Blamey House

Blamey House, in Beaumaris, was operated as a children’s home by Melbourne Legacy from 1949. It housed 22 primary school age children of ex-servicemen. In 1956, Blamey House was relocated to Kew. The site of Blamey House, Kew, was formerly a Legacy Home called Holmbush. Blamey House, Kew closed in around 1977.

Blamey House was a children’s home operated by Melbourne Legacy in a number of locations, as part of Legacy’s commitment to provide for the children of ex-servicemen.

In 1947, the Blamey House Trustees bought a property in
Beaumaris to be a toddlers’ home, which was renamed Blamey House.

Until 1949, it was used as a home for ex-servicemen.

In November 1949, Blamey House at 124 Balcombe Road, Beaumaris was handed over to Legacy to be a children’s home for 22 ‘Legacy wards’. Blamey House accommodated primary school age children.

Jenkinson states that Blamey House was for children aged five to nine years (in contradiction with Legacy’s description of Blamey House as a toddlers’ home in its submission to the Inquiry into Children in Institutional Care). In the early 1950s, the Children’s Welfare Department described Blamey House as catering for boys and girls aged 4 to 12.

Jenkinson also writes that by the mid 1970s, Blamey House was for boys aged fourteen and over.

In August 1956, Blamey House was declared as an approved children’s home under the Children’s Welfare Act 1954.

The Beaumaris property was sold in 1956 and the name and its residents were transferred to the property, Holmbush, in Kew. Blamey House in Kew began to receive older children from 1960.

According to Jenkinson, Blamey House had closed by 1977. Around this time, the hostel previously known as Harelands was renamed Blamey House.

This second incarnation of Blamey House closed in around 1980.