Fairbridge Farm Schools of New South Wales was set up in 1937 to arrange the emigration of children from the United Kingdom and their care and schooling at the Fairbridge Farm School, Molong. Children were sent to New South Wales by the Fairbridge Society, London, but their care and schooling after they arrived in Australia was the responsibility of the Fairbridge Farm Schools. When Fairbridge Farm Schools closed in 1973 it was replaced by the Fairbridge Foundation.
Fairbridge Farm Schools was started by a group of 12 New South Wales Rhodes Scholars and four other citizens who wanted to bring the principles of Kingsley Fairbridge to New South Wales. They formed a committee in 1935 and by 1937 had begun a subscription list and purchased a property called Narragoon, near Molong. They appointed a farm manager in March 1937 and in December 1937 Fairbridge Farm Schools of New South Wales was incorporated as a company.
Fairbridge Farm Schools made a deal with the Fairbridge Society in London that the Society would supply them with children, in return for using the name Fairbridge. They accepted the London Fairbridge Society’s demand that it retain the right to hire and fire the principal of Fairbridge Farms and control the records of children at Molong.
The Fairbridge Society, London was involved in similar schemes in other places including the Farm School at Pinjarra in Western Australia and others in Canada and Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). The difference between the Molong Farm School and the other Fairbridge Farm Schools is that, while all the others were established and operated with monies largely from the United Kingdom, the Molong Farm School was established and operated with monies largely from Australian sources.
The Fairbridge Farm School, Molong closed in 1973.
The money from the sale of the farm was administered by the Fairbridge Foundation, which had replaced the original Fairbridge Society. It has the responsibility of distributing its revenues, as donations, to charitable institutions for underprivileged children in New South Wales and has responsibility for the custody of the personal files of the children who passed through the Fairbridge Farm School at Molong.
