Inscription and Marks"THE | ANDREW REID | COTTAGE" embossed
MeasurementsW: 51.0cm
H: 20.0cm
D: 1.0cm
Subject and Association KeywordsFairbridge Farm
Subject and Association DescriptionIn 1909, South African born Kingsley Fairbridge founded the Society for the Furtherance of Child Emigration to the Colonies. Kingsley Fairbridge migrated to Australia. He opened a farm school at Pinjarra in Western Australia in 1912. In the 1950s the Society also introduced the Family Migration Scheme which catered for single parent families and families with five or more children. By 1960 nearly 3,580 children had been sent to Fairbridge Farm schools in Western Australia and Molong NSW.
After a halt in migration during World War II, the Molong Farm School began accepting large numbers of child migrants in the post-war period, known as the ‘Populate or Perish’ era of Australian immigration policy. The farm had thriving market gardens, orchards, animal husbandry and ornamental gardens operating as a commercial and training enterprise. The efforts of some 1,200 children contributed to the farm becoming almost self-sufficient.
Construction of Fairbridge Farm School at Molong began in 1937. The original plan was for 20 cottages, each housing approximately 14 children, with a total capacity of more than 300. In the end 15 cottages were built. Buildings included: the principal’s house, guest house, residential cottages, farm assistants’ cottages, garages, offices, dining hall, kitchens, cooks’ quarters, laundry, hospital, store, bakery, slaughterhouse, meat house, dairy, piggery, poultry shed, silos, feed shed, workshop, storeroom, a shearing shed and a chapel.
Arrival at the farm saw the children allocated into cottages each managed by a cottage mother. This model was designed as an attempt to simulate a home environment.
It was common for girls to perform domestic duties, and boys the farm chores. Children were woken by the school bell at 6am and queued for showers. Many chores started before daylight. The boys milked the cows and fed the pigs, the girls polished the dining hall floors, set tables and helped with the cooking. At 7am the bell rung again for breakfast which was usually porridge, milk, bread and honey. Children ate the evening meal in their cottage.
Tin plates and bowls were used by the children living at the school and the ceramic dinnerware such as this was used by staff and visitors.
Main duties performed by the girls included: raking paths, learning to sew and mend, serving guests, working at the school hospital, blackening stoves, weeding and washing. When the girls were older they learnt to fetch wood, stook hay and catch rabbits.
The younger boys collected wood chips for the heater early each morning, while the older boys brought in the 50 milking cows to the dairy at 3 am and then again at 3 pm, seven days a week. The boys undertook tasks such as: working in the dairy, piggery and poultry shed, butchering sheep, chopping wood, ploughing, harvesting, stooking hay, chaff cutting, shearing, feeding poddy calves, carpentry and metalwork and feeding the boiler with wood to maintain the hot water. The boys were allowed to undertake various jobs on farms in the Molong area for pocket money.
The Fairbridge children also took part in rabbit drives on farms during the rabbit plagues.
