Tufnell Home

Tufnell Home, in Nundah was operated by the Society of the Sacred Advent and the Corporation of the Synod of the Diocese of Brisbane. The Tufnell Home formally opened 6 February 1901. It accommodated boys and girls from various backgrounds. The first family group units were officially opened in 1969. Funding ceased in 1990 and the home closed in 1993.

The Tufnell Home opened on 6 February 1901. Children from the adjacent Home of the Good Shepherd, Nundah were transferred to Tufnell Home.

With funds donated by Mrs Tufnell (the widow of Edward Wyndham Tufnell, the first bishop of Brisbane), a Chapel of the Good Shepherd was erected at Tufnell Home. In 1927 a boys’ wing, laundry and recreation room were built. A new dining hall was erected next to the main house in 1932.

The foundation stone for the Tufnell Toddler’s Home, which was co-located on the site, was laid by the Archbishop of Brisbane on 23 June 1946.

In 1965 the Diocese of Brisbane began plans to surround the original home with new cottages and ancillary buildings then demolish the original house to form a central courtyard. This was accomplished and can be seen in the present layout of buildings.

Biala House was opened 25 June 1966 and Elonera and Carinya Houses opened in 1968. Attunga and Yallambee Houses were opened on 22 April 1972.

A publication from 1968 stated that Tufnell Home accommodated 23 boys from 5 to 8 years and 60 girls from 5 to 15 years (Social Services Queensland, 1968, p.96).

A former resident of Tufnell Home remembered the institution as “very strict”. In an oral history interview she told of being beaten with a cane by the Home’s head nun (Jean/Erin, Goodna Girls, p.28). Another woman whose story is shared in Goodna Girls spoke of the harsh treatment children received from the nuns at Tufnell:

The abuse I got from them bloody penguins if we didn’t do our chores properly—like have the floor shining so you could see your face in it: we got the cane.

And there were smaller children there—too small to do any scrubbing—but the nuns would belt them. I stood in front of the little ones to cop it so they wouldn’t get the cane for not doing their chores. Even though I was little myself, only four, I was bigger than the smaller ones—they were only two or three years old—and so I protected them. Once the nuns threw me in this bloody dark broom closet. It was pitch black. So I pushed one of the nuns and her glasses fell off. I laughed. She shut me in and said, ‘Nothing will come of your life! You’re the devil’s daughter!’ (Rose, Goodna Girls, p.77).

In 1988 the Tufnell Child Care Centre opened in the old Toddler’s Home. In 1993 the last children in care moved off the campus and Tufnell Children’s Home operations closed.

In 1996 Anglicare relocated their administrative offices from the Cathedral buildings in the city to the refurbished former dining hall and kitchen building at Tufnell.

Tufnell Home was mentioned in the Commonwealth Contribution to Former Forced Adoption Policies and Practices Inquiry (2012) as an institution that was involved in forced adoption.