The Industrial and Reformatory Schools Act 1865 – with the full title “An Act to provide for the establishment of Industrial and Reformatory Schools” (Act no. 8/1865, 29 Vic No.8) set up special schools to educate and care for neglected children and young offenders under the age of 15 years. The Act allowed Indigenous children to be sent to industrial schools or reformatories on the ground of ‘neglect’. Simply being Aboriginal was proof of neglect. For the purposes of the Act, missions were declared to be industrial schools or reformatories to which Indigenous children could be sent. The act was repealed by the State Children Act 1911 on the 30th of November 1911 (Act no. 2 Geo.V.No.13).
Under the provisions of the Industrial and Reformatory Schools Act of 1865, reformatory schools received children under the age of fifteen who were unmanageable or incorrigible, or who had been given convictions.