Training Homes (also known as Training Schools) were institutions where children and young people could learn habits of hard work and respectability, as well as skills suited to the workforce. In the early twentieth century, the work skills usually involved domestic service for girls and farm labour for boys. Later on the occupations considered suitable…
Case Study 19: Bethcar Children’s Home was a public hearing of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, held in Sydney from October to December 2014. It inquired into the experiences of former child residents at Bethcar Children’s Home, Brewarrina, New South Wales. During the hearings evidence was heard from former residents…
Case Study 3: North Coast Children’s Home was a public hearing of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, held in Sydney from November 2013 to January 2014. It inquired into the experiences of former child residents at the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore, New South Wales. During the hearings evidence…
Case Study 5: The Salvation Army boys’ Homes, Australian Eastern Territory was a public hearing of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, held in Sydney in January and February of 2014. It inquired into the experiences of former child residents at Alkira Salvation Army Home for Boys/Indooroopilly and Riverview Training Farm…
Case Study 7: Parramatta Training School for Girls was a public hearing of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, held in Sydney from February to March of 2014. It inquired into the experiences of former child residents at The Parramatta Girls’ Training School in Sydney, and The Institution for Girls in…
Silverton Shelter was run by the State Children’s Relief Department as a remand home for children who had been charged with offences by the police and were awaiting court appointments or being sent to other institutions. The shelter operated out of the old Silverton Gaol, on Burke street, Silverton, about 20km from Broken Hill. It…
This collection of the Records of the Fairbridge Society contains microfilm and now digitised copies of originals held by the Fairbridge Society, London and Liverpool University Archives, UK. This collection was created as part of the Australian Joint Copying Project. Records in this collection include administrative material relating to the Fairbridge Society, correspondence with the…
Medical experiments on children in institutions happened in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Australia. The first documented experimentation on children in institutions in Australia was in 1803, where it was reported that John Savage, Assistant Surgeon of the New South Wales Colony, was “trying the effects” of the smallpox vaccine on “some of the…
The Declaration of the Rights of the Child set out ten principles related to children’s rights. The Declaration was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 20 November 1959. Click here to see the full Find & Connect glossary
On 20 June 2000, on the motion of Senator Andrew Murray, the Senate referred the issue of child migration to the Community Affairs References Committee for inquiry and report. An estimated five to ten thousand child migrants from both Britain and Malta came to Australia between1922 and 1967, most of whom were sent to charitable…
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