The aims of the Reformatory included:

	reforming young offenders; and
	keeping young offenders separate from adult criminals in gaols.

Boys were sent to the Reformatory by the Courts.  Prior to arrival at the Reformatory, most boys spent about 10 days in gaol, according to the Training Schools Act.

According to Brown in Poverty is Not a Crime (pp.148-149):

Efforts were made to educate the boys, teach them trades and later find them apprenticeships.  As such, the boys completed about three hours of tuition in the 3Rs each day;  the remainder of the day being given to instruction in agriculture, gardening or carpentry.  A mark system was introduced with the aim of stimulating the boys to good behaviour and industry. 

The Reformatory was governed by a Board of Managers, which included Ministers of Religion and prominent members of the public, including the Mayor of Hobart who was an ex-officio member.

For a list of other reformatories and associated institutions click here. And for a synopsis of a talk given at a Female Factory Research Group meeting by Joyce Purtscher, click here.

Register of Boys

At any one time, the average number of boys at the Reformatory was approximately 30.  A register of boys confined at the Reformatory between 1884 and 1896, when it was at Cascades, is held at the Archives Office of Tasmania (SWD 37).  It lists the following boys.

For information on the Boys' Reformatory, we are indebted to the Joyce Purtscher, especially her publication Tasmanian Industrial Schools and Reformatories.

Profile – William Ogden

William Ogden, a ten-year-old boy from Green Ponds, was sent to the Reformatory for four years.  His crime was to be found being 'idle and disorderly with no fixed place of residence and no lawful means of gaining a livelihood'.  Prior to being sent to the Reformatory he spent ten days in gaol.

At the age of fourteen, William absconded, but was returned to the Reformatory from whence he was later apprenticed as a painter.  When he was seventeen years of age, William's mother, Ann Peacock (transported per Elizabeth & Henry) travelled from Deloraine to visit him, and his brother Robert who was apprenticed at Battery Point.  She, and others, appealed to the Colonial Secretary for William's release as they thought the law cruel and unjust.  Their appeal was rejected.

William's brother, Robert Ogden, had been at the Queen's Orphanage and the Boys' Training School, and his sister, Mary Jane Ogden, had been at the Queen's Orphanage.

Profile – Alfred Gifford

Alfred Gifford was the third generation in his family to be institutionalised in Hobart.  He was admitted to the Boys' Training School for three years from 21 July 1884.  His father, Arthur, and Arthur's siblings, Julia, Jane and Ann, had been inmates at the Queen's Orphanage in the 1850s due to their parents, Ann and Alfonso Gifford, being gaoled in Hobart. 

Ann Gifford (nee Wallis/Wallace) was married in England to Alfonso Gifford before being transported per Royal Admiral.  Alfonso Gifford was transported per Marquis of Hastings.  He was thought by the authorities to have left the colony, causing his wife Ann to commit crimes.