Church of England Home for Girls

The Church of England Home for Girls, also known as Avona, was opened in 1904 at Glebe, on a site next to the Church Rescue Home (Strathmore). It had capacity for approximately 60 girls. Avona was opened to provide an alternative to housing young girls with older women at Strathmore, as the committee running the homes believed that the women would have a negative influence on the girls. Initially Avona took girls aged 3-16 years old, however from 1909 girls from the age of 14 were sent to the neighbouring Tress-Manning Home.

In 1907 the annual meeting of the Church of England Homes committee reported that 65 girls had been admitted to Avona over the previous 12 months. The committee stated that the Home took “destitute” children. Many of these children came from the Children’s Court, but the Home also “searched out” deserted wives in the metropolitan area in order to take their children into Avona (‘Church Rescue Home’, The Daily Telegraph, 19 September 1907).

Girls at Avona 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.

In 1917 a young boy called Wally was admitted to Avona, alongside his three sisters. He was the only boy to be admitted to the Home, and was transferred to the Church of England Boys Home when it opened in in 1918.

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 Avona, Strathmore, and Tress Manning to the new Girls’ Home. Avona closed in 1929, when the last of the girls were transferred to Carlingford.