Lady Norrie Junior Red Cross Children's Home

The Lady Norrie Junior Red Cross Children’s Home opened at Grange in 1947 as a convalescent Home for children aged between 18 months and 7 years. Run by the Red Cross, it accommodated up to 30 children. The Home closed in 1959 when all of the Junior Red Cross Homes were brought together on one site at Glenelg and were then known simply as the Junior Red Cross Home.

In 1945 the South Australian Division of the Australian Red Cross took over a building on High Street at Grange known as Brig House. The building was obtained to be used as a convalescent Home for young children aged between 18 months and 7 years. However, during 1945-1946 the Red Cross first used the building as a holiday home for the children of returning Prisoners of War, allowing the men and their wives to holiday by themselves. At that time the home was described in a newspaper article:

Spacious dormitories and playrooms, and a large cultivated garden around the house, which stands in five acres of ground with the beach only a short distance away, make Brighouse an Ideal place for a holiday home for children

From 1947, the Home began to take in children recuperating from illness and country children being treated at the Adelaide Children’s Hospital. It was officially opened on 15 November 1947 and was named the Lady Norrie Junior Red Cross Children’s Home in honour of Lady Norrie, president of the SA Division of the Red Cross. The Home had the capacity to accommodate up to 30 children.

When the Home opened in 1947, newspaper reports noted that it was to be used for boys from the Adelaide Children’s Hospital ‘who need after hospital care’ as well as for children from country areas who were recuperating from illness.

In 1959 the Lady Norrie Junior Red Cross Home closed and the children and staff were moved to the new premises at Roberts Street, Glenelg where it combined with the former Lady Hore-Ruthven Junior Red Cross Home which moved from Henley Beach. At this site the Home became known simply as the Junior Red Cross Home. The names of Lady Norrie and Lady Hore-Ruthven were commemorated in the naming of the wards.