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CHAPTER 15
THE ORPHAN SCHOOLS
It is the number of orphans and destitute children which
there is in the colony - Surely, our young Tasmanians are
worth cherishing in their early days when in helpless
infancy they are bereaved of their parents . The numb er of
poor, destitute orphans is really deplorable, we may add
unexampled, and the ship "Sir Char les Forbes" had added
thereto , by the chi ldren (one an infant) of those women
who died on the passage . These poor little innocents who
lost their mothers soon after the birth of some of them,
and whose fathers are either dead, or cannot be found, are
thrown on a strange land, without a friend and without an
asylum to receive them, except the Colonial Hospital .
.. . . An Orphan School is necessary .... for the protect ion,
instruction and support of poor, destitute and helpless
orphans .
Thus wrote the Colonial Times in its sub-leader on January 12, 1827.
Although the Orphan School was established in good faith by the Government
in respons e to stat ements such as this , the prob lem of the orphan chi ldren
remained as a sore thorn in the Executive flesh for any years .
April 23 , 1839 , the Colonial Times severely criticized the management
of the children , accusing the Government of a "mistaken system of
parsimonious economy" :
was pleasing , the interior was not so ;
co ld, comfort less and ill-arranged;
wh ilst the outward appearance of the building
On
the chi ldren 's ap artments were
the washing places were highly
ob jectionable, being cell-like places paved with flags , open at beth
ends with a stone trough in the centre ;
pavements was detrimental to health ;
chi ldren were blue with the cold;
and unsheltered .
ab jectness and squalor.
the prevalence of stone
there was no fire and the
even the playgrounds were too exposed
The paper described the general appearance as one of
We have seen many assemb !ages of chi ldren in our time , both
at home and ab road, but never did we see two hundred human
beings , that exhib ited so squalid an appearance , as did the
majority of the Queen 's Orphans .