The Female Orphan School is back
The Female Orphan School is back
The University of Western Sydney has unveiled the newly-restored Female Orphan School - the oldest three-storey brick building in Australia, and the nation's oldest public building.
Vice Chancellor, Janice Reid AM, spoke at the official re-opening on 20 October 2003 to commemorate the beginning of a new chapter in the building's amazing 190-year history.
I am very pleased and proud to welcome you all to the opening of the restored Female Orphan School and to thank you for coming.
I am delighted to welcome particularly: Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir AC, Governor of NSW, who will perform the opening; The Hon. Gough Whitlam, AC QC; Members of the NSW Parliament; The Mayors of Parramatta and Campbelltown; The Chairman and Director of the NSW Heritage Council; Honorary and Board members of the University of Western Sydney; Distinguished guests; and those with personal and family links to the building.
Between 1818 and 1886, hundreds of children were provided with shelter and a basic education at the Female Orphan School (later known as the Protestant Orphan School).
Mostly children of single parent families, the girls and later boys came from all parts of Australian society - the
children of convicts and soldiers, free settlers and Aborigines. Many children had fathers who had been killed whilst working for the government as policemen or railway workers or whose mothers were exhausted widows
struggling to manage large families whilst working as laundry women or
cooks.
Some of their descendents have joined us today.
From 1887 until the 1980s, the building was the male ward of the Rydalmere Psychiatric Hospital. In the absence of effective treatment for many mental illnesses, institutional care was the norm.
There was little distinction between those with psychiatric conditions and those with intellectual disabilities or neurological conditions such as epilepsy. Some of the patients' families and the health care professionals who worked at Rydalmere, including the director of the UWS Sydney Graduate School of Management, Professor David Lamond, are also here today.
The restoration of this unique historic building has been a long but very rewarding process.
There have been many contributors and there are many people to thank:
It is appropriate to begin with the historical and heritage community, health care professionals and patients' families who lobbied government for more than a decade to rescue the site from redevelopment for retail, commercial or residential buildings.
Their proactive work in ensuring that the Female Orphan School became more widely known was critical for its survival during years of neglect.
- The heritage architects at the Department of Public Works who during the 1980s undertook vital protective maintenance, such as repairing the roof of the empty building;
- The Heritage Council and the Department of Planning, which in the early 1990s established working parties with government agencies and Parramatta Council to look for a solution to preserve the buildings and re-use the site.
In the mid 1990s UWS expressed interest in the Rydalmere site for its Parramatta campus.
This was a solution allowing the sympathetic adaptation of the existing buildings (almost 40 of which were heritage-listed) and one which would bring new life to the area.
Instrumental at this stage, among others, were our Emeritus Chancellor, Sir Ian Turbott, Professor Jillian Maling of UWS and our Deputy Chancellor Ms Gabrielle Kibble, who was at that time Director-General of the NSW Department of Urban Affairs and Planning.
Re-design of the site as a university campus involved many people - master planner Kevin Snell, heritage advisors and architects Howard Tanner and Associates, the university's capital works staff and a large team of contract architects, engineers, builders and tradesmen. A watching brief was held by Professor Harry Irwin and university historian Associate Professor Carol Liston.
The Female Orphan School complex was not part of this initial phase. Its national heritage significance required more complex and expensive restoration.
The School, as many of you would know, was the first three-storey brick building to be erected in Australia. Set on top of a small but imposing hillside overlooking Parramatta, it was the first building in the Palladian design - an elegant Renaissance-style featuring a tall central building linked by corridors to smaller pavillion side wings.
This was the first purpose built social welfare institution in Australia.
It has been associated with education since it opened in 1818. It is fitting that it is now part of one of Australia's largest universities - a university that takes seriously its mission of serving its region and
redressing some of its historic educational and social disadvantages.
The detailed restoration of the central wing of the Female Orphan School has only been possible due to a grant of $1 million from the Heritage Council of New South Wales, the largest grant ever made for a heritage
building. UWS has matched and supplemented these funds as its own contribution to the heritage of the nation.
The restoration work has been undertaken by Tanner and Associates under Megan Jones with builders St Hilliers. The work embraces the Burra Charter, an international obligation to preserve as much as possible of the original building fabric of significant cultural landmarks. Remnants of the Orphan School and various phases of the psychiatric hospital have been uncovered and retained. You will find the restoration thought-provoking - some may even find it confronting - as it has peeled away the paint layers of the years.
It is appropriate in a university that this building can challenge your mind, your eyes and your emotions - for these are the tools of learning as well as architectural restoration.
With its foundation stone laid in September 1813, 190 years ago, the Female Orphan School survives as the oldest public building in Australia. The university intends that it remain a public place - a site for engagement between the university and the community.
Restoration of the remaining wings remain a dream, the high cost beyond the university on its own.
The Female Orphan School was designed by Elizabeth Macquarie, wife of Governor Macquarie. Designed as an institution for women by a woman, it is a copy of her childhood home in Scotland.
The art works we are showing by contemporary female artists were chosen to link with and reflect the building's original purpose and nature.
Thank you again for joining us for this celebration, and I hope you will all have occasion to visit the School again for educational, cultural or community events.
I will now invite Her Excellency the Governor of NSW, Professor Marie Bashir, to unveil the plaque and address guests.
