Archives



Nautical School Ship Vernon

The Vernon was a tall ship purchased by the New South Wales Government in 1867 and converted to a Nautical School Ship. It was a reformatory and industrial school and housed more than 100 boys, training them in nautical and other trades. The Vernon was first anchored between Garden Island and the Government Domain, and…

Prince of Wales Hospital

The Prince of Wales Hospital was established in 1953 as an annex of Sydney Hospital and is on the Randwick Campus of the South Eastern Sydney and Illawarra Health Service. This campus includes Sydney Children’s Hospital and the Royal Hospital for Women. The Prince of Wales Hospital holds records of a number of maternity hospitals…

Liverpool Asylum

The Liverpool Asylum was an asylum operated by the Benevolent Society of New South Wales from 1851 to 1862. It was for infirm and destitute men. It was taken over by the New South Wales Government in 1862 and renamed the Liverpool Asylum for the Infirm and Destitute. Records of the Hospital and Home were…

Sobraon Training Ship

The Sobraon Training Ship replaced the Nautical School Ship Vernon as a reformatory in 1892. It was three times the size of the Vernon and housed more than 200 boys at a time. After the Neglected Children’s and Juvenile Offenders’ Act of 1905 introduced probation, numbers declined on the Sobraon. Boys were either discharged to…

La Perouse Training School for Girls

The La Perouse Training School was opened in 1928 in Yarra Bay House at Phillip Bay at La Perouse as an annexe of the Parramatta Girls Training Home. It held girls who had been committed to Parramatta but who were generally younger and was deemed less problematic. In 1940 La Perouse Training School closed and…

Guildford Truant School for Boys

Guildford Truant School for Boys was a School for Specific Purposes established by the Department of Education in the property Linnwood in 1917. It opened in 1918 and housed boys who were persistently absent from school and were under sentence from the Children’s Court. The school closed at the end of 1935. In 1936, Linnwood…

Shaftesbury Reformatory School

The Shaftesbury Reformatory School opened in 1880 on a site on Old South Head Road (in the present-day suburb of Vaucluse), as a replacement for the Biloela Reformatory School for Females on Cockatoo Island. It included a series of cottages and three solitary cells surrounded by high fences, and usually housed a total of around…

Newcastle Industrial School for Females

The Newcastle Industrial School was established on 6 August 1867 in the former Military Barracks on the Newcastle Government Domain. It was a place of detention for girls charged with neglect, wandering, street-trading or being ‘uncontrollable’. From 1869 the site was shared with the Newcastle Reformatory School for Females. In 1871 the institution was relocated…

Ormond House

Ormond House, in Oxford Street Paddington, was used by the State Children’s Relief Board from 1884 until 1923. It was the Central Home or Central Depot, and was a receiving home and shelter for children of all ages. It took girls from Shaftesbury Reformatory in 1904 and Hillside Home for Mothers and Babies moved there…

Ormond, Thornleigh

Ormond, Thornleigh, also known as Thornleigh Training School for Girls and Thornleigh Girls’ Home, was established in Duffy Avenue at Thornleigh in 1946 by the Child Welfare Department. It was an annexe to the Parramatta Girls Training School, and housed Parramatta girls who were defined as being ‘privilege’: they were at the end of their…