Industrial School for Boys, Riverview

The Industrial School for Boys, in Riverview, was run by the Salvation Army. Boys sentenced to confinement by Children’s Courts were sent to Riverview for training in general farm work. It opened 1 October 1898 and in 1926 it became a training farm for British male youth migrants.

The Industrial School for Boys, Riverview was established in 1898 under the lndustrial and Reformatory Schools Act 1865. It was licensed under the State Children Act 1911.

The Staff Captain of the Industrial School, in a letter to the Home Secretary 26 September 1910, provides insight into the running of the facility. He wrote:

This school was established on the 1st of October 1898, the boys being sent to us by the Government, and up to the present 101 boys have passed through the Institution, of whom 75 were returned to their parents, 19 placed in suitable situations, and 7 still in the Home.

While under our care the boys are instructed as possible in general farm work, each boy is also taught to milk, and dairying work in general, we keep about 70 head of dairying stock, generally milking between 40 & 50 cows.

A School is kept under Government inspection and the boys put in full time at same, and the inspectors report from year to year is very satisfactory.

We also go in for pig raising, poultry keeping, and in addition each boy has a piece of ground allotted to him, for gardening purposed, he does his own gardening, and the proceeds are placed to his credit, he can spend this now or it will be kept for him until his time expires, when the amount is given to him, by this means alone, two brothers on leaving the Home had 4-10-0 between them, besides moneys they had spent from time to time while in the Home, by this means we find the boys get very interested and encouraged, and they make the most of their chances.

We correspond with discharged boys, and very many of them return to spend the week end with us at the Home, we having as many as four old boys there for the one week end. We have quite a number of old boys that are today in good situations, and several of these have written back wanting to get boys from the Home for themselves.

For some time now we have not received any boys from the Government, until our numbers have got to be very small, but we have had an interview with Mr Appel (Home Sect.,) and he has promised that all boys committed between now and the 1st Jan 1911 shall be sent to the Salvation Army Industrial School at Riverview and also that he will transfer some six or seven boys from Westbrook to Riverview. Since that promise we have received two committed boys to Riverview.

I remain your obedient Servant.
T F Smith
P.S. Mr Macdonald of Brisbane is visiting Justice to this School.