Magill Youth Training Centre

The first official State institution for children in South Australia, completed in 1869, was the Magill Industrial School, as a home for children who were destitute, neglected, or orphaned,[2] and placed in State care, but not yet placed in foster homes or in employment.[3] They had previously been housed in the Grace Darling Hotel in Brighton.[4] The Girls' Reformatory, Magill, shared the site from 1881 to 1891 as did the Boys' Reformatory, Magill, from 1869 to 1880. Misbehaving boys in the Industrial School were placed in the Reformatory.[4]

Between 1880 and 1891, the boys were moved to a moored hulk called the Fitzjames at Largs Bay[5] and later further up the Port River (and various other anchorages nearby, depending on the weather[6]), with the girls remaining at Magill. The Fitzjames was a wooden sailing ship built in 1852 which carried more than 1,800 immigrants from England to Australia.[7] After leaking badly in 1866 it was declared unseaworthy and condemned and left to rot on the Yarra River in Melbourne.[7] It was purchased by the South Australian Government in 1876 as a quarantine ship[6] and used to temporarily house immigrants with infectious diseases. Between 1880 and 1891 the hulk was used to house boys convicted of crimes or determined to be "uncontrollable".[7] Pumps were operated by the boys for up to three hours a day to expel water that was leaking into the hulk and keep it from sinking. Because of its poor conditions, the hulk became known as "Hell afloat".[8]

A Royal Commission was ordered into the Destitute Board in 1883, which found the boys at Fitzjames in "pallid and dull appearance" and conditions described as "depressing" with "wearisome monotony of life", "gross improprieties" between younger children and older youths and officers, "deplorable" education standards and "defects in the dietary and want of open-air exercise".[7] The Way Commission tabled its report in State Parliament in 1885. The report recommended Fitzjames' immediate closure and relocation of the boys to a land-based facility. Six years later the boys were removed from the Fitzjames and moved back to the site of the Magill Industrial School.

The Fitzjames was towed up the Port River into the Jervois Basin, where it now rests among a group of other scuttled ships in the Jervois Basin Ships' Graveyard.[6]

In 1891 a new Girls' Reformatory was built in Edwardstown, South Australia,[9] and the Industrial School was moved into the girls' quarters at Magill, once again sharing the site with the Boys' Reformatory.[10] The Training School moved to Edwardstown in 1898 (renamed Glandore in 1949).[11]

In 1967 the site was established as the McNally Training Centre, for boys aged 15–18 sentenced by Juvenile Court or being held on remand.[12] Younger boys aged 9–15 were sent to Brookway Park.[13] In 1979 the McNally Training Centre became the South Australian Youth Training Centre (SAYTC) for youths aged between 15 and 18.[14]

In 1993 the site became the Magill Training Centre[10] to house young people aged 10–14, and the boys aged 15–18 were moved to a new purpose-built facility, the Cavan Training Centre.[15] Young women from the South Australian Youth Remand and Assessment Centre (SAYRAC) were moved to Magill and housed at a separate section of the Centre when SAYRAC closed.[10]

By the 2000s, the department acknowledged the need for a replacement facility for the ageing institution, and incidents at the facility between 2004 and 2008 were investigated for the Children in State Care Commission of Inquiry ("the Mullighan Inquiry").[10]