The Shaftesbury site was a series of cottages, intended to house up to 50 girls but it usually held 20. It was entirely enclosed within a 3 meter high corrugated tin fence, with bars to external windows and three punishment (solitary) cells. Girls were sentenced for between one and five years.

In 1901 new legislation for reformatory schools was introduced, the Reformatory and Industrial Schools Act. The State Children's Relief Board took charge of the institutions for children and the management of Shaftesbury became the responsibility of the Superintendent at Parramatta. From that point, Shaftesbury held female state wards, as well as reformatory girls.

In 1904 the Girls Reformatory was moved to a section of Ormond House in Paddington and the Shaftesbury site returned to the Comptroller of Prisons. The State Children's Relief Department Annual Report of 1904 explained the decision to close Shaftesbury Reformatory, and provided a chilling account of what it had been like:

This institution was closed last month. The buildings are totally unfit for the purposes of a reformatory; they are simply a prison, the windows being barred and the place gloomy. Treatment of the girls in them under modern methods of reformation was impossible; and on the recommendation of the State Children Relief Board the girls were boarded-out in terms of the State Children Relief Act and the institution closed.

The building was reused by the State Children's Relief Board, as a Home for Mothers and Babies, for a short time from 1910 to 1914.