Fairbridge Farm

Between 1938 and 1973 the gardens at Fairbridge Farm sustained the 1200 boys and girls who spent formative years there.

Fairbridge Farm School was opened thirteen years after the untimely death of Kingsley Fairbridge, an idealist who, in 1912, founded the 'Society for the Furtherance of Child Emigration to the Colonies'.

Trainee with his arms full of produce and another using a wheeled seed tiller in the vegetable garden, c 1948.

Image courtesy: Molong and District Historical Society

Young boys in the vegetable garden, c.1948.

Image courtesy: Molong and District Historical Society

Today the site is abandoned. The surviving trees a reminder of the work put into the once well-established gardens by underprivileged British child migrants.

Aerial view of Fairbridge Farm surrounded by farmland.

Image courtesy: Molong and District Historical Society

Whereas the farm ran as a commercial and training enterprise, a supervisor directed the children in the husbandry of extensive orchards and vegetable gardens. So productive were they that the school was almost completely self-sufficient in food.

Competitive spirit ensured the ornamental gardens of the dormitory cottages were kept up. At one period the cottage mother of Rose Cottage planted a rose for each girl in her care.