The Ballarat Industrial School was a state-run institution, which opened in August 1869. The institution housed 215 girls in 1872. In 1879, the Industrial School closed, and became a reformatory for boys.
The Ballarat Industrial School was the only institution in Victoria mentioned in the 1872 report by the Royal Commission on Penal and Prison Discipline about Victoria’s Industrial and Reformatory Schools as having had a ‘satisfactory realization of the objects for which industrial schools should be founded’. Despite this, the Commission called for the industrial school system to be abandoned, in favour of the boarding out system.
The Ballarat Industrial School housed 215 girls in 1872, according to the report of the Royal Commission report.
In 1879, the Industrial School closed, and became a reformatory for boys. This reformatory closed in 1893 and the building then housed a ‘lunatic asylum’.
On the closure of the reformatory, the majority of the boys were accommodated at Mr Wiseman’s Farm at Lilydale, the Salvation Army Home at Heidelberg and Mr Groom’s Excelsior Homes at Brighton.
From
1869
To
c. 1879
1869 - c. 1879
The Ballarat Industrial School was located in Lake Gardens, Ballarat, Victoria (Building Demolished)
