The Lunacy Department was the government organisation established as a result of the Lunacy Act 1903. The department was responsible for the administration of the Act and for mental health hospitals and services. During these years it was common to place children with intellectual and other disabilities in mental health institutions. The Department ran four…
A Select Committee to Inquire into the Adoption of Children Amendment Bill 1983 was appointed from the Legislative Assembly of the Western Australian Parliament on 7 December 1983. The Select Committee tabled its report on 11 October 1984 and its recommendations were debated in 1985. Many of those recommendations were incorporated in the Adoption of…
‘War Cry’ is a file held by the National Archives of Australia’s Perth office. The file was created by the Postmaster-General’s Department. In the file are three issues of the Salvation Army’s War Cry magazine, dated 30 May, 6 June and 13 June 1942. These are samples of the magazine, submitted so that they could…
‘John Moss C.B.E. U.K. Child Welfare Expert. Visit to Australia. Part II’ is a file held online by the National Archives of Australia. The file has drafts of reports made by Mr John Moss CBE a ‘UK Child Expert’ who worked for the Home Office in Britain. Moss visited Australia and New Zealand and examined…
Gerald Mission was established in 1851 when the government granted the Wesleyan Reverend John Smithies land to relocate the Wanneroo Native School to more arable land in York. Aboriginal adults and children from Wanneroo relocated there. In 1854 the government took over the administration, and in 1855 Gerald Mission closed. The Wanneroo Native School had…
The Anglican Church of Australia (Swanleigh land and endowments) Act 1979 (101 of 1979) enabled the Perth Diocesan Trustees to utlise the land and related endownments that had begun with the Protestant Orphanage for ‘use within the State for general child and family care purposes’.
Hillston Point Walter Annexe operated from around 1958. It was located at the Point Walter Migration Reception Centre. The Annexe was intended to provide a place where ‘trusted boys were sent for a trial period prior to their return to civil life’. The Hillston Point Walter Annexe closed around 1984.
Wanneroo Native School, also known as Galililup Mission Farm (with various spellings) was established in 1844 by the Wesleyan (Methodist) Rev. John Smithies as a farm school to educate and train Aboriginal children aged 6-19 years, some of whom had come from the Native School in Perth when it closed. Wanneroo Native School relocated to…
A Native Institution was established by the colonial government in 1834. Its purpose was to teach English to local Aboriginal people and instruct them in living in a settled colony. The Superintendent was Francis Armstrong, who was the ‘native interpreter’ for the colony. The institution closed in 1838 and a steam mill was built in…
Wesleyan Methodists arrived in Western Australia in 1829 and were involved in out of home care from the early days of colonial settlement. In 1900 an independent Methodist Conference was established in Western Australia. In 1915 the ‘Central Methodist Mission’ was established to manage metropolitan charity work on behalf of the Methodist Conference. In 1977,…
Dec 18, 2024
Nov 15, 2024
