• Archival Item

UK fact finding mission 1956 part 2, National Archives of Australia

To access these records

Please contact General Enquiries, National Archives of Australia:

Postal Address: PO Box 4924, Kingston, ACT 2604

Phone: (02) 6212 3600

Email: archives@naa.gov.au

Website: https://www.naa.gov.au/help-your-research/ask-us-about-collection

Reference Number

Quote this number to access your records: National Archives of Australia Reference Number, A446, 1960/66767

Records Location

Details

‘UK fact finding mission 1956 part 2’ is a file held by the National Archives of Australia. It contains correspondence and reports about the Ross Fact-Finding Mission, a British Home Office inspection of institutions in Western Australia where child migrants lived.

Access Conditions

Open.

Records

‘UK fact finding mission 1956 part 2’ also holds correspondence between the Australian and British governments about the Report of the fact-finding mission and the response by British child care professionals to the Ross Report, as it became known (see particularly pages 7-10, 14-16). The Australian government’s request to the British government not to publish the Report is documented on the file (pages 18-20) and there is a ‘comprehensive statement of the views of the Australian Child Migration Authorities’ about the Report (pages 104-107) that was sent by the Prime Minister’s Department in Canberra. The Child Welfare Department of WA’s response to the Reports on institutions in the State was made after an inspection by officers from the CWD, the Department for Lands and Surveys and the State Immigration authorities (see page 172 for example). The CWD’s initial overview of Homes is also included (pages 135-150).

This file also contains the Child Welfare Department’s (CWD) initial overview of the institutions where children who had been sent as unaccompanied migrants from Britain lived (pages 135-143, and 145-150). Relevant pages include:

  • Castledare (CWD overview on pages 141 and 188, and correspondence on pages 1-6, 13, 18, 21, 22, 24)
  • Clontarf (Report on pages 96-97 and CWD overview on pages 142 and 190; correspondence on page 6)
  • Bindoon (Report on pages 92-93 and CWD overview on page 143; correspondence on pages 18,21, 22
  • William A Saw Home, Coogee (Report on pages 80-81 and CWD overview on pages 138-139)
  • Swan Homes (Report on pages 80-81 and CWD overview on pages 138-139 and 189)
  • Fairbridge Farm School, Pinjarra (Report on pages 82-83 and CWD overview on pages 136 and 187)
  • Methodist Children’s Home (pages 84-85 and CWD overview on page 137)
  • Tardun (Report on pages 86-87; note from CWD on page 148)
  • St Vincent’s Foundling Home (Report on pages 88-89 and CWD overview on page 140)
  • St Joseph’s Girls’ Orphanage (Report on pages 88-89 and CWD overview on page 140)
  • Nazareth House, Geraldton (Report on pages 90-91; note from CWD on page 150)
  • St Joseph’s Preventorium (Report on pages 94-95; note from CWD on page 149)

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