Our Boys' Home

Our Boys’ Home was established in 1890 in Camden by the Society for Providing Homes for Neglected Children. It was a farm training home for boys between nine and fourteen years old. Initially the home was intended to accommodate 12 boys, however from at least 1915 there were an average of 20 boys in residence. Our Boys’ Home closed in 1945.

Our Boys’ Home was founded by George Edward Ardill’s Society for Providing Homes for Neglected Children, after a gift from Mr WH Paling, of Paling’s Music Store in Sydney. It was intended as a farm training home, with the boys instructed in growing various fruits and vegetables at the home. They also attended the local state school. Like other institutions run by George Edward Ardill, such as the Home of Hope for Friendless and Fallen Women, ‘apprenticeships’ were arranged for the boys once they had left the home. Religious education also formed a large part of life in the home.

One of the aims of Our Boy’s Home was to provide a home for boys too old to attend Our Children’s Home, Liverpool (also run by the Society for Providing Homes for Neglected Children), which took boys between four and eight years old, and girls between four and fourteen years old. The first five boys in residence at Our Boys’ Home were placed there from the Liverpool home.

At its opening in 1890 the home was described as a two-storey brick building situated on a one acre property on Ferguson Road, about 20 minutes wakl from the centre of Camden, on the banks of the Nepean River. In 1925 a new recreation room was opened and additional land was acquired.

The Home closed in 1945 and the building was sold in 1946, later becoming known as Macquarie House.