The Shaftesbury Home for Babies and Mothers was established by the State Children’s Relief Board in the old Shaftesbury Reformatory buildings on Old South Head Road, in present-day Vaucluse, around 1913 or 1914. It was a replacement for the Thirlmere Home for Babies and was one of a number of homes for infants and unmarried mothers that were intended to combat infant neglect and mortality by promoting breastfeeding and maternal care. Like Thirlmere, it had its own dairy to supply milk. It was transferred to Brush Farm, becoming the Eastwood Home for Mothers and Babies, in February 1915.
The Shaftesbury site had previously been used as an institution for ‘inebriate women’, and prior to that, had housed the Shaftesbury Reformatory.
Following the closure of the Shaftesbury Home for Babies and Mothers, it became the Shaftesbury Inebriate Institution for Males, which closed around 1927.
From
c. 1913
To
1915
c. 1913 - 1915
Shaftesbury Home for Babies and Mothers was situated on Old South Head Road, Vaucluse., New South Wales (Building Demolished)
Previous
Subsequent
