Child and Youth Migration to New South Wales (1911 - 1983)

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Child migrants from the United Kingdom were school age children in care institutions. They were usually from eight to thirteen years of age on arrival in Australia, although some were younger. Youth migrants were usually young men aged 15-19 years of age who had left school and had made their own decision to migrate.

As historian Barry Coldrey has put it:

'Child and youth migrants to Australia, while numbered in their thousands, always formed a modest percentage of the overall migrant intake, but they were always treated - in the bureaucracy and by the media - as special. There was something heart-warming in the vision of desperately underprivileged British children leaving behind the cold northern slums of the Old World to seek a new and better life in the sun-drenched dominions, and there was something uplifting in watching the arrival of what was perceived to be the cream of Britain's youth leaving the security of hearth and home to further their prospects in a distant land and to guard and extend the empire by settling the imperial frontier. They were the bricks of empire.

Child migrants were apparently-abandoned, illegitimate, poverty-stricken youngsters of primary school age, usually in care in the United Kingdom before their despatch to Australia. After their arrival, such youngsters were placed in care for further training before placement in employment.

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Before World War II child migration schemes provided farm training for boys and domestic skills for girls. Post-World War II emphasis was placed on increasing Australia's population. Prior to 1946 child migration was administered largely by the State governments. The first youth migrants to New South Wales were the Dreadnought Boys, aged 16-19 years, brought out by the Dreadnought Trust in 1911 under an agreement with the New South Wales Government.

The main care agencies involved in child migration were Barnardos, Fairbridge, Catholic Church agencies and some Protestant Churches. The Big Brother Movement encouraged youth migration. Child and youth migration to New South Wales officially ceased in 1967. However, Indochinese child refugees were cared for during the 1970s and 1980s by organisations such as Burnside.