Parramatta Girls Home 1 Fleet St Parramatta NSW Australia. Known also as the Industrial School for Girls, Girls Training School and Girls Training Home this state controlled child welfare institution operated from 1887 until 1974.
Parramatta Girls Home was established in the former premises occupied by the Roman Catholic Orphan School and was the third in a succession of child welfare institutions for girls. Australia's first Industrial School for Girls was established in 1867 in the former military barracks at Newcastle and was known as the Newcastle Industrial School and Reformatory for Girls. In 1871 Newcastle closed and the remaining inmates were transferred to a new site established on Cockatoo Island known as the Biloela Industrial School (1871–1887) on Cockatoo Island, NSW.
Parramatta Girls Home served the dual purpose as a Reformatory and a Training School with girls committed to the institution on 'Complaints' under the Child Welfare Act as Delinquent (Uncontrollable, Absconding from proper custody, Breach of probation) Neglected (Exposed to moral danger, No fixed place of abode & destitute, Improper guardianship, Truancy) or Offences Juvenile Offenders - Crimes Act(Stealing, Assaults, Robbery, Murder, Sex Offences, Malicious Damage).
The mixing together of these distinct types of individuals within the confines of one institution was always problematic with authorities recognising that innocent girls were exposed to the corrupting behaviour of others. Attempts to ensure the safety of innocent girls led to the creation of two divisions within the institution. The first attempt was the establishment of a "Training Home" in the former hospital building located to the south of the main site. The Training Home operated from 1912 until around 1926 at which time an alternative site was established at La Perouse.(Girls Training School, La Perouse also known as Yarra Bay House).
The population of the girls home included many indigenous girls, mostly those who belong to the Stolen Generation, and by far was dominated by girls whose families experienced poverty or abuse, or girls who had been orphaned or made state wards at an earlier age.
Whilst in the home school aged girls received minimal education with most kept occupied in training as domestic servants (cleaning, sewing, cooking, laundry, and maintenance work). The closed operations of the institution, authoritarian rule, daily routine and poor conditions encouraged a climate of abuse and bullying and in securing their own safety girls would form allegiances and like the culture of prisons, developed a ‘lover’ or ‘kinship’ system of exchanged notes, hand-holding, kissing, scratching initials into their body and secret codes (ILWA, I love worship adore/always, or TID, till I die, or SML) used to express affection. With the arrival or discharge of girls, new allegiances were developed often causing petty jealousies and disputes. A rebuffed girl would often resort to a form of retaliation called ‘dogging’ or a ‘top off’ where she would report a girl to an officer for a breach of rules.
Riots occurred frequently, with the first officially investigated riot occurring in 1889. Other riots occurred during the 1940s, and in 1958 and 1961 with most attributed to the treatment girls were receiving. Until 1961 girls on the secondary (institutional) offence 'Conduct to the prejudice of good order and discipline' were sent to Long Bay Prison for three months. This arrangement changed in July 1961 when the Hay Institution for Girls, NSW, was established as a maximum security annex of Parramatta Girls Home.
Parramatta Girls Home was officially closed in July 1974, it continued to operate as a welfare institution under a new name, Kamballa and Taldree. In 1980 the Department of Corrective Services took over the main buildings and since that time it has operated as the Norma Parker Detention Centre for Women.
[Parramatta Girls Home http://www.parragirls.org.au] OR