Please contact General Enquiries, National Archives of Australia:
Postal Address: PO Box 4924, Kingston, ACT 2604
Phone: (02) 6212 3600
Email: archives@naa.gov.au
Website: https://www.naa.gov.au/help-your-research/ask-us-about-collection
Quote this number to access your records: National Archives of Australia Reference Number, A446, 1960/66767
These records are held by National Archives of Australia (1998 - current).
‘UK fact finding mission 1956 part 2’ is a file held by the National Archives of Australia. It contains correspondence and reports about the Ross Fact-Finding Mission, a British Home Office inspection of institutions in Western Australia where child migrants lived.
Open.
‘UK fact finding mission 1956 part 2’ also holds correspondence between the Australian and British governments about the Report of the fact-finding mission and the response by British child care professionals to the Ross Report, as it became known (see particularly pages 7-10, 14-16). The Australian government’s request to the British government not to publish the Report is documented on the file (pages 18-20) and there is a ‘comprehensive statement of the views of the Australian Child Migration Authorities’ about the Report (pages 104-107) that was sent by the Prime Minister’s Department in Canberra. The Child Welfare Department of WA’s response to the Reports on institutions in the State was made after an inspection by officers from the CWD, the Department for Lands and Surveys and the State Immigration authorities (see page 172 for example). The CWD’s initial overview of Homes is also included (pages 135-150).
This file also contains the Child Welfare Department’s (CWD) initial overview of the institutions where children who had been sent as unaccompanied migrants from Britain lived (pages 135-143, and 145-150). Relevant pages include: