All Saints Hostel, Charleville

All Saints Hostel, Charleville was opened in 1918 as a boarding hostel for children in Western Queensland who were attending the State school at Charleville. It was initially run by a management committee, headed by a representative from St Paul’s Bush Brotherhood, until Sisters of the Sacred Advent took over its management in 1920 (Finn, Charleville Centenary Celebrations, 1947) . It took children of primary and high school age, though most of the children at All Saints Hostel were primary school children. The exact closing date for the hostel is not known, however it is thought to have closed by 1983.

All Saints Hostel opened in a building called ‘Gowrie House’, and initially had accommodation for 20 children. The number of children boarding at the hostel quickly grew to 45, and in 1928 a separate hostel building to house the girls and boys under 8 years old was opened, while the original home was refurbished to be more suitable for the older boys. In 1940 a new hostel for the older boys was opened on the site, while the younger boys stayed in the girls’ hostel. By 1942 there were 60 children in each building, leading to further extensions to support the increasing numbers.

While both the girls’ and boys’ hostels operated on the same site with the same name, they appear to have at times been managed separately. The Sisters of the Society of the Sacred Advent were responsible for the girls’ hostel from 1920 presumably until its closure, while the boys’ hostel had superintendents and matrons provided by several different organisations, including St Paul’s Bush Brotherhood and from 1943 the Church Army of Newcastle (All Saints Hostel, Charleville, in The Charleville Times, 24 October 1947).

The majority of children at All Saints Hostel were boarded there by their parents, however several children in state care are known to have been placed there. These children include two Aboriginal sisters from Alice Springs who were placed at the Hostel in 1959, and a girl from Brisbane who mentioned All Saints Hostel in her submission to the 2004 Senate Inquiry into Children in Institutional Care (Submission No. 505).