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Health and Welfare

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Aged care homes Benevolent asylums Community centres Hospitals Nursing homes Orphanages Refuges Women's health

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Health and Welfare Institutions

Benevolent Society and Asylum

The Benevolent Society, and the asylum (and later hospitals, clinics and aged care centres) it ran, provided care and sustenance to Sydney's poorest from the 1820s. Although it was founded under the auspices of the Colonial Auxiliary Bible Society, it gradually became a secular, independent non-profit organisation.

Bidura

As the primary hub for child welfare in Sydney, Bidura is a place shared by members of the Stolen Generations and Forgotten Australians and is remembered by them with little fondness.

Children's institutions in nineteenth-century Sydney

Concern about neglected and destitute children led to the formation of several different kinds of institutions to feed, house, train and sometimes care for them.

Hospitals

Despite medical and scientific advances, the huge hospital complexes of today face similar challenges of staffing, capacity and politics as those of Sydney's first tent hospitals.

Karitane

Founded in 1923 as part of a worldwide wave of concern about newborn health, Karitane provided care and education to generations of Sydney mothers and nurses.

Karitane Products Society factory Surry Hills

In the aftermath of World War I, and with the onset of the Great Depression, concern over the high levels of infant morality in Australia led the drive to develop locally made, affordable baby care products.

Royleston

Royleston, like the nearby girls' institution, Bidura, served as a depot for children in the New South Wales Government child welfare system from 1922 until 1983 providing temporary accommodation for children in transit between children's court hearings, foster care and institutions. For many members of the Stolen Generations and Forgotten Australians, it was a harsh and loveless place.

Shaftesbury Reformatory

In 1880, the Shaftesbury Reformatory for Girls opened in a converted old hotel building on New South Head Road, Vaucluse. Several other institutions including the Shaftesbury Institute for Destitute Inebriates and the Shaftesbury Home for Mothers and Babies took the reformatory's place over the following decades, until the buildings were demolished in 1930 and the land sold.

Yarra Bay House

Yarra Bay House, originally built at La Perouse as a cable station, served as a NSW Government children's home from around 1917 until the 1980s. Since 1984 it has been owned by the La Perouse Local Aboriginal Land Council and has been the hub of the La Perouse Aboriginal community.

Female Orphan School, George Street

Two storey Georgian building on the corner of George and Bridge Streets that housed destitute girls. It was purchased by the government in 1801 from its former owner Lieutenant Kent and closed in 1829 when the purpose built orphanage at Parramatta was completed.

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Karitane Mothercraft Home

Home established at 72 Howard Street Coogee by the Australian Mothercraft Society for mother and baby care. Named for the town in New Zealand where Dr Truby King had a home.

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Myee

Late Victorian residence built for solicitor and Mayor of Rockdale John Horatio Clayton. It became a home for babies and young unmarried mothers who had been committed by the Children's Court to state care. Some mothers retained their babies after they left Myee, but many babies were adopted. From 1977 it was used as a home for secondary school aged boys who were considered to have intellectual disabilities.

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Randwick Asylum for Destitute Children

Large sandstone asylum for 400 children built on 60 acres at High Cross Randwick by the Society for the Relief of Destitute Children. A new wing built in 1863 housed a further 400 children. During World War I it was used as a military hospital for wounded and disabled returned servicemen.

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Royleston

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Federation mansion which was converted by the State Children's Relief Board in 1922. It became a receiving home providing temporary accommodation for school-age boys who were waiting for children's court hearings or were state wards waiting to be placed in foster care or another institution. In 1936, 904 boys passed through its doors. It housed the Childrens Court from 1983 until 1992 when it was restored for holiday accommodation.

Royal Commission into the former Chelmsford Private Hospital and Mental Health Services in New South Wales 1988-1990

Royal Commission, better known as the Chelmsford Royal Commission, that investigated the use of deep-sleep therapy, a controversial treatment for psychiatric illnesses, between 1963 and 1979 at the Chelmsford Private Hospital in north west Sydney. The Commission was established after an investigation by the Sydney Morning Herald and was chaired by Commissioner Justice Slattery. It found that 24 people had died as a result of the treatment. Only four of the deaths had been investigated by a coroner. The report led to the treatment being banned and changes to the way coroners worked in New South Wales.

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Australian Red Cross

Voluntary aid organisation formed as a branch of the British Red Cross in Melbourne in August 1914. It was quickly adopted and established in each state by the wives of each state governor.

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Benevolent Society of New South Wales

An early charitable society, founded in 1813 and renamed the Benevolent Society in 1818, that became one of Sydney's largest health and welfare providers.

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Fisher Road Special School

Public school in Dee Why established in 1953, catering for students between the ages of 4 and 18 who have a moderate to severe intellectual disability.

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Health Infrastructure

Arm of the New South Wales government's Department of Health that oversees the planning, design, procurement and construction of health capital works in NSW

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Karitane

Philanthropic health care organisation for mothers and babies which grew out of the work of Doctor Truby King.

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Parramatta Benevolent Society

Charitable society established in 1838 to provide social welfare services in the Parramatta area

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Royal Institute for the Deaf and Blind Children

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Charitable organisation that educated deaf, dumb and blind children, and became one of Sydney's large charities. It moved to North Rocks in 1961, leaving its grand building to become part of the University of Sydney.

Tresillian Family Day Care Centres

Organisation formed to co-ordinate childhood and maternal services in response to statistics during World War I that showed 63,000 Australian servicemen had lost their lives fighting, whilst 70,000 children under 5 had died through poverty, lack of hygiene and disease in the same period.

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Vision Australia

National agency which was formed following the merger of the Royal Blind Society (RBS), the Royal Victorian Institute for the Blind (RVIB), Vision Australia Foundation (VAF), and the National Information Library Services (NILS) in July 2004.

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Durant, Carmel

Child who was removed from her family at age 11 due to poverty and designated a state ward. For seven years she endured a harsh life in and out of state institutions.

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Echo Farm

Home of the Bate family in Roseville which, in 1892, became a home for inebriates..

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Aboriginal Medical Service, Redfern 1980

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Contributed By

National Archives of Australia

[A6180, 22/4/80/19]

Boy Scouts' visit to the Royleston Crippled Boys' Home for State Wards, Glebe May 1925

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From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

[BN336]

(Sydney Mail, June 3, 1925, p19)

Clients at the Aboriginal Medical Service, Redfern 1974

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Contributed By

National Archives of Australia

[NAA A8739, A2/8/74/22]

Cover of 'Female immigration considered in a brief account of the Sydney Immigrants' Home' by Caroline Chisholm 1842

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Contributed By

National Library of Australia

[FRM F3376]

Female Orphan School, Parramatta 1870-1875

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By

American & Australasian Photographic Company

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

[a5408001 / SPF/2661]

(Mitchell Library)

Female Orphan School, Parramatta c1820s

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By

Joseph Lycett

Contributed By

National Library of Australia

[nla.pic-an7690892]

Medical Officers of the School Medical Service 29 June 1925

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Back row: Dr JW Bruce, Dr S Buckingham, Dr C Madde, Dr W Dillon-Smith, Dr WC Malone, Miss AB Harris, Dr AE Machin, Dr PL Quessy, Dr D McClemens, Dr N Robertston

Front row: Dr SC Bevan, Dr G Vale, Dr LOS Poidevin, Dr Harvey Sutton OBE (Principal Medical Officer), Dr CO Stewart, Dr IF Coghlan, Dr M Edelsten-Pope

Absent: Dr A McCloy, Dr D Ratcliff, Dr WK Flook

Contributed By

State Archives & Records New South Wales

[NRS-3943]