Tardun Farm School was opened by the Christian Brothers in 1928 as a Home where boys would learn farm skills. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse found the Christian Brothers were amongst the worst perpetrators of abuse nationally, that the relevant Christian Brothers Provincial Council was aware of allegations of abuse from the 1930s onwards, and that between 1947 and 1968 they failed to prevent sexual abuse in their institutions. Western Australia’s Christian Brothers’ institutions were also a subject of the Senate Inquiry into Children in Institutional Care for their brutality, physical and sexual abuse. In 2024 they were called before the parliamentary inquiry into child sexual abuse in WA institutions.
Originally known as St Mary’s Agricultural School, after World War II, Tardun housed British and Maltese child migrants aged from about 12 to 16 years as well as boys who were wards of state. Tardun Farm School closed in 1967, re-opening as an agricultural boarding school where children were placed by the departments responsible for child welfare. Tardun closed at the end of 2008.
The ‘Tardun Agricultural College’ was described in the Report of the Royal Commission on Youth Employment and the Apprenticeship System in 1938 as having “initiated a system of instructing the boys in general educational subjects and putting them up for the Junior examination of the University – a policy to be recommended”. Testimony to the Child Abuse Royal Commission by former residents contradicts this, as one reported they did not go to school, and another that they were removed from school to work at age 13. Boys were not paid for their physical labour which included moving heavy bags and clearing land.
The Royal Commissioner recommended that the Government pay a maintenance allowance of 10 shillings per week for each ‘destitute orphan boy’ at Tardun provided the school undertook vocational and general education and training to the satisfaction of the Education Department. Report of the Royal Commissioner on Youth Employment and the Apprenticeship System, 1938, p.lxix. By 1940, this recommendation had not been implemented.
In 1942, the UK High Commissioner in Australia, Sir Ronald Cross, inspected Tardun, and observed that he could not understand where money paid to the institution towards the maintenance of child migrants was going, given the poor clothing the boys were wearing (Child Migration Programmes Investigation Report, 2022, p.7).
Tardun was in a geographically remote location, further isolating the boys that lived there. Former residents reported stealing food, eating weevil infested porridge, and wearing army hand-me-downs. There were no doors in the showers, and the Brothers employed at Tardun had a room in the boys’ the dormitory. Boys reported sexual and physical abuse, including beatings with leather straps, and ‘extreme, arbitrary and severe physical punishment’ (p11, Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Case Study 11: Christian Brothers). Sexual abuse continued after children reported it to school officials, medical staff, police and delegations visiting Tardun. Former residents reported being beaten for disclosing sexual abuse.
Tardun Farm School was investigated by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Case Study 11: Christian Brothers.
This page was written by Debra Rosser, last updated 7 July 2026. Sources used to create this entry:
Title: The Christian Brothers' Agricultural School, Tardun, Western Australia
Type: Image
Date: c. 1936
From
1928
To
2008
Alternative Names
St Mary’s Agricultural School
Clontarf Boys' Farm, Tardun
Tardun Agricultural College
1928 - 1967
Tardun Farm School was located at Tardun, Western Australia (Building Still standing)
