Collie Boys' Home

Collie Boys’ Home

The Collie Boys’ Home was established by the Salvation Army in 1902 for boys aged from 4 years, outside Collie on land previously settled by the Pollard family,. It was one of three institutions set on 8,093 hectares of land held by the Salvation Army, the other being the Salvation Army Industrial School for Boys, Collie and the Salvation Army Industrial School for Girls, Collie. 

The exact starting date of the Collie Boys’ Home is unclear. The Industrial School for Boys commenced in September 1901, and boys of all ages may have been settled together there. There is no mention of there being two boys’ Homes at Collie in a June 1902 article by the Superintendent written for the Salvation Army magazine, The Victory, so it is likely that the Home opened in the latter half of that year. Government reports suggest that Collie may have closed for a period during 1903, but it had re-opened by 1904. Salvation Army documents report on a home for ‘small boys’ operating in Collie in 1903. Later reports show that older boys were also admitted, and it is likely that most of the boys admitted privately through relatives were housed at the Collie Boys’ Home rather than the Industrial School.

The Bunbury Herald (‘Sketches in the District’) reported in 1903 that 27 boys aged 6 to 15 years lived there. The ‘Report by the Superintendent of Public Charities and Inspector of Industrial and Reformatory Schools, 1904′ notes that the Collie Boys’ Home had re-opened during 1904 on the site at Pollard’s Home, three miles from the Salvation Army Industrial School for Senior Boys.

When established these institutions received wide, and positive, publicity, however in 1908, the Sunday Times reported that children suffered overwork, unduly harsh punishment and poor food and living conditions in the Homes, labelling them ‘coffinages’.

The Salvation Army’s ‘Punishment Book’  provided instruction on discipline, which was to be ‘mild and firm’. Corporal punishment was to be used as a ‘last resort’, but could be ‘inflicted in the presence of a witness’ for ‘absconding, offences against morality, for gross impertinence, or for wilful and persistent disobedience’ and not for ‘trivial breaches of discipline’. All cases of corporal punishment, including the date, ‘detail of the offence, number of strokes administered, and the name of the witness’ were to be recorded immediately after punishment. The instructions also gave guidance for ‘light punishments’ which included taking away a child’s privileges and confining them to a room ‘but not in darkness’, and reducing the food allowed to ‘eight ounces of bread and water’ instead of the normal meal, but not for ‘two meals in succession’. The punishments were intended to comply with the Regulations of the State Children Act 1907.

In 1913, there were around 60 boys aged from 4 to 15 years in the Home.

In a 2003 memoir, former Governor-General Sir Paul Hasluck recalled boyhood memories as a child of the manager of the Collie Boys’ Home from 1913 to 1917: the No. 1 Home (the reformatory) and No. 2 Home (Collie Boys’ Home) were ‘almost wholly self-contained’, with separate schools, stores, bakeries, boot-makers’ shops, smithies and dairies. There were few visitors to the Homes, or trips into the township of Collie. Meat, cereals, fruit and vegetables were produced and the surplus sold. The workforce included ‘a dozen Salvation Army officers, two school teachers, two in the office and seven or eight’ others including ‘boundary rider, carters, farm hands, etc’ who relied on horses.

Boys would have been an essential part of the labour force at the Home, as Hasluck recalled there were ‘about twenty milking cows and perhaps two thousand sheep…some cropping, mostly wheat and oats for chaff, and a good orchard and vegetable garden [and] the homes also did some carting of sleepers for the sleeper-cutters who were hewing on Crown Land’. There was also a run of chickens.

As the Home was situated out in the bush, it was not a ‘secure’ institution – there were no fences to keep boys inside the perimeter. A report in the Salvation Army’s newspaper, The War Cry (20 July 1918, p.5) mentioned that one of the punishments boys received was being ‘sentenced to a period within bounds‘.

Some of the residents reported they were used as child labour, and not provided enough food. In 1981, a former resident who had been sent there in 1912 recalled ‘deplorable conditions’ at Collie, including ‘him and another young lad being made to use nothing but a spade and a wheelbarrow to make a road to the home. Their only form of sustenance was a mere glass of water.’ (West Australian June, 1981).

A letter of appreciation of the The Daily News Orphans’ Christmas Cheer Fund in 1915 showed that donations allowed the children occasional treats:

[The money was spent on] Cordials, £3 15s.; sweets, £1 7s.; peanuts £1 1s.; almonds, 8s. 6d.; hams £2 11s. 9d.; cakes, £3 10s.; prizes £1 10s.; cricketing set, £1 10s. The balance of £1 11s. 9d. Will be utilised for a picnic for the boys on the 30th [of January]. Letter, 22 January 1916 published in The Daily News 2 December 1916, p.10

In 1918, 36 boys were transferred from the Collie Boys’ Home to the Salvation Army Boys’ Home, Nedlands.

In 1920, the institution closed and the remaining boys were sent to the Salvation Army’s reformatory, Seaforth, in the Perth suburb of Gosnells. The site was later used for the Coolangatta Farm and then the Collie Power Station.