Tag: memorial

art, Child Migrants, events, Forgotten Australians, memories, objects, Responding to the National Apology, Stolen Generations

No more silent tears #2

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by Leigh Westin (guest author) on 14 July, 2011

Leigh Westin, who grew up in Scarba House and Parramatta Girls Home, is creating a memorial entitled No More Silent Tears for Forgotten Australians. The memorial is comprised of a large panel of handkerchiefs sewn together, each decorated by those who spent time in a Children’s Home or institution.

If you experienced institutional or out-of-home ‘care’ and would like to contribute to this memorial, then on a lady’s-sized handkerchief embroider and/or write in ink, your name, the name of the institutions(s) and the year(s) that you lived there. Please feel free to decorate it however you wish, so that it will be suitable for people of all ages to view. The important thing is that you only use a lady’s handkerchief so that Leigh can easily sew them together. You may, of course, make a handkerchief in order to remember a Forgotten Australian or former Child Migrant who has passed away.

You can then post it to:
Adele Chynoweth
National Museum of Australia
GPO Box 1901
Canberra ACT 2601

Adele will then pass the handkerchiefs onto Leigh. Please make sure that your contribution reaches Adele by close of business Friday 12 August, 2011.

Below are some of the handkerchiefs that have already been made.

events, Forgotten Australians, memories, music, photos

Memorial song

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by Adele Chynoweth on 3 June, 2011

Alan Bowles, who grew up in a Salvation Army Home, shares ‘Forgotten’, the song he wrote and performed at the unveiling of the Victorian memorial to Forgotten Australians, in Melbourne on 25 October 2010.

Attendees of the apology by the Salvation Army to former residents of children homes, Old Parliament House, Canberra.

[2020 note: audio file no longer available]

Hear more of Alan’s music on the Australian Johnny Cash & June Carter Show MySpace website

film, Forgotten Australians, memories

At the memorial

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by Adele on 16 December, 2010

On Friday 10th December the memorial to Western Australian Forgotten Australians was unveiled on the grassed area in front of the Western Australian Museum’s Jubilee Building, Perth Cultural Centre, James Street, Perth. A Forgotten Australian pauses at the memorial to share her memories.

I was once a street kid, a unwanted child who became one of the “Forgotten Australian’s”. On the streets of Perth I found shelter in a tree and changed my name to Victoria, so I could hide my true feelings of hopelessness, and despair.
documents, Forgotten Australians, photos

Children’s mass grave in Sydney

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By John Murray (guest author) on 1 November, 2010

Below are John Murray’s photographs taken of a re-interment ceremony held on 1 May 2000. Over 100 children’s bodies were re-interred at the site of the former Randwick Asylum for Destitute Children. The bodies were discovered during the rebuild of the psychiatric ward at Sydney Children’s Hospital. An archaeological survey was able to identify 40 of the bodies.

Randwick Asylum for Destitute Children was opened in 1852. The 1873 royal commission on public charities recommended that large institutions for children be closed down and that children be boarded out. At the time of the commission, the Randwick Asylum housed between 700 and 800 children. However, the Asylum did not begin boarding out children until 1883 and did not close until 1915.

The State Records Authority of New South Wales holds records of the Randwick Asylum for Destitute Children.

And the State Library of New South Wales has the report of the 1995 gravesite excavation.