Church of England Boys' Society Training Farm / Burton Hall Training Farm history in brief
The Church of England Boys' Society Training Farm (also known as St Hubert’s Training Farm or Lysterfield Boys' Farm) was originally situated at Lysterfield.
In 1942, with 40 boys in residence, the farm’s organiser and honorary secretary Rev RG Nichols, handed management of the farm to the Church of England Boys' Society (CEBS).
On 3 June 1944, after a fire destroyed the main barn and farm equipment, the CEBS decided to relinquish the site and the government took it over to build Lysterfield Lake, a water catchment.
At the end of 1945, the farm had been transferred from Lysterfield to Yering and CEBS were preparing to receive child migrants from Britain. In 1948, a farm at Tatura (Burton Hall) was donated, whereupon CEBS sold the Yering property and transferred the boys to Burton Hall at Tatura.
From mid-1950 to around 1967 (date cannot be verified), farm training activities operated as the CEBS Farm Training Scheme for Boys, including child migrants from the United Kingdom.
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Disclaimer
Please note that the content of this administrative history is provided for general information only and does not purport to be comprehensive. The department does not guarantee the accuracy of this administrative history. For more information on the history of child welfare in Australia, see Find & .
Source
FIND & CONNECT, History and information about Australian orphanages, children’s homes and other institutions, website:
List of records held by the department
For information relating to the central management of care leavers and wards of state, please consult the guide to Central department wardship and out-of-home care records. These collections date back to the 1860s and include ward registers, index cards and ward files.
Defunct Agency Adoption Records (Adoption Information Service)(c.1905-2011)
File ; Unappraised
Content: The Adoption Act 1984 allowed approved agencies to arrange and negotiate the adoption of children. It also required that agencies keep certain records. If an agency’s approval or operations ceased, their records were to be forwarded to the Secretary of the Department.
The Act also required the Department to establish an adoption information service (AIS), with access to both records created by the Department and the records of the former approved agencies. The adoption records now held by the Department were created by as many as 30 different adoption agencies that were in operation at different times. After the AIS was formed, circa 1985, it gathered the records of the various former agencies, numbered the files sequentially with an “A” prefix and created a full index.
Other AIS unnumbered adoption files and card indexes were also transferred at a later date. The records management unit allocated these records different numbering systems to distinguish between the card indexes from the files. The categories of files were grouped by the adoption agency they related to and the function of the file. Some of the file sequences also hold an "A" prefix as adoption files. However, the numbering system is separate to the first collection transferred from the AIS.
Content of files will vary but may include.
- Application to Adopt form
- Documents and correspondence supporting the application.
- Consent to Adopt and correspondence.
- Legal documents
- Birth certificates
- Photographs
Records in this collection attributed to the Mission to the Streets and Lanes are not numbered in the A sequence of files. Rather they were numbered using the Archives’ system of numbering files according to the identity of the collection and box they were located in. There are also two types of record in this collection:
- Adoption files identified by name of the adoptive parent, c1939-c.1970
- Mission House Registers containing adoption consent forms, c.1928–61.
There may be additional files relating to Mercy Maternity Hospital outside of these number ranges.
Voluntary children's homes files (c.1930-c.1985)
File ; Permanent VPRS Number 18069 / P0002
Content: The files record interaction between the various voluntary homes and the government. This filing system was created in 1975 combining earlier correspondence and other records to create one system with VH prefixes.
The specific file relating to the Church of England Boys’ Society Training Farm is dated from 1940–43 and includes:
- letter from Rev RG Nichols, St Mark’s Fitzroy, acknowledging allowances provided for boys in residence at Lysterfield Boys Farm, 1940
- letter from RR Way, Church of England Boys' Society, asking for details of two boys recently admitted to the farm ‘for Endowment purposes’, 1942.
- file note that all pieces to do with Lysterfield are to go to Church of England Boys' Society Secretary in future, 1943.
Voluntary children's homes files (c.1930-c.1985)
File ; Permanent VPRS Number 18069 / P0002
Content: The files record interaction between the various voluntary homes and the government. This filing system was created in 1975 combining earlier correspondence and other records to create one system with VH prefixes.
The specific file relating to the Church of England Boys’ Society Training Farm is dated from 1940–43 and includes:
- letter from Rev RG Nichols, St Mark’s Fitzroy, acknowledging payments for boys in residence at Lysterfield Boys Farm, 1940
- letter from RR Way, Church of England Boys' Society, asking for details of two boys recently admitted to the farm ‘for Endowment purposes’, 1942.
- file note that all pieces to do with Lysterfield are to go to Church of England Boys' Society Secretary in future, 1943.
Reviewed 10 August 2016