By Oliver Cosgrove (guest author) on 12 July, 2011
Read the Catholic ‘Record’ newspaper’s report of the arrival of young Oliver Cosgrove, one of 65 children on board the SS ‘New Australia’ in 1953. Read more >
Posted in articles/lectures, Child Migrants, photos | Tagged Christian Brothers, Clontarf, London, Nazareth House, Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of Nazareth, St Vincent's Foundling Home, Victoria
By Patrick O'Flaherty (guest author) on 1 July, 2011
Patrick O’Flaherty arrived in Australia in 1947 thinking he was a war orphan and not knowing that his mother was alive in England. Read Patrick’s contribution to ‘Where’s the fair go? The decline of equity in Australia’, for more on his life in Australia, his shaky reunion with his mother and reconnecting with his family in Wales and Ireland. Read more >
Posted in Child Migrants, memories | Tagged Australian Capital Territory, Christian Brothers, Clontarf, education, family, identity, Sisters of Nazareth, SS Asturias, Western Australia, World War II
By Adele on 8 June, 2011
An X-ray scan of a leather strap made by Bill Brennan, who grew up in Clontarf Boys’ Town, WA, shows internal metal reinforcements inserted to give the strap more strength. Read more >
Posted in Child Migrants, Forgotten Australians, objects, photos | Tagged child labour, Christian Brothers, Clontarf, Western Australia
By Oliver Cosgrove (guest author) on 17 May, 2011
Oliver Cosgrove writes in response to personal histories about child slave labour in children’s homes. He refers to a photograph of children building the swimming pool at Clontarf Boys’ Town, and notes that such work contravened the International Labour Organisation Convention. Read more >
Posted in Child Migrants, documents | Tagged child labour, Christian Brothers, Clontarf, education, Western Australia
By Oliver Cosgrove (guest author) on 27 April, 2011
In a recent post on this website, Godfrey Gilmour, writes about his experience as a former Child Migrant. He remembers Father Cyril Stinson visiting his school in Malta in order to recruit boys to migrate to Australia. Oliver Cosgrove kindly contacted the National Museum with information about Father Stinson. Read more >
Posted in articles/lectures, Child Migrants, documents, Responding to the National Apology | Tagged Christian Brothers, Clontarf, Malta, Western Australia
By Godfrey Gilmour (guest author) on 13 April, 2011
“Imay not have been an orphan in the real sense of the word, and my experience at Clontarf as a state ward, however, was full of orphaning experiences”. Godfrey Gilmour, a retired Anglican priest, noticed himself as a child in a photograph, published on this website, taken by Mick O’Donoghue at Clontarf Boys Town in the 1950s. Here, he shares his experiences as a child migrant from a loving family in Malta to the humiliating conditions at Clontarf. Read more >
Posted in Child Migrants, memories, photos | Tagged autobiography, bed wetting, child labour, Christian Brothers, Clontarf, education, family, food, Malta, photographs, sexual abuse, Western Australia
By Oliver Cosgrove (guest author) on 23 March, 2011
Below is a copy of the report on the visit, in July 1948, to Castledare Junior Orphanage, WA, by the Secretary of the Child Welfare Department, State Migration Officer and two inspectors also from the Child Welfare Department. Read more >
Posted in Child Migrants, documents, Forgotten Australians | Tagged Castledare, Christian Brothers, Clontarf, files/records, Western Australia
By Oliver Cosgrove (guest author) on 7 February, 2011
This photograph kindly forwarded to the National Museum by Oliver Cosgrove shows the interior of the chapel at the former Clontarf Boys Town, now Clontarf Aboriginal College. Read more >
Posted in Child Migrants, Forgotten Australians, memories, photos | Tagged child labour, Christian Brothers, Clontarf, photographs, Western Australia
By Adele on 14 December, 2010
This leather strap was made by William ‘Bill’ Brennan when a man in his 50s as a copy of the ones he made as a boy in the leather workshop of Clontarf Christian Brothers Home. It was offered to the National Museum by Bill’s brother, Anthony. Read more >
Posted in Child Migrants, Forgotten Australians, memories, objects | Tagged Christian Brothers, Clontarf, Western Australia
By Bill Brennan (guest author) on 14 December, 2010
Bill Brennan, a former resident of Clontarf Boys’ Town, who made the leather strap in another post, wrote about his experience of being cast a ‘child lover’. Read more >
Posted in Child Migrants, memories | Tagged autobiography, Christian Brothers, Clontarf, sexual abuse, Western Australia
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