'Forgotten Australians' and 'Lost Innocents': child migrants and children in institutional care in Australia

• Janet Phillips, Coral Dow
• Information and Research Services, Parliamentary Library

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Image: Mosman Library / Flickr

18 November 2009On 30 August 2009, the anniversaries of the tabling of two landmark parliamentary committee reports, the Australian government announced that it would ‘issue a formal statement of acknowledgement and apology to Forgotten Australians and former child migrants.

This background note provides a brief overview and history of the arrival of child migrants from the United Kingdom and government responses to claims of their mistreatment whilst in institutional care in Australia. These children who arrived in Australia between 1920 and 1967 have been referred to in a number of Senate inquiries as the ‘Lost Innocents’.

Similarly, Australian-born children raised in institutional care during this time have also claimed mistreatment. During the 1995 inquiry into the removal of Aboriginal children from their families and the calls for an apology and compensation to Aboriginal children, non-Aboriginal children who also suffered in institutions called themselves the ‘Forgotten Australians’ and lobbied for similar recognition of past injustices. This background note also provides an overview of government responses to their claims.

Image: Mosman Library / Flickr.  David Hill - ex-Mosman Council garbo and boss of Soccer Australia, the ABC and NSW Railways - talks about his new book published by Random House. Part memoir, part oral history, "The Forgotten Children" tells the story of the child migrant schemes that operated under the auspices of Empire.