Fairbridge

Fairbridge, Western Australia is a former farm school near Pinjarra in Southwest Western Australia.

Fairbridge, Western Australia is a former farm school near Pinjarra in Southwest Western Australia. It is now used predominantly for education, school and community camps and tourism purposes.

On 15 April 1912, Kingsley Fairbridge and his wife, Ruby Fairbridge, arrived in Albany, Western Australia, from England and made their way to Pinjarra, arriving on 16 July that same year to establish the world's first Fairbridge Farm School. The school opened on 19 October 1912. Kingsley wanted to see "little children shedding the bondage of bitter circumstances and stretching their legs and minds amid the thousand interests of the farm."

From 1913 to 1982, Fairbridge Farm School was home to a total of 3,580 children who came to Fairbridge under various child migration schemes. The school provided education in task-learning, husbandry, metal work and wood work. During World War II, Dutch refugee children evacuated from Indonesia were based at Fairbridge while they were waiting to be reunited with their families. The site was also used as a training ground for the Women's Land Army, and Guildford Grammar School partially relocated there while their school was used as a hospital base. An airfield was constructed and operated from the school during the Second World War until the 1950s.

The Australian Heritage Commission commented, when announcing theof Fairbridge on the Interim List of the Register of the National Estate in December 1997 that "Fairbridge is a striking example of Australia’s early philanthropic movement to resettle and educate migrant children."The Chair of the Heritage Commission at the time, Wendy McCarthy stated that "'by entering Fairbridge in the Interim List of the Register of the National Estate, we are not only recognising the efforts of this philanthropist, Kingsley Fairbridge, but also its role in a significant phase in Australia’s migration history. From 1912 to 1980, Fairbridge Pinjarra played a significant role in the development of the British Empire and Australian migration history on child, single parent and family migration schemes.

Many of the child migrants were falsely told that they were orphans and consequently never saw their families again. In 1986, the first Australian child migrant approached the British government to seek reparation. The approach eventually led to the establishment of the Child Migrant Trust in 1987. The Australian Government apologised for its involvement in the scheme, and in 1998 the Western Australian Government apologised to the former child migrants: "The Western Australian Government apologises to former child migrants who suffered physical, emotional and sexual abuse in the state's institutions". The following year the Christian Brothers, Sisters of Mercy and Poor Sisters of Nazareth launched a computerised personal history index to the records of former child migrants.

On 24 February 2010, Brtish Prime Minister Gordon Brown made a formal apology to the families of children who suffered. On 31 January 2019, the UK Government announced that following the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, which handed down its report in May 2018, the UK Government would make an ex-gratia payment of GB£20,000 to any former British child migrant who was alive on 1 March 2018, or if alive as at that date and since deceased, the payment would be made to the deceased's beneficiaries.In July 2020, it was reported that the Australian Government had named Fairbridge Restored Limited as one of six institutions that had failed to sign up for the National Redress Scheme by the June 30 deadline. In November 2020, The Guardian reported that Fairbridge Restored Limited was dormant and under administration, and that the administrator, Chris Laverty, had claimed that insolvency law in the UK meant Fairbridge was unable to comply with the redress scheme criteria.

Fairbridge was visited by the Duke and Duchess of York in 1927; Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, in 1964; and Prince Charles in 1979.

The chapel is the only building in Australia designed, and with construction overseen by noted British architect Sir Herbert Baker. Described as "the architectural jewel in the crown" of Fairbridge Village, the chapel was built in 1930–31 by the Western Australian Government with construction funded by British interests.