by Rupert Hewison (guest author) on 16 November, 2011
Former Child Migrant Rupert Hewison shares his personal history, from his time at St. Faith’s Home in Surry, UK to his being sent to Fairbridge House ‘Tresca’ in Tasmania. Continue reading “My Life Inside a Children’s Home”
by Andrew Murray (guest author) on 14 November, 2011
“Institutional abuse does not stop when we age out of the system”. Former Senator Andrew Murray shares the essay that he co-authored with Dr Marilyn Rock The Enduring Legacy of Growing up in Care in 20th Century Australia. Continue reading “The Enduring Legacy”
by Adele Chynoweth on 4 October, 2011
Listen to Alliance for Forgotten Australians’ Chair, Caroline Carroll, talk, on SBS Radio, about the ‘dark secret’ of Australia’s history that she argues should be included in Australia’s national curriculum.
[2020 note]: This interview was previously available on the SBS website.
Download the National Museum of Australia’s Forgotten Australians education kit (PDF 4.39MB)
by Hugh McGowan (guest author) on 30 September, 2011
Read the letter from the Superintendent of Quarrier’s Homes, Scotland to Former Child Migrant, Hugh McGowan’s mother, asking for her permission to send her son to Australia.
The envelope in the top of the image below is clearly marked “Retun to Sender”. Miss McGowan never read the letter and therefore her son was sent away without her knowledge.
by karolina on 23 September, 2011
‘Where the little inmates are permitted to grow up natural and normal human beings.’ Inside assistant curator Karolina Kilian came across this 1933 Australian Women’s Weekly article about the Church of England Homes for Children.
We’ve transcribed the article so that it’s easier to read:
Gone are the days when institutions for children were like dull morgues, when discipline amounted to tyranny, and all suggestion of love or affection was killed at birth.
The children’s homes of today are pleasant, cheerful places, where the little inmates are permitted to grow up natural and normal human beings.
The Church of England Homes for Children are typical of the changed order. Visit any of the institutions controlled by this committee and you will find conditions that many children under parental roofs might envy.
Hundreds of girls and boys who have passed through these homes are now occupying good positions throughout the Commonwealth.
It is a delight to attend one of the gatherings at the home and meet young men and women who are so proud of their early association with the homes as are men and women who boast of their association with noted schools of learning.
There is a group of these homes at Carlingford (for boys and for girls), a girls’ home at Leura, and the Havilah Home, Wahroonga, for young children.
The homes all have the advantage of being set in beautiful grounds, of having fresh milk and home-grown vegetables.
Built on the crest of a rise at Wahroonga, in a setting of spacious lawns, orange groves, and shrubbery, Havilah Home cares for 80 children between the ages of two and seven years.
Girls on reaching the age of seven are transferred to Carlingford, which takes girls from the age of seven to twelve, to remain there, of course, until the time when they are able to earn their own living or suitable care is guaranteed for them. This home has accommodation for 150 girls, and this is not sufficient. Applications are refused every day, and there is a long waiting list. An even larger demand is made on the boys’ homes.
The other girls’ home is at ‘Quipolli’, Leura, where there is accommodation for 28, from the age of seven to the time when they are fitted to face the world alone.
Domestic science, cookery, dressmaking, laundry, hospital training, and lace-making are among the crafts taught the girls. Lace-making is a special feature, and overseas visitors have compared it with advantage to that done by the women of France and Belgium. Quite a number of girls have their own gardens, for which prizes are awarded.
The Boys’ Home at Carlingford stands in 45 acres of grazing property. The boys receive tuition in carpentring, boot-repairing, house and farm work. In every way they are taught to develop a spirit of self-reliance, wholesome living, and usefulness. They attend the public school at Carlingford, belong to the Boy Scouts, and have a fine choir. On June 3 of this year a large workshop was presented by Mr F.E. Penfold.
History of the homes commences in 1863, at Woolloomooloo, when initial efforts were made to help destitute women and children by the late Canon T.B. Tress and the Rev. J.N. Manning, two Anglican gentleman whose names are commemorated in the Tress-Manning Home at Glebe Point, Mrs J.N. Manning, who is now 83 years of age, as a senior member of the executive committee, still attends the meetings.
From Woolloomooloo a move was made to Paddington, and further expansion necessitated a transfer to Darlinghurst, and in 1894 a group of girls’ homes at Glebe Point was established. The first homes were established at Carlingford in 1929.
No mention of the Church of England Homes for Children would be complete without reference to the late Matron McGarvey, whose love, understanding, and wisdom were of such great influence in the condust of the institution.
Miss McGarvey was matron of the homes for 35 years. It was largely owing to her efforts that the Carlingord Home for Girls was established. As Glebe Point developed more and more into an industrial area, she longed for a country environment for the children. She saw her ambition realised, and was at the Carlingford Home for a while before her retirement in February, 1930.
Miss McGarvey died in December of the same year.
Where children receive their natural heritage – The Australian Women’s Weekly, 2 September 1933 (PDF 241.9kb)
You can also access the article and The Australian Women’s Weekly through the National Library of Australia’s TROVE search service for digitised newspapers, magazines, photographs and more.
by Adele Chynoweth on 22 September, 2011
NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge will move to amend the Roman Catholic Church Trust Property Act so that victims have access to just compensation.
Mr Shoebridge’s aim is to attempt to overturn the 2007 Court of Appeal decision of a previous legal case. This ‘John Ellis’ case essentially says there is no organisation called the Catholic Church at law and that the property trust that holds all the church’s assets is not liable to be sued for damages by victims of abuse.
You can read the transcript of Mr Shoebridge’s speech on the NSW Parliament website.
Read Imre Salusinszky’s 21 Sepember 2011 report ‘Greens push for sexual abuse victims’ right to sue parishes’ on The Australian website.
Maureen Redding discussed the subject of Forgotten Australians with Michael Daley, MP, Member for Maroubra. As a result, last Thursday, in the NSW Legislative Assembly, Michael Daley argued in favour of Royal Commission and a national reparation fund for Forgotten Australians.
Download a transcript of Michael Daley’s speech (PDF 76.2kb) from NSW Parliament Hansard, 15 September 2011.
Sally Pryor, from The Canberra Times, reported on last week’s talk by Alfred Fletcher, author of Brutal: Surviving Westbrook Boys Home by Al Fletcher as told to Cheryl Jorgensen, at the National Museum of Australia.
[2020 note] You could previously access this article on The Canberra Times website.
Should every day be an R U OK? Day? R U OK? is a non-profit Australian organisation which aims to provide a national focus and leadership on suicide prevention.
R U OK? Day is Thursday 15 September 2011. You can read more at the R U OK? website
The Queensland Government has published key findings from consultations, beginning in 2000, with Forgotten Australians. You can download these findings from the website of the Queensland Department of Community Services.
Former inmate of Westbrook Farm Home for Boys, Alfred Fletcher, will speak at the National Museum of Australia on Thursday 1 September 2011 at 12.30 – 1.30 pm, in the Friends Lounge.
Alfred Fletcher was sent to Westbrook Farm Home for Boys in Toowoomba, west of Brisbane, in the 1960s. He was 15 years old. He lived there for two and a half years until he succeeded in running away. He likens his time there to living in a concentration camp. He endured floggings that tore his flesh, torture and abuse. Al records his experiences at Westbrook in his book, Brutal: Surviving Westbrook Boys Home by Al Fletcher as told to Cheryl Jorgensen which was published in 2006 and re-released in 2010. After Al escaped from Westbrook he worked as a merchant seaman and horticulturalist. He married, has grown up children and now lives in a Bayside suburb of Brisbane. His story is one of many that will be included in the upcoming NMA exhibition Inside: Life in Children’s Homes. Westbrook was established in 1900 by the Queensland Government to reform boys. In 1994 there was an inquiry into the operation of Westbrook and it was closed down.
The National Museum of Australia has produced a resource about Forgotten Australians for teachers of History and Studies of Society. This unit has been sent to every seconday school in Australia.
Download ‘The Forgotten Australians: a depth study’ (PDF 4.39MB)
‘We were just whipped away; we didn’t know where we were going,’ says Carmel Durant, who grew up in Bidura Home, Glebe, NSW and with various foster parents. Read Glenn Ellard’s report in the South Coast Register about the chalk drawing Carmel made when she was ten years old.
Carmel’s drawing will be part of the exhibition Inside: Life in Children’s Homes and Institutions which opens on 16 November 2011 at the National Museum of Australia, Canberra.
You can read the 10 August 2011 report on the South Coast Register website.
by Pat Brodnik (guest author) on 8 August, 2011
‘People are dying and even the press is starting to report these deaths, amazing …’ writes Pat Brodnik, who shares an article from The Age about the ‘unexpected, unnatural or violent’ deaths of 200 Victorian psychiatric patients.
You can read the 1 July 2011 article, ‘200 psych patients died suddenly’, on The Age website.
by Oliver Cosgrove (guest author) on 8 August, 2011
‘We noticed that the abuses happened when the Christian Brothers were at our strongest. We were thriving in terms of vocation, power and money. The government would not dare to question us.’ Read an interview with Brother Philip Pinto, head of the Congregation of Christian Brothers, who says religious life in its traditional sense is ‘dying’.
You can access the 5 January 2011 article on the Conference of Religious India Bulletin.
by Adele Chynoweth on 20 July, 2011
Journalist Neena Bhandari discusses the needs of Forgotten Australians and former Child Migrants in her article ‘Forgotten Australians demand more than apologies’.
Published on 20 July 2011 the article covers the compensation needs of Forgotten Australians and former Child Migrants, as well as their need to find family members.
[2020 note] You could previously access this article on the Rogers Digital International website.
by Rosie Klohs (guest author) on 18 July, 2011
‘No longer a number – my name is Rosie’. Rosie grew up as number 20280. Her experience as a state ward left her with post-traumatic stress disorder. She’s now in recovery and a Remembered Australian and made a short film about her experiences.
Rosie Klohs’ film, Sins of a Child, was published on the Moving Minds page on the Mental Illness Education ACT website.
by Margaret Spivey (guest author) on 18 July, 2011
‘I conducted an archaelogical excavation of my past …’ Listen to Margaret Spivey talk about her autobiography Defying the Gatekeeper: One Girl’s True Story of Resistance and Rebellion.
Defying the Gatekeeper is published by JoJoPublishing, VIC.
by Adele Chynoweth on 14 July, 2011
Listen to an interview with Dr Michael Davey, former ward of the state and author of ‘Journey of Hope’, on ABC Radio National.
Dr Davey recalled his experiences in foster care and at Royleston Boys Home in Sydney during an interview on the ‘Life Matters’ program on 14 July 2011.
Download the ‘Journey of Hope’ interview on the ABC website.
Journey of Hope is published by Arkhouse Books.
by Tom Thompson (guest author) on 12 July, 2011
The University of Melbourne, in 2009, acknowledged its prior use of children in orphanages as human guinea-pigs in medical research. Read Tom Thompson’s recollections of men in white coats giving him injections at a Children’s Home in Parkville, VIC.
Tom, who never owned a picture of himself when he was a child, received the image below just four years ago.
I’ve two scars on my left arm from medical testing of the antigen vaccination for the seed Salk Polio vaccine, done in the late 1950’s.
I don’t know the actual dates in which the different injections were given, as I’d never been to school or known what it meant for days of the week, months or years. I do however remember the events due to the pain and distress we endured.
I vividly remember being lined up before the men in white coats who came and gave the injections which blistered and caused so much pain.
Our life in the homes was strictly regimented and having strange men in white coats was something not to be forgotten.
I spent nearly 6 years in the Victorian Children’s Aid Society home at Parkville Victoria. Just across the road from Melbourne University and the Eliza institute in the same street of Parkville. Both institutions were involved in advanced medical research at that time utilising institutionalised children as guinea pigs.
Both institutions have acknowledged their culpability in this research and publically apologised, however like Dr Joseph Mengele who experimented on children in the concentration camps and was on the wanted list for (for over 40 years) and the Nuremberg trials over his barbaric experimentation on children, he escaped capture and prosecution and lived out his life in South America.
I believe these institutions and CSL [Commonwealth Serum Laboratories] should be tried for what they’ve done. Under law there is no statue of limitations on culpable homicide. The vaccine used in the early tests was contaminated and known to cause cancer and other health problems.
Some of the original ‘seed’ polio viruses that had been originally obtained from Salk laboratories in the United States of America in 1955 and used to manufacture Australian polio vaccines tested positive to being contaminated with SV40, and yet was still manufactured and utilised by these organisations on children.
Tests in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s confirmed that SV40 was potentially carcinogenic.
I live each day not knowing when or if I will fall victim to some unknown disease.
Governments, medical institutions and health authorities all shout loudly how we should trust them, as they know best, but like Joseph Mengele, the people time and places change, but things really stay the same.
The photo is me at an age I don’t know, it was given to me by Professor John Swan 4 years ago, and was taken at the home in Parkville. The Swan family took me out of the home for weekend visits over a number of years. The photo was taken by Dr Ailsa Swan (who has since died).
‘Melbourne Uni says sorry for trial on orphans’ 2009 report on The Age website
‘Polio vaccine tested at orphanages’ 2004 report on the Age website
‘Institutions, the convenient laboratories’ 1997 report on the Age website. This article won the Melbourne Press Club Quill Award.
‘Vaccines tested on Australian orphans’ as reported in The Independent, UK, in 1997.
by Oliver Cosgrove (guest author) on 12 July, 2011
Read the Catholic ‘Record’ newspaper’s report of the arrival of young Oliver Cosgrove, one of 65 children on board the SS ‘New Australia’ in 1953.
Oliver, aged four, and pictured on the right in the image below, was recruited from Nazareth House, London for the voyage. The ‘New Australia’ arrived on 22nd February 1953.
The report below is from the Perth Catholic newspaper, The Record, Thursday 26 February, 1953.
The photographs below were taken of the 1952 Christmas party at Nazareth House Hammersmith, London. One month later, some of these children boarded the ‘New Australia’.
A child migrant saw the photos on the noticeboard, removed them and brought them with her to Australia.
by Wilma Robb (guest author) on 7 July, 2011
The Australian Senate recently voted against Senator Nick Xenophon’s motion that the Heiner Affair be referred to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee for inquiry and report. Listen to Bravehearts‘ founder Hetty Johnston’s response.
Download the Hetty Johnston interview with Michael Smith on the 2UE website.
Download the Hansard excerpt (PDF 263kb) to read the report of the Legal and Constitutional References Committee discussion and to see how senators voted on 23 June 2011.
by Oliver Cosgrove (guest author) on 27 April, 2011
In a recent post on this website, Godfrey Gilmour, writes about his experience as a former Child Migrant. He remembers Father Cyril Stinson visiting his school in Malta in order to recruit boys to migrate to Australia. Oliver Cosgrove kindly contacted the National Museum with information about Father Stinson.
Father Cyril Stinson was the Director of the Catholic Episcopal Migration and Welfare Association Inc of Western Australia, an association that comprised the Archbishop of Perth, the Bishop of Geraldton, the Abbot of New Norcia, and the Vicar Apostolic of the Kimberleys. He was also, in 1952, the Australian representative in UK of the Federal Catholic Immigration Committee. Both of these organs worked to bring Catholics to Australia (including children).
A summary of one of Father Stinson’s radio braodcasts was published in the Times of Malta, 15 October, 1952.
by The Benevolent Society (guest author) on 21 April, 2011
Carolin Wenzel from The Benevolent Society lets us know about two current ways to support children’s safety. Members of the public are invited to suubmit their view to the Senate Inquiry into Family Law Legislation Amendment (Family Violence and Other Measures) Bill 2011 [Provisions]. There is also a Rally for Children’s Safety at Parliament House, Canberra, on Wednesday 25 May 2011.
Carolin Wenzel from The Benevolent Society writes:
I’m writing to let you know about two opportunities to support improving the Family Law Act to make it safer for children and parents who are victims of domestic violence.
You have probably heard about the Senate Inquiry into the Government’s Family Law Legislation Amendment (Family Violence and Other Measures) Bill, which was introduced into the House of Representatives by Attorney-General Robert McClelland on March 24th. Whilst this amendment is a positive step in the right direction, The Senate Inquiry is an opportunity to present a case for further changes to protect children and their carers under threat of ongoing violence from an ex-partner.
It’s very important, once again to get as many strong submissions to this Inquiry as possible. They won’t have any access to the submissions that were sent to the Attorney General in January. Submissions close on Friday April 29th – so please act now.
The other exciting development is that several groups are working together to hold a
Rally for Children’s Safety at Parliament House Canberra on Wednesday May 25
Speakers lined up so far are:
- Helen Cummings, author of “Blood Vows”
- Dr Lesley Laing, author of the No Way to Live Report
- Women’s Refuge Movement Executive Officer, Cat Gander
- Benevolent Society CEO Richard Spencer
- Bikers United Against Child Abuse
and we are working on several more, including parents who have harrowing experiences of poor parenting arrangement outcomes under the current Family Law Act.
We also feel it’s very important that the experiences and voices of children are a focus of this Rally.
We invite anyone who’s children have experienced trauma or feel unsafe about court imposed parenting arrangements to create a drawing or artwork respresenting how they feel, and to write a few words on another sheet of paper expressing their thoughts and feelings. They can just write their age (not their name so they are not identifiable)
If possible it would be great to laminate these and either bring them with you to the Rally or send them to me (address in signature below)
We would love you to come to the Rally, and The Benevolent Society is booking a bus to take up to 50 people from Sydney to leave early and be back in Sydney by 6pm that day.
We are working on an e-flyer and a place to link to info about the Rally online – so stay tuned for further updates.
Please pass on this message to anyone you think would be interested, and invite them to send me their email address so that I can include them in further updates.
I will ensure that individual emails are not revealed in any mail out.
Warm Regards,
Carolin Wenzel
by Adele Chynoweth on 13 April, 2011
A report, published yesterday in the Sydney Morning Herald, reveals abuse in NSW juvenile detention facilities. You may access the article here by clicking on the Sydney Morning Herald website.
