income for all of the Church of England Homes at Glebe came from the laundry work done by the women at Strathmore. Other fundraising efforts such as fetes, dances and concerts, annual subscriptions, and donation appeals provided the remainder of the funds for the Homes.

As Arden was also the administrative site for the Church of England Homes at Glebe, it was often used as the location for meetings, fetes, and fundraising sales for the Homes. In December 1924 a fete was held with the goal of raising £350 for the Homes. All 140 girls from Arden, Avona, Strathmore, and Tress-Manning attended, and sang songs to officially open the fete. Some of the revenue from the fete came from the sale of items made by the girls, including 500 lace handkerchiefs.

An article published in The Daily Telegraph in March 1926 reported on the visit of Lady Stonehaven to Arden and the other Homes at Glebe. The girls sang songs to welcome the visitor, demonstrated their lace-making skills, and presented her with a small posy of flowers tied with red and yellow ribbon, which were the colours of the Home.

In 1928 the Church of England Homes committee opened a new Girls’ Home at Carlingford. This new site allowed for an increase in the number of children admitted to the homes, as well as what was seen as a healthier environment in the country, compared to the city location of Glebe. From 1928 the girls were transferred from Arden, Avona, Strathmore, and Tress Manning to the new Girls’ Home. Arden closed in 1929, when the last of the girls were transferred to Carlingford.