Gill Memorial Home for Boys, Goulburn, 3 October 1936, courtesy of State Library of New South Wales.
Details
The Gill Memorial Boys' Home was a Salvation Army Boys' Home located at Auburn Street, Goulburn from September 1936. It was opened after the closure of the Salvation Army's Dee Why Boys' Home. It held around 90 boys at a time, aged from three to 18 years. In 1980 the Home was restructured and changed, becoming the Gill Memorial Family Group Home.
Some children at Gill Memorial Boys' Home were there under court orders, some were state wards, some were child migrants, some were placed there 'informally', for example by a parent.
The Gill Memorial Boys' Home was mentioned in a number of submissions to the 2004 Senate Community Affairs Reference Committee Inquiry into Forgotten Australians and Child Migrants. Some former residents recall sexual abuse and most described a harsh routine, where numbers were used instead of names.
One former resident, who described regular bashings and abuse in his submission, also wrote out the words of a song the boys used to sing:
THE BOYS AT THE GILL VERSION OF THE "ROAD TO GUNDAGAI"
There's a gaol on the hill
and they call it the Gill
along the road to Goulburn High.
You can hear the Sallies singing
and hear the stockwhip ringing
beneath the Goulburn sky.
When my mummy and daddy are thinking of me
I'm in the Sallies office copping six, four or three.
There's a gaol on the hill
and they call it the Gill
along the road to Goulburn High.We used to sing this song on the way to school and after school, anywhere we could, just so long as the officers didn't hear it because we were well aware of the consequences. [Submission 336]
1936 - 1980 Gill Memorial Boys' Home
1980 - 1995 Gill Memorial Family Group Home
Sources used to compile this entry: 'Submission 248', in Inquiry into Children in Institutional Care - Submissions received by the committee as at 17/3/05, Senate Community Affairs Committee, Commonwealth of Australia, 2005, http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Community_Affairs/Completed_inquiries/2004-07/inst_care/submissions/sublist; 'Submission 286', in Inquiry into Children in Institutional Care - Submissions received by the committee as at 17/3/05, Senate Community Affairs Committee, Commonwealth of Australia, 2005, http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Community_Affairs/Completed_inquiries/2004-07/inst_care/submissions/sublist; Immigration Museum, Stolen childhoods, Museum Victoria, 2011-2012, https://museumsvictoria.com.au/article/stolen-childhoods/; Penglase, Joanna, Orphans of the living: growing up in care in twentieth-century Australia, Curtin University Books/Fremantle Press, Fremantle, 2005, 384 pp; Senate Community Affairs Committee, 'Submission 336', in Inquiry into Children in Institutional Care - Submissions received by the committee as at 17/3/05, Commonwealth of Australia, 2005, http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Community_Affairs/Completed_inquiries/2004-07/inst_care/submissions/sublist; The Salvation Army Australia Eastern Territory, 'Submission 46: EASTERN TERRITORY SOCIAL CENTRES: A list of openings, closings, and function', in Inquiry into Children in Institutional Care - Submissions received by the committee as at 17/3/05, Senate Community Affairs Committee, Commonwealth of Australia, June 2003, http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Community_Affairs/Completed_inquiries/2004-07/inst_care/submissions/sublist; Thinee, Kristy and Bradford, Tracy, Connecting Kin: Guide to Records, A guide to help people separated from their families search for their records [completed in 1998], New South Wales Department of Community Services, Sydney, New South Wales, 1998, https://clan.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/connectkin_guide.pdf.
Prepared by: Naomi Parry
Created: 10 March 2011, Last modified: 25 October 2017
Last updated: 31 May 2023
Cite this: https://www.findandconnect.gov.au/ref/nsw/biogs/NE00228b.htm
First published by the Find & Connect Web Resource Project for the Commonwealth of Australia, 2011
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