Tuggerah Welfare Farm was established by the Salvation Army around 1954 as a training farm for young men between 15 and 25 years old. In 1959 there were two boys at the farm under the age of 16. Many (though not all) of the residents of the farm were sent there by the Courts following…
Infant Life Protection was a program that emerged in response to rising concerns about ‘baby farming’ in the late nineteenth century – this was the practice of infants, usually born to single mothers, being placed in private homes to be nursed and boarded, for a fee. There was a very high mortality rate for ex-nuptial…
The Cottage Home was established in July 1879 as a private boarding-out home in Newtown, Sydney. The Cottage Home had capacity for approximately 10 children and was managed by an older couple acting as house “father and mother”. It was established as a trial of the boarding-out “family system” as opposed to the institutional system…
Mental deficiency is a term that was commonly used to describe intellectual or developmental disability in the first half of the twentieth century. It was regarded as a disease, and the popular belief was that people who were diagnosed as ‘mentally defective’ needed to be segregated from the community, to receive special ‘care’ and treatment….
The Register of Convicts for House of Correction, Carters Barracks is a record held by Museums of History in the collection of the State Archives of NSW. It contains information about people incarcerated at Carters Barracks, including date entered the barracks, convict number, convict name, name of the ship they arrived on, original sentence, crime…
In 1951, a British Home Office official named John Moss inspected and reported on Australian and New Zealand institutions where British child migrants were living. Moss spent July-December 1951 travelling around Australia and to New Zealand, inspecting institutions and making recommendations. His report, known as the Moss Report, was submitted to the British government in…
The Community of the Holy Name is a religious order founded in Melbourne, in 1888. The founder of the order, Emma Caroline Silcock (also known as Sister Esther), led the work of the Mission to the Streets and Lanes in Melbourne, and the two organisations had a close association. The order was not formally established…
The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is an international convention, setting out the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of children. The General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child on 20 November 1989 (the 30th anniversary of the Declaration of the Rights of…
An orphan is a child whose mother or father or both has died. Historically, in the context of institutional ‘care’, the term ‘orphan’ did not necessarily mean a child whose parents had died. It was most often used to describe a child whose parent/s were (or were judged to be) unable, for many different reasons,…
The Wattle Day Appeal was an annual fundraising event, used to raise funds for children’s institutions and other charitable organisations. The annual Wattle Day Appeal began in 1910, with Wattle Day events held in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. Over the next few years, Wattle Day events were also held in Queensland and…
Dec 18, 2024
Nov 15, 2024
