Lismore Receiving Home

Lismore Receiving Home, run by the government, opened in Lindisfarne in 1973. It provided temporary accommodation to children who were wards of state or supervised in other ways by the Social Welfare Department. Lismore closed in 1979.

Lismore Receiving Home opened in May 1973. It was in Lindisfarne, a suburb of Hobart. The Home was in a large, solid red brick house with a galvanised iron roof built in 1954. It had four bedrooms, a dining room, kitchen, laundry, sun room, bathroom with toilet, and a separate toilet and shower recess.

A married woman, known as a Receiving Home Keeper, managed Lismore with the assistance of her husband, who was in paid employment outside the Home. In return, they did not pay rent.

Lismore 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.

Lismore closed following an adverse Fire Department report. The Social Welfare Department briefly considered using it for other programs but, since they could not be started at the time, it leased Lismore to the City Mission who used it as a half way house. This apparently upset local home owners who, according to the Clarence Council Clerk, were ‘quite property-conscious’. In a letter to the Secretary of the Department, he said that: ‘it is considered that the present unkempt state of the property detracts from the amenity of the neighbourhood, constitutes a fire hazard, and presents a target for possible vandalism’. In 1982, the City Mission moved out and the Department put the property on the market but had to withdraw it because of lack of interest. Instead they leased it to the CSIRO for temporary accommodation. A tenant bought it in 1983.