Salvation Army Girls' Home, Kalgoorlie

The Salvation Army Girls’ Home, Kalgoorlie ran from 1904 to at least 1924 and possibly to 1930. Non-aboriginal girls were also admitted in later years. Newspaper accounts suggest that the purpose of the Home was to train the girls for domestic service. When the Home closed, the girls were transferred to the Salvation Army Girls’ Home, Cottesloe.

The Salvation Army ran a Home for Aboriginal girls at Kalgoorlie from around 1904 to at least 1924 and possibly to 1930. Newspaper accounts suggest that the purpose of the Home was to train the girls for domestic service.

From 1905, the head of the government department responsible for Aboriginal welfare was the guardian of Aboriginal children at the Home.

In his 1911 history of Western Australia (the ‘Cyclopedia’), JS Battye stated that the Salvation Army ran a home for 17 ‘aboriginal girls’ in Kalgoorlie (p.62) and also mentioned (p.102) a home at Lamington Heights (Kalgoorlie) for ‘little children’. The latter was known as ‘The Fold’. Possibly, this source has been relied upon in later histories. Apparently, some girls were sent there from the Salvation Army Girls’ Home at Collie in 1905. Tilbrook gives 1907 as the start date.

According to Salvation Army historical records, the Home was originally established for Aboriginal girls but eventually ‘also became a Home for white girls’ (The Victory, 1 September 1921, p.280).

A letter of appreciation for the donation from The Daily News Orphans’ Christmas Cheer Fund in 1915 gives an insight into life at the Girls’ Home and shows how unusual it was for the children to have ‘extras’:

Your donations gave our children a good picnic, and also assisted us to purchase fowls and fruit for their Chirstmas dinner and tea. Letter, 4 January 1916 published in The Daily News 2 December 1916

The girls were in great demand as entertainers in the area and newspaper reports from the 1920s describe them as ‘truly musical’ and a ‘trained company of 21 girls’, with ‘one or two of the young soloists’ having ‘voices of more than average quality’. The items they presented included ‘action songs, musical drill, tableaux, and exercises’.

When the Home closed, the girls were transferred to the Salvation Army Girls’ Home, Cottesloe.