Windsor Farm Home for Boys

Windsor Farm Home for Boys was set up by the Anglican Homes for Children Association in 1923. It was located at Freeman’s Reach and was a training farm for older boys from Milleewa and other children’s homes. It held 15 boys, who entered the home at 13 or 14 years of age and stayed until they reached 18. Boys attended school or worked while they lived at the farm. Windsor Farm Home for Boys closed in 1928.

One of the supporters of the Farm Home for Boys and Milleewa was Arthur Yates of Burwood, who founded Arthur Yates & Co Ltd, the garden supply company.

The Anglican Homes for Children Committee Annual Report stated in 1925:

These boys have mainly had no experience of country life, and in the ordinary course of events would be put to some casual employment in Sydney, which in many cases would mean high wages and very little home discipline while they were young, and often unemployment later on. It is the desire of the committee to watch over the interests of the boys after they leave school, and it was thought that if they were kept from one to three years on the farm, giving them a thorough training in ordinary farm work and some instruction in trades associated with agriculture, together with a good home, the boys would be benefited.

Boys could be apprenticed from Windsor from the age of 15, if that was what their guardian wished. They received wages at the level set by the State Children’s Relief Department for apprentices, and their wages were banked for them.

The location, on the Hawkesbury River, was considered healthful, but the productivity of the farm was limited by drought and, then, flood. By 1926 the Anglican Homes for Children Committee was thinking of selling it. The number of boys declined and in 1928 the farm was sold.