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New South Wales - Organisation

Singleton Boys' Home (1920 - 1923)

  • Sunday school scholars, teachers, missionaries. Cherbourg AIM Church [Singleton Home]

    Sunday school scholars, teachers, missionaries. Cherbourg AIM Church [Singleton Home], c. 1908, courtesy of State Library of New South Wales.
    Details

From
1920
To
1923
Categories
Children's Home, Government-run and Home
Alternative Names
  • Singleton Home

The Singleton Boys' Home was run by the Aborigines Protection Board in Singleton after the Board took over the management of the Singleton Home and St Clair Mission from the Aborigines Inland Mission in 1920. It was a home for boys aged from four to fourteen who had been removed from their families and NSW Aboriginal stations and reserves under the Aborigines Protection Act for 'training'. Children were transferred between this Home and Cootamundra Training Home. The Singleton Home was closed and replaced by the Kinchela Training Home for Aboriginal Boys in 1923. The building was demolished.

Details

Historian Christine Brett-Vickers wrote to Find & Connect in 2012 to share her understanding of the Singleton Home, which she had derived from studying George and Jennie Smith, the AIM missionaries who ran the Singleton Children's Home from 1910 until 1920:

By 1918 there were 50 children living in a home designed for less than 20. The Board did not increase funding and, indeed bought the home from its owner, Sir Albert Gould, and then ousted the mission. There must have been plans then and talk of making the home a boys home … the missionaries tried to resist this but in the end broke down.

After the Board took over, many of the children were sent to other Aboriginal institutions. Dr Brett-Vickers says:

There was a great transition of children from Singleton in June 1920 as the board sent the younger boys to Bomaderry and the girls to Cootamundra & Bomaderry had to send its older boys, between 10 and 14 in age to Singleton & and the girls to Cootamundra.

From 1920 it was referred to as the Singleton Boys Home by the Board. It only took in boys from the ages of 10 to 14. But the home was run down, condemned and demolished in 1923 and the lot [were] moved to Kinchela.

Location

1920 - 1923
Location - Singleton Home located in 'Glasgow Place', George Street, Singleton. Location: Singleton

Publications

Books

  • Horton, David, The Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history, society and culture, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Canberra, 1994. Details
  • Miller, James, Koori, a will to win, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1985. Details

Journals

Resources

Theses

  • Brett-Vickers, Christine, 'A missionary in the family : George and Jennie Smith and Aboriginal people, New South Wales 1890-1920', PhD thesis, School of History, LaTrobe University, 2007. Details

Online Resources

Photos

Sunday school scholars, teachers, missionaries. Cherbourg AIM Church [Singleton Home]
Title
Sunday school scholars, teachers, missionaries. Cherbourg AIM Church [Singleton Home]
Type
Image
Date
c. 1908
Source
State Library of New South Wales
Note
This photograph from 1908 shows the building that was used by the Aborigines Inland Mission and the Aborigines Protection Board

Details

Sources used to compile this entry: 'Our Aim newsletters', in Aborigines' Inland Mission newsletters, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 1907-1961, http://aiatsis.gov.au/collections/collections-online/digitised-collections/aborigines-inland-mission-newsletters/our-aim-newsletters; Brett-Vickers, Christine, 'A missionary in the family : George and Jennie Smith and Aboriginal people, New South Wales 1890-1920', PhD thesis, School of History, LaTrobe University, 2007; Gray, Anna, St Clair Mission, Australian Museum, Australian Museum, 2010. Also available at https://web.archive.org/web/20171021052801/http://australianmuseum.net.au/St-Clair-Mission/; New South Wales. Aborigines Protection Board (ed.), Report of the Board, Government Printer, 1881-1941. Also available at http://nla.gov.au/nla.aus-vn1447508; Parry, Naomi, 'Such a longing': black and white children in welfare in New South Wales and Tasmania, 1880-1940, Department of History, University of New South Wales, 2007, 361 pp, http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/40786; Radi, Heather, 'Long, Margaret Jane (Retta) (1878-1956)', in Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/long-margaret-jane-retta-10857; Email correspondence from Dr Christine Brett-Vickers, 21-22 January 2013 and 15 May 2014.

Prepared by: Naomi Parry