The Bush Church Aid Society is a Christian ministry that has provided religious education, flying padres and counselling, welfare and medical services across outback Australia. In 2012, many of its workers are Aboriginal. It also ran children’s hostels, providing accommodation and residential support for children who had to leave their homes for their education.
The hostels were established from around the 1940s to the 1960s. Hostels were located at Port Lincoln (for high-school girls, established 1945); Wentworth Falls (“Coorah”, for high-school boys, established c.1945); Bowral (for high-school girls, established 1945); Wilcannia (primary school students, established c.1935); Mungindi (primary school students, established c.1948); Darwin (established c.1960); Moree (“Urallie”, for boys, established c.1964); and Broken Hill (hostel for boys, established c.1950). The Broken Hill hostel at 182 Lane Street. It is thought that records of the Broken Hill Home are limited to one box of photos and Bush Church Aid Society magazines, The Real Australian. There are no lists of names of children.
The Bush Church Aid Society was an offshoot of the Colonial and Continental Church Society, which began in the Swan River Colony in Western Australia in 1836. In 1919 missionary S.J. Kirby developed new work, via the Bush Church Aid Society, across Australia.
The Bush Church Aid Society remains active in Christian missionary work.