Anchorage Home

Year Closed: 1920

Other names:

Anchorage Rescue Home, or Anchorage Refuge

The Anchorage Home, run by the Ladies Christian Association, opened in 1889. It was initially in Hobart. Later it moved to New Town. The Home was for young single mothers having their first baby. It closed in 1920.

The Anchorage Home opened on 17 September 1889 in Carr Street, off Argyle Street. The house had a sitting room, Kitchen, scullery, four bedrooms, and a large yard with room for a garden, a chicken run, and to dry clothes.

By 1891, the house had become too small and the Home moved to Argyle Street. In 1894, it moved arain, this time to its permanent site in Pedder Street, Newtown, in the building of the former Normal School. The building had earlier been used by the Hobart Town Female Refuge and the Hobart Girls’ Industrial School.

The Committee believed that young single mothers having their first child were most likely to reform. Mothers and babies remained in the home for a year. After, that they were found a position, where the children could go too, otherwise, the child was boarded, and the mother had to pay costs.

The Anchorage Home closed in 1920 because it could not compete with the Anglican Home of Mercy and the Salvation Army’s Elim Maternity Home.