Caretakers Cottage was established by the Paddington Woollahra Youth Service (PWYS) in 1977. It was first located in a cottage on Gordon Street, Paddington provided by the Uniting Church, and later moved into the Manse on Regent Street. In 1990, the refuge – still called Caretakers Cottage – moved to Albion St, Surry Hills. In…
Milne Legacy House, in Strathfield, was run by Sydney Legacy. It was described by the Senate in 2005 as a “transition home for children including total orphans or children permanently or temporarily separated from their mothers”. It was designed for children ‘destined for institutions’ or ‘on discharge from them’ to be accommodated under Legacy’s care….
Bethany Guest Home for Children of Sick and Expectant Mothers was located in Strathfield. It was established by the Legion of Catholic Women (an organisation known in 2021 as the Catholic Women’s League) in 1946. In 1948, the League applied to the Sisters of Mercy at Grafton to administer the Home for them. The Sisters…
Training Homes (also known as Training Schools) were institutions where children and young people could learn habits of hard work and respectability, as well as skills suited to the workforce. In the early twentieth century, the work skills usually involved domestic service for girls and farm labour for boys. Later on the occupations considered suitable…
Case Study 19: Bethcar Children’s Home was a public hearing of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, held in Sydney from October to December 2014. It inquired into the experiences of former child residents at Bethcar Children’s Home, Brewarrina, New South Wales. During the hearings evidence was heard from former residents…
Case Study 3: North Coast Children’s Home was a public hearing of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, held in Sydney from November 2013 to January 2014. It inquired into the experiences of former child residents at the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore, New South Wales. During the hearings evidence…
Case Study 5: The Salvation Army boys’ Homes, Australian Eastern Territory was a public hearing of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, held in Sydney in January and February of 2014. It inquired into the experiences of former child residents at Alkira Salvation Army Home for Boys/Indooroopilly and Riverview Training Farm…
Case Study 7: Parramatta Training School for Girls was a public hearing of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, held in Sydney from February to March of 2014. It inquired into the experiences of former child residents at The Parramatta Girls’ Training School in Sydney, and The Institution for Girls in…
Silverton Shelter was run by the State Children’s Relief Department as a remand home for children who had been charged with offences by the police and were awaiting court appointments or being sent to other institutions. The shelter operated out of the old Silverton Gaol, on Burke street, Silverton, about 20km from Broken Hill. It…
During the twentieth century, babies and children in Victorian orphanages and Homes were used as subjects for medical experiments. Reports from the Senate Inquiry into Children in Institutional Care contained details of studies carried out by the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute and the Commonwealth Serum Laboratory (CSL) between 1945 and 1970. One reason given…