The Neglected Children and Juvenile Offenders Act 1905 16/1905) was a substantial law which applied in New South Wales, as well as in the Australian Capital Territory. Its full title was ‘An Act to make better provision for the protection, control, education, maintenance, and reformation of neglected and uncontrollable children and juvenile offenders; to provide…
The Infant Protection Act of 1904 (27/1904) was also known as ‘An Act to make further and better provision for the protection, maintenance, education and care of infants; and to provide for the inspection, supervision, and control of places established or used for their reception and care.’ It was intended to reduce infant mortality amongst…
The State Children Relief Act 1901 (61/1901) replaced the 1881 legislation by the same name and was the basis of most law to do with state children. It provided the State Children’s Relief Board with authority to direct the removal of state children; grant licences for the reception of state children as boarders; apprentice any…
The Reformatory and Industrial Schools Act 1901(38/1901) repealed the Colonial Reformatory Act and Destitute Children’s Act which had existed since 1866. This Act governed industrial schools and reformatories. The new Act retained the 1866 provisions for offenders under sixteen, and for vagrant and destitute children. It provided a court with the power to commit a…
The Children’s Protection Act 1892 [30/1892 (55 Vic. No.30)] was a broad-ranging Act that regulated the care of infants and children. It was a response to fears about ‘baby-farming’ and the sale of unwanted children. It made it an offence to charge a premium for arranging adoptions or to fail to report a stillbirth or…
The Infant Convicts Adoption Act 1901 (15/1901) was ‘An Act to consolidate the enactments providing for the care and education of infants who may be convicted of felony or misdemeanour’. It provided for any ‘infant’, aged below nineteen years and convicted of a felony or misdemeanour, to be assigned by the Court to the care…
The State Children Relief Act of 1881 [24/1881 (44 Vic. No.24)] created the State Children’s Relief Board [SCRB], a body of nine members that reported to the Colonial Secretary. Its task was to remove children from state-funded institutions and board them out, or foster them, with working class families. This Act enabled the SCRB to…
The Reformatory Schools Act 1866 (30 Victoria, Act No. 4, 1866) came into operation in 1869. Under the Act, any child under the age of sixteen who had been convicted of a criminal offence and sentenced to fourteen or more days imprisonment could be sent to a reformatory for one to five years. There were…
The Destitute Children Act [2/1866 (30 Vic. No.2)], also known as the Industrial Schools Act, enabled justices to send vagrant and destitute children under the age of eighteen to work as apprentices or be sent to industrial or reformatory schools. The Act was amended in 1870 to enable boys under the age of six to…
Child Endowment was a non-means tested, universal allowance introduced by the Commonwealth government in 1941. The Child Endowment Act 1941 provided that a sum of 5 shillings per week, for each child after the first under the age of 16 years, be paid directly to the mother. Under the original legislation, child endowment could not…
Dec 18, 2024
Nov 15, 2024
