Moss John - visiting Child Welfare Expert, National Archives of Australia

‘Moss John – visiting Child Welfare Expert’ is a file held by the National Archives of Australia. It documents the arrangements for a 1951-1952 visit to Children’s Homes and State child welfare authorities by John Moss CBE, a ‘UK Child Expert’ who worked for the Home Office in Britain, to assess the conditions in institutions for British child migrants. The file also holds some information from West Australian institutions, supplied for Moss’ report. It can be read online.

‘Moss John – visiting Child Welfare Expert’ documents the arrangements for a visit to Children’s Homes and State child welfare authorities by John Moss CBE, a ‘UK Child Expert’ who worked for the Home Office in Britain. Moss was inspecting institutions which held British child migrants. He was doing this ‘unofficially’ while on holiday leave in Australia and New Zealand. Much of this file contains correspondence about John Moss’ itinerary and travel arrangements for his January 1952 visit to Western Australia.

Notable information in the file includes:

• Survey questions which were circulated to institutions before Moss’ visit (pp.136-137)
• Response to questions by Fairbridge Farm School, Pinjarra (pp.39-40)
• Response to questions by Anglican (Swan Homes) (pp.41-42)
• Response to questions by Methodist Homes for Children (p.43)
• Response to questions by the Catholic Episcopal Migration and Welfare Association (pp.47-50)
• Key officials for the WA institutions and government (pp.22, 59)
• Minutes of a meeting with representatives of the institutions, Child Welfare Department and Commonwealth Department of Lands and Immigration (pp.44-46)
• Moss’ itinerary as at 16 January 1952 (pp.22-23)