St Catherine's Children's Home (1960 - 1975)

St Catherine's Party Night, courtesy of MacKillop Family Services.
Details

From

1960

To

1975

Categories

Catholic, Children's Home and Home

Alternative Names

St Catherine's Children's Home was the new name given in 1960 to St Catherine's Orphanage. It operated at Highton until its closure in 1975, when the Sisters of Mercy established the Mercy Family Care Centre.

From the 1960s, like many other institutions in Victoria, St Catherine's Children's Home was changing its approach to accommodating children, moving away from institutional, congregate care, towards 'cottage homes' and family group homes.

Sister Aiden Mulcair took charge of St Catherine's in the mid 1960s. At the time, changes were planned at the institution to make the accommodation more 'home-like'. The building was to be divided into eight self-contained flat, each accommodating 10 children.

In 1972, Sister Agatha Rogers took over management of St Catherine's, and further changes ensued. In August of that year, Sister Agatha announced that the St Catherine's property was up for sale. Her vision was for a series of family group homes in the Geelong area as well as a new foster care program.

In 1975, the new Mercy Family Care Centre was established in North Geelong.

Location

1960 - 1975: Location - St Catherine's Children's Home was located at St Catherine's Street, Highton (Geelong). Location: Geelong

Timeline

c. 1862 - 1912 Our Lady's Orphanage
       1912 - 1960 St Catherine's Orphanage
             1960 - 1975 St Catherine's Children's Home
                   c. 1975 - 1997 Mercy Family Care Centre
                         1997 - MacKillop Family Services

Run By

Sisters of Mercy, Melbourne (1857 - 2011)
Date: 1960 - 1975

Related Archival Collections

MacKillop Family Services Records (1857 - )
Records of Teresa Wardell (1866 - 1984)
The Records of Teresa Wardell contain a report and correspondence about the St Catherine's Children's Home, 1970-1973.

Related Archival Series

Related Organisations

Geelong Foster Care (1974 - 1997)

Publications

Books

Barnard, Jill; Twigg, Karen, Holding on to Hope: a history of the founding agencies of MacKillop Family Services 1854-1997, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2004. Details
Murray, Suellen, John Murphy, Elizabeth Branigan, Jenny Malone, After the orphanage: life beyond the children's home, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2009. Details
O'Sullivan, Mary Ignatius Sister, The wheel of time: a brief survey of the ninety-six years' work of the Sisters of Mercy in Victoria, 1857-1953, Advocate Press, Melbourne, 1954. Details

Journal Articles

'Sister Agatha - This is Your Life', Our Children, Quarterly Journal of the Children's Welfare Association of Victoria, vol. 1, no. 1, May 1980. Details
Rogers, Agatha, 'Within These Walls', Hops Steps and Jumps, Quarterly News from the Children's Welfare Association of Victoria, vol. 1, no. 2, June 1975. Details
Rogers, Agatha, 'The tracing problem: an aspect of outcome studies in child welfare. - Tracing former residents of the St Vincent de Paul's Children's Homes at Black Rock and South Melbourne, Victoria', Children Australia, vol. 17, no. 1, 1992, pp. 16-19. Details

Newspaper Articles

'State wards call for help over abuse', The Age, 16 April 1997, p. A1, A4. Details

Online Resources

'St Catherine's Orphanage', in Finding Records, Department of Health and Human Services, State of Victoria, https://www.findingrecords.dhhs.vic.gov.au/collectionresultspage/StCatherinesOrphanage. See the 'List of records held by the department' section for information about records relating to St Catherine's Children's Home. Details
St Catherine's Orphanage: Inspection by Mr Hogan, 28 April 1928, 25 pp, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3928257. Details
'Sacred Heart College, Geelong Victoria', Mercy Education Limited, 2012, https://www.mercy.edu.au/schools/sacred-heart-college. Details
'Heritage Display', in MacKillop Family Services website, MacKillop Family Services, 2013, https://www.mackillop.org.au/about-mackillop/our-history/heritage-display. Details
Broken Rites Australia: Fighting Church Sexual Abuse Since 1993, 'Priest was removed from working in a girls'orphanage after complaints about abuse', [2011], http://www.brokenrites.org.au/archives/nletter/page133-st-catherines.html. Details
Geelong and District Orphanages, Care Leavers Australia Network, https://clan.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Geelong-Brochurev9_1-pdf-1024x724-1.jpg. Details
Sheedy, Leonie, ''"Unfinished business": reflections on my experiences of being raised as a state ward of Victoria', Ms Leonie Sheedy (submission no 33)', in Inquiry into Institutional Care: Submissions received as at 17/03/05, Commonwealth of Australia, http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Community_Affairs/Completed_inquiries/2004-07/inst_care/submissions/sublist. Details

Photos

Title: St Catherine's Party Night
Type: Image
Source: MacKillop Family Services

Details

Title: St Catherine's Geelong
Type: Image
Source: MacKillop Family Services

Details

Sources used to compile this entry: Barnard, Jill; Twigg, Karen, Holding on to Hope: a history of the founding agencies of MacKillop Family Services 1854-1997, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2004; Murray, Suellen, John Murphy, Elizabeth Branigan, Jenny Malone, After the orphanage: life beyond the children's home, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2009; 'St Catherine's Orphanage', in Finding Records, Department of Health and Human Services, State of Victoria, https://www.findingrecords.dhhs.vic.gov.au/collectionresultspage/StCatherinesOrphanage. See the 'List of records held by the department' section for information about records relating to St Catherine's Children's Home..

Prepared by: Cate O'Neill

Created: 10 August 2009, Last modified: 27 July 2015

St Catherine's Children's Home (1960 - 1975)