Salvation Army Island Bay Home, 1912 – 1928

The Salvation Army bought the nine-room house at 16 Melrose Street in September 1909. From January 1912 this was opened as a boy’s Home providing residential care for 30 to 45 boys aged 4 to 14 years old. Commandants / Managers were Albert Scotney, Charles Davies, Edward Albert Brown around 1920, and Charles Frederick Botteley. In December 1928 the boys were transferred to the Wallaceville Boys’ Home in Upper Hutt. The Salvation Army Territorial Archives, 204 Cuba Street, P O Box 6015, Wellington, hold registers of children in their orphanages. From 1929 this large house became a Eventide Home for elderly women and from 1975 a Bridgehaven Rest Home for people with alcohol issues. In 1985 the Salvation Army sold this property.

Presbyterian, Island Bay Girls’ Home 1918 – 1938 c

The Island Bay Girls’ Home, costing £4,000, was opened in October 1918 with access up from 74 Derwent Street. Forty girls were in residence in 1919, as shown in the annual reports held at Alexander Turnbull Library. Matrons were Miss Lottie Gray (1918 – 1931); Miss Mary Stephenson, Miss Mary Lambie and then Miss May Chisholm followed by her sister Miss Molly Chisholm. The honorary medical officer, Dr Leonard Arthur Line ‘ministered daily to the little patients at the Girls’ Home’ and Miss Lambie’s ‘devoted and efficient nursing’ contributed to happy outcomes when measles broke out in 1937. Ground improvements that included the removal of a hill, were completed in May 1938 and were mostly funded by the Labour Department. This made available an area for more gardens and play areas. A steady decline in admissions during the 1930’s led to the closure of this home and the remaining girls moved back to the Berhampore Home.

From 1939, these buildings were leased, at an annual rent of £416, to the Wellington Hospital Board, as the Island Bay Convalescent Home with beds for 22 patients and Miss Mabel Ellen Brown as matron. These buildings, from 1951 became Kilmarnock, Home for the Aged at 1 Severn Street, Island Bay, for 50 years. Most were demolished in 2007.

Other children’s residential homes around South Wellington were

• Polish Boys’ Hostel, 167 Clyde Street, Island Bay, 1946 – 1952

• Polish Girls’ Hostel, 112 Queens Drive, Lyall Bay, 1947 – 1958

• Presbyterian small homes in Washington Avenue, Brooklyn, 1909 – 1912 and in Waterloo Avenue, Newtown (now eastern part of Wilson Street) 1910 – 1912

• Presbyterian Berhampore Home for Boys & Girls at ‘The Glen’, 20 Morton Street, Berhampore from 1895 until about 1947

• Salvation Army Florence Booth Girls’ Home at 196 Owen Street, Newtown 1907 – 1969