Uniting Church (Synod of Western Australia) Archives, Records

The collection held by the Uniting Church Archives in Perth dates from around 1918 to the 1980s. The collection includes information about Children’s Homes run by the Methodist and Presbyterian churches and, after 1977, the Uniting Church. Most of the information in the collection is about fundraising for the Homes, or copies of newsletters. There are also some photographs of homes, and information about some children who lived in the Homes, which has been compiled into a database.

Access Conditions

Access to records in this collection is restricted to protect the privacy of individuals who are mentioned in the records. People who are named in the records have a right to access information about themselves and their time in ‘care’. For access to these records please contact the Uniting Church (Synod of Western Australia) Archives.

Records

The collection includes information about:

• Allandale Boys’ Home at Werribee
• Benmore Presbyterian Children’s Home
• Burnbrae Presbyterian Children’s Home
• Methodist Homes for Children (the agency who ‘ran’ the Children’s Homes)
• Methodist Home for Children, Victoria Park
• Mofflyn and its different cottages and hostels
• Moore River Native Settlement (Mogumber Mission)
• Sister Kate’s Child and Family Services (which became Manguri)

There are also some photographs of Children’s Homes in the collection.

Children’s Homes Files (1940s – 1990s)

The Uniting Church Archives Children’s Homes archival series contains a number of items held in a single large file. The contents of the series relate to Children’s Homes which were run by the Methodist and Presbyterian Churches, and dates from the 1940s to the 1990s.

The information in the series includes newsletters, correspondence, general historical notes and objects, and editions of newsletters. There are no complete sets of newsletters in this series. This series mostly holds items from the 1960s and 1970s but there are a few items from earlier and later years.

The file is organised into sub-folders related to:

• Allandale Boys’ Home at Werribee
• Benmore Presbyterian Children’s Home
• Burnbrae Presbyterian Children’s Home
• Mofflyn and its different cottages and hostels
• the Methodist Homes for Children
• Sister Kate’s Child and Family Services (which includes information about becoming Manguri)

Children’s Homes Database

The Uniting Church Archives Children’s Homes Database, Western Australia is an access database that holds information about children who were in Methodist, Presbyterian or Uniting Church Children’s Homes between 1922 and the 1980s. The information in the database was collated from the Uniting Church restricted collection in the Battye Library’s Private Archives. The database does not have a complete ‘set’ of information for each child, and it may not identify all children who were in the Homes.

The type of information in the database can include:

• Child’s names
• Date of birth
• Parents’ or guardians’ names
• Admission and discharge dates
• Place of residence (name of Children’s Home)
• Notes, which may give other information about the child and/or the accession number for the Battye Library restricted file(s) that relate to that child