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Collaroy Convalescent Home

Collaroy Convalescent Home opened in July 1921 to accommodate children recovering from illness or needing ongoing hospital stays and treatment. The Home was located on the beachfront in Collaroy and was donated to the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children. The Home continued to operate until 1969 when it closed and became an annexe of the…

Salvation Army Maternity Home, Charters Towers

The Salvation Army Maternity Home opened at Charters Towers in September 1898. It was located in a large house owned by Mr Tubbs on Gordon Street, at Richmond Hill. It had capcity for 7 women and 9 babies. Women staying at the home were expected to do sewing work to help supplement the home’s income….

Bakhita Village

Bakhita Village was opened in the Darwin suburb of Coconut Grove in January 1972 by the Canossian Daughters of Charity, a Catholic order from Italy. It was a small complex of five family-style homes that provided long and short term residential care for children. Bakhita Village was open for just short of three years before…

St Mary’s Home, Rockhampton

St Mary’s Home, Rockhampton, was opened in 1907 at “The Range”, Jessie Street, as a Home for unmarried mothers and their babies. It was run by a committee of the Anglican Diocese of Rockhampton, although the home accepted women of any denomination. Initially women were expected to stay at the home for at least eight…

Newcastle Shelter

The Newcastle Shelter was established in 1906 as temporary accommodation for children awaiting hearings at the local Children’s Court, children who were on remand, or who were otherwise in the custody of the police. It operated from the private home of Miss King, who, along with her daughter, ran the shelter with support from the…

Mornington Island Mission

The Mornington Island Mission was established by the Presbyterian Church in 1914. The island is located in the Gulf of Carpentaria. Children on the Mornington Island Mission lived in dormitories, nearly totally isolated from their families. The children’s dormitories closed around the late 1960s. Mornington Island was self-managed from 1978, when the Mornington Island Shire…

Victorian Neglected Children’s Aid Society Receiving Home

The Victorian Neglected Children’s Aid Society Receiving Home in La Trobe Street, Melbourne, was a Home for the temporary care of children. It was closely associated with child rescuer Selina Sutherland who established the Victorian Neglected Children’s Aid Society in 1894. From the early 1880s Sutherland had been taking in children as part of her…

Swinburne House

Swinburne House was opened by the Victorian Children’s Aid Society around 1968 in Black Rock. The Victorian Children’s Aid Society Home had previously been located in Parkville, at a property they sold in 1966. In 1968, Swinburne House accommodated 34 children, aged between 3 and 18 years and was also the headquarters of the Society….

Roman Catholic Orphan School

The Roman Catholic Orphan School was established at Waverley House, a large home in Waverley, in 1837. It was the first Catholic orphanage in Australia. It was opened in response to community concerns about Catholic children being placed in the government-run Protestant orphan schools, where they were raised as Protestants, not Catholics. The home was…

St Patrick’s Orphan School

St Patrick’s Orphan School was established at Windsor in September 1840. It was run by a private management committee in association with St Matthew’s Catholic Church, Windsor. At its official opening in October 1840 there were seven children in residence, with 20 children in the school by June 1841. The closing date of St Patrick’s…