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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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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.

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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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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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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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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