The government-run Reformatory for Girls was located at Sunbury from 1865 to 1875. It was located on the same site as the Sunbury Industrial School, about half a mile away. In 1875, girls were relocated from Sunbury to a new reformatory, located at Coburg. The institution was sometimes referred to as the Reformatory for Protestant…
The Ballarat Boys’ Reformatory opened in 1879, in a building formerly used as an industrial school for girls. Before that, boys had been at the Jika Reformatory in Coburg. The Ballarat building had accommodation for 200. In 1879, there were 95 inmates, with the department hoping to increase it to 121 when the last boys…
The Immigrants’ Home was the name that early colonists gave to ramshackle buildings on either side of St Kilda Road south of Princes Bridge (Swain). This was where the Immigrants’ Aid Society provided aid to new arrivals to the colony of Victoria, later expanding its activities beyond this. Over time, the Immigrants’ Home came to…
The Immigrants’ Aid Society came into being in May 1853. A non-government organisation, its initial purpose was to provide relief and information only to new arrivals to the colony of Victoria, though its activities quickly expanded beyond providing aid to poor immigrants. Before the colonial government passed the Neglected and Criminal Children’s Act in 1864…
The Boys’ Farm School at the Macedon State Nursery was established around late 1882 or early 1883. Boys and young men from industrial schools or in boarding out placements were placed there to be trained in gardening skills. It closed around 1885. The Macedon State Nursery had been established in 1872, to provide trees to…
The Boys’ Farm School, Dookie opened in 1881. It provided training for boys from Victorian industrial schools and boarding out placements in farming. It closed in 1886 when a government agricultural college opened on the site. The 4800 acre property was in north-eastern Victoria, with “a short frontage to the Broken River on the south,…
The Warrawong Kindergarten for Emergency Care in Ringwood East began to provide temporary emergency care in the 1960s. Run by the Graduates Association of the Melbourne Kindergarten Teachers College, it started off as a holiday home for children attending kindergartens affiliated with the Free Kindergarten Union. Opening in 1937, it was a “sister” institution to…
The Kindergarten Training College was established in 1922. Previously, kindergarten teachers were trained by the Free Kindergarten Union, established in 1908. In 1964, the Kindergarten Teachers College became a separate entity from the Free Kindergarten Union. In 1973 it became the Institute of Early Childhood Development. Graduates of the Melbourne Kindergarten Teachers College ran two holiday…
The Royal Women’s Hospital was established in 1856. Its first location was a two-storey house in East Melbourne, then in 1858 it moved to a site in Madeline St (now Swanston St) in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Carlton. Originally called the Melbourne Lying-In Hospital and Infirmary for Diseases of Women and Children, its name was…
Meli is an organisation created in April 2023, following a merger of Bethany and Barwon Child Youth & Family (BCYF). Meli’s office in Hamlyn Heights (Geelong) is on the former site of the Geelong Female Refuge, established in 1868, and Bethany Babies’ Home (1928-1977). BCYF’s originated with the Geelong Orphan Asylum (established 1854), later known…
Nov 15, 2024
May 3, 2024
