Corinda Infants' Home

The Corinda Infants’ Home, at Corinda was run by a private management committee known as the Queensland Association for the Saving of Infant Life. The Corinda Infant’s Home was established in the home of Mrs W. Duncan who handed over her home, rent free, for four years. In 1919, the premises were handed back to Mrs Duncan and the Home’s management committee then rented premises at Coorparoo. A decision was made to call the new home Duncan’s Infant Home.

The Home was licensed in September 1915 to care for 12 babies, but this number had increased to 18 babies by September 1916, and to 40 babies by March 1918.

In 1918 the Corinda Infant’s Home came under scrutiny from the State Children’s Department regarding the conditions and health of the children at the home. In a report from 1918 (extracts of which were subsequently published in The Telegraph in 1923) it was stated that in April 1918 all 27 of the children at Corinda were transferred to the Children’s Hospital for treatment of gastroenteritis. The Health Department arranged for the home to be fumigated, and the following month 19 of the 27 children had been returned to the home, four were still receiving treatment at the hospital, and four had died.

A magisterial inquiry was held into the deaths of the children and the conditions of the home, which found that the home was overcrowded. Consequently, the number of babies Corinda was licensed for was reduced from 40 to 20. However, in December 1918, the home was temporarily closed again due to another outbreak of gastroenteritis. All 14 of the babies at the home were again removed, eight to state care and six to the Children’s Hospital. By the end of 1918 a total of nine babies from the Corinda Infant’s Home had died of gastroenteritis. This led to calls for the Corinda Infant’s Home to be discontinued. The home officially closed on 3 November 1919, however the management committee applied to register a new infants home, The Duncan Infant’s Home, the following year.