Immigrants' Home

The Immigrants’ Home was the name that early colonists gave to ramshackle buildings on either side of St Kilda Road south of Princes Bridge (Swain). This was where the Immigrants’ Aid Society provided aid to new arrivals to the colony of Victoria, later expanding its activities beyond this. Over time, the Immigrants’ Home came to serve a similar function to an English workhouse, operating a night shelter, convalescent hospital and providing shelter for deserted wives, single mothers, the disabled and neglected and orphaned children.

Victoria had no legislation relating to the care of neglected children until 1864. Before this date, under the Criminal Law (Infants) Act 13 Vic., No.21 1849, children could be assigned by the Supreme Court to persons willing to undertake their ‘maintenance and education’. Through these means, the Immigrants’ Aid Society was responsible for hundreds of neglected children before the 1864 Neglected and Criminal Children Act came into being. In 1857, the Victorian government authorised the Immigrants’ Aid Society to accept children from the courts and maintain them at the Princes Bridge institution.

The Argus reported in May 1860 that the government had handed over buildings to the Immigrants’ Aid Society to be used as a reformatory for boys and girls. Formerly, these buildings were the barracks for soldiers of the 40th Regiment.  The new reformatory in the eastern portion of the barracks was intended to house 200 children. The newspaper further reported that a boys’ and girls’ school for neglected and orphaned children was already being run by the Immigrants’ Aid Society, with nearly 100 pupils (Argus, 20 May 1860). In September 1863, it was reported that the Immigrants’ Home was holding 400 children.

A newspaper article in 1864 described the Immigrants’ Home as an “extraordinary conglomeration of iron, wooden and brick sheds” (The Age, 20 July 1864).

In 1864, when the Neglected and Criminal Children’s Act came into being, 463 children were transferred from the care of the Superintendent of the Immigrants’ Aid Society to the newly-established Department for Neglected Children and Reformatory Schools. The two sections of the Immigrants’ Home already housing children were proclaimed as industrial schools, with separate accommodation for boys and girls. Harcourt was appointed as Superintendent. In the next four months, the Immigrants’ Home received 190 children from the courts. The site became known as Princes Bridge industrial school.

In 1870, the institution changed its name to the Immigrants’ Aid Society’s Home for Houseless and Destitute Persons.