The National Archives of Australia (NAA) was established in 1998. It was formerly known as the Australian Archives. The National Archives collects, preserves and makes publicly available records of the Australian government. The collection includes records related to family history research, as well as records relevant specifically to child welfare and child migration. The head…
Industrial Schools were institutions where children could receive industrial training. It was a model borrowed from England. The central idea was that neglected children with living parents needed to be taught to be industrious and be able to support themselves in the future. Notions about poverty in the nineteenth century saw poor people as lazy…
Gribble, E.R.B. (Ernest Richard Bulmer) 1868-1957, Collected Papers, 1892-1970 is a manuscript collection held by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (manuscript number MS 1515). Ernest Gribble co-founded the Yarrabah Mission alongside his father, J.B. Gribble, which they ran until 1910. Ernest Gribble then held a number of religious roles at…
In December 2018, the UK government announced they were establishing a payment scheme for former British Child Migrants. The scheme was for people who had been separated from their families and sent overseas as part of the UK government’s participation in child migration programs. The payment scheme was established in response to the Interim Report…
The National Redress Scheme was established by the Commonwealth government in response to the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. It is administered by the Commonwealth Department of Social Services. The NRS was established in 2018 and was announced that it would run for 10 years. The National Redress…
The Tuart Place Historical Photos collection comprises images shared with the support service Tuart Place by former residents of children’s Homes in Western Australia and some past provider organisations. Access Conditions Access to the photos is limited to former residents of the Homes and family members/descendants. To access these photos please contact Tuart Place. Records…
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 11: Christian Brothers was a public hearing of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, held in Perth from April to May 2014. It inquired into the experiences of former child residents at Castledare Junior Orphanage, St Vincent’s Orphanage Clontarf, St Mary’s Agricultural School Tardun, and Bindoon Farm School. During…
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…