Kanangra Receiving Home

Kanangra Receiving Home, run by the government, opened in Mount Stuart in 1958. It replaced the Hobart Receiving Home. The Home provided temporary accommodation for up to eight children who were wards of state or supervised in other ways by the Social Services Department and its successor, the Social Welfare Department. Kanangra closed in 1975.

Kanangra Receiving Home provided accommodation for new wards of the state or children on remand from the courts until the Department found a more permanent placement for them. The Home also took in children requiring temporary accommodation under the Domestic Service Assistance Act and in transit between homes. The Department tended to place young children and babies at Kanangra. However, by 1971, more teenagers lived there.

A married woman, known as a Receiving Home Keeper, managed Kanangra with the assistance of her husband, who was in paid employment outside the Home. In return, they received free accommodation. When Kanangra opened, the Receiving Home Keeper from the Receiving Home, Hobart moved there and remained until about 1965.

The Social Services Department purchased Kanangra to replace the Receiving Home, Hobart. It was a two storey brick building with a slate roof which was replaced with glazed burnt clay tiles in 1969. The front door had lead light windows. Inside it had wooden floors and one internal staircase. It appears to have been in poor condition because, in 1962, an inspector said that the house was ‘in very bad order’. It was also cold. According to a 1963 inspector’s report, the babies’ room was damp and cold because it did not get any sunlight. The boys’ room was not so damp but it was cold. The Department installed heaters in both rooms. There was a Summer House. To reach it, the children walked across a steep lawn.

When the Receiving Home closed in 1975, Kanangra Hostel opened in the same building.