The Ballarat Industrial School was a state-run institution, which opened in August 1869. The institution housed 215 girls in 1872. In 1879, the Industrial School closed, and became a reformatory for boys.
The Ballarat Industrial School was the only institution in Victoria mentioned by the Royal Commission on Industrial and Reformatory Schools as having had a 'satisfactory realization of the objects for which industrial schools should be founded'. Despite this, the Commission called for the industrial school system to be abandoned, in favour of the boarding out system.
The Ballarat Industrial School housed 215 girls in 1872, according to the report of the Royal Commission on Industrial and Reformatory Schools.
In 1879, the Industrial School closed, and became a reformatory for boys. This reformatory closed in 1893 and the building then housed a 'lunatic asylum'.
On the closure of the reformatory, the majority of the boys were accommodated at Mr Wiseman's Farm at Lilydale, the Salvation Army Home at Heidelberg and Mr Groom's Excelsior Homes at Brighton.
1869 - c. 1879 Ballarat Industrial School
1864 - 1893 Reformatory for Boys
Sources used to compile this entry: Brogden, Joan, Neglected or criminal? The Sunbury Industrial School - Sunbury and beyond, vol. 2, The Author, 1997; Golding, Frank, Orphanages in Ballarat – brief historical notes (draft), 2009; Guillaume, George; Connor, Edward C., The Development and Working of the Reformatory and Preventive Systems in the Colony of Victoria, Australia, 1864-1890, Government Printer, Melbourne, 1891. Also available at http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/243591.
Prepared by: Cate O'Neill
Created: 5 June 2009, Last modified: 30 October 2018