TASMANIA: THE SHOCKING SECRET
One of the most beautiful places in the world is the State
of Tasmania. It always delights me when
I hop on a plane and return to the beautiful state that I love but have not
resided in since 30 May 1968. I mention this as this is about my home state and
no other state in the commonwealth. This
state that I have idolised and once had visions of returning to no longer
exists. Instead there exists a state that, initially created a law back in 1920
to prevent shocking infanticide cases and to prevent people from profiteering
from the odious industry of baby farming where people were paid by parents to
take over care of a child or baby and then they were let starve to death as
well as being drugged. The last conviction in Australia for Baby Farming murder
was in 1913, just seven years before the Adoption of Children Act 1920, which
was undoubtedly a result of this worldwide abuse and killing of children. However a simple omission which was brought
to their attention in 1950 but not corrected, as far as I can ascertain, until
The Adoption of Children Act 1968, opened a gate to profiteering by families
and other parties where babies became a valuable currency to fill one’s
coffers.
Back at the turn of the 20th century, state
governments were rightly concerned with the tragic consequences of Baby Farming
and the fact there were no controls over adoption of children or
safeguards. Western Australia had prior
to federation enacted adoption legislation and to its credit, Tasmania was the
first state after federation to enact legislation, the adoption of children Act
1920. This act was very specific that no adoptive family could be paid a
premium without the consent of the authorise delegate approving the adoption,
namely the registrar of births deaths and marriages. Whilst the Senate
Community Affairs Reference Committee inquiry into forced adoption listed
Adoption Statistics from 1939 through to 2010, the state of Tasmania statistics
from the years 1939 to 1968 only provided information for the years 1951 to
1960 with a total of 2556 adoptions or an average of 256 per year. I now have in my possession a letter to the
federal government dated 13 June 1950 that shows in the period of 1945 to 1949
inclusive there were 516 adoptions an average of 103 per year. How adoptions increased in one year from
about 103 to 259 (1951) I will come back to later.
In 1950 after a question in the federal by the then ALP
member Mr Cremean, the federal government was advised that there was no
impediment under legislation to the natural parents and other person receiving
a premium (quaint term for paying) and that the Registrar General advising he
would take steps to correct this immediately. From what I can ascertain no
correction was done until the introduction of the Adoption of children Act
1968. And so the scene was set, but it
may be that the Salvation Army who was in control of their home for unwed
mothers in Launceston, known as Rock Lynne House, Rocklyn house and other
names, may have been aware of this loophole and in fact were exploiting it.
A document dated 13 June 1950 tell us that there were
overall 1271 illegitimate births in Tasmania for the period 1945 to 1949 of
whom 516 or 40.6 per cent were adopted. This seems to be a legitimate figure
because in the peak adoption years numerically which is 1969/1972 the adoption
rate nationwide was also about 40 per cent of illegitimate children. The letter breaks it down even more with
figures showing that of the 400 illegitimates born in private hospitals /homes
195 or 49 per cent were adopted a slightly higher figure. The figures broke
down the Hobart area with 79 adoptions private hospitals out of 251 births
(31.47 per cent) and Launceston and country, which were 116 adoptions out of 149
births (77.85 per cent). The main
culprit in Launceston was Rock Lynne House. A special note was made of the fact
that of the 115 illegitimate births, 91 (or 79 per cent) were adopted. The author of a letter dated 15 June 1950 who
was a Federal department of health official (Mr B. Warren) said the high
Rocklyn house figures give rise to suspicions of baby buying because of the
sellers market that existed. He said he would make discrete inquiries next time
he visited Launceston. I have not found
any record of his discrete inquiries. It would appear that Launceston was a law
unto it’s own at this time given the distance between there and Hobart and the
traditional resentment that was a part of the Tasmanian culture between the
North and the South.
I was born at Rocklyn House on either the 23rd or
24th of February 1950, a date was manually corrected. The consent to adopt was witnessed by a
Justice of the Peace and incidentally also a magistrate of the Children court
(A.M.White). This person was a retired
matron of the home in which I was born so an apparent conflict of interest is
present from my birth. I have always had
my suspicions about the operation at Rocklyn house and wrote a blog spot on 19
January 2012 after the Senate inquiry hearings in Hobart. At those hearings the
Hobart divisional commander who made a submission to the inquiry was asked if
they had ever had any other homes apart from Elim House in Hobart. His reply
was no they had no other homes. I passed the information I had on Rocklyn to
the secretary of the senate community affairs reference committee and he was
asked to provide information on this home to the senate. Subsequently he
provided information, which was exactly the same information I had provided the
committee, a short entry from the Find and Connect website. This initiated my
curiosity as all attempts to find information on this home was sketchy and
there were claims that all records were destroyed in a boiler room fire in the
early sixties. The current Find and
connect entry on Salvation Army records for rock Lynn house states
“ Some records may
have been destroyed in a laundry fire during the 1960’s. However, there are
book records with the dates 1904 to 1912, 1939 to 1948, and 1954 to 1960.”
There is one small
problem with the fire theory. In a letter dated 30 March 1961, The salvation
Army belatedly advised the Tasmanian government that they had shut down the
Rock Lynn House Maternity home on 13 December 1960, the year 256 babies had
been adopted in Tasmania, a peak period for the adoption industry. How then were records destroyed in a laundry
fire in the sixties? How do you explain
this discrepancy?
One must also ask the logical question as to why was it
closed down at that time? Was their
successful business model of the forties and fifties falling apart as more
private homes were becoming aware of the loophole in the law. One can only make
educated guesses on this without the co-operation of the Salvation Army
Southern command or division.
I remained in Rock Lynn for 6 weeks after my birth being
adopted on 14 April 1950. In that time my mother stayed also to nurture me,
which has led to many claiming I was not the child of a forced adoption.
Nothing could be further from the truth with her diary saying how the matron
and her mother forced her to sign. An
article in the Melbourne Argus dated 18 July 1950 quotes a Major Stevens as
saying
“ An unmarried mother should be made to feel responsibility
towards her child, and unless she had the baby in her care for at least two
months she would escape this responsibility. The fact that a girl had to look
after her baby for several weeks and then face the wrench of parting with it
could have a very definite influence on her future morals” “ If things are made too easy for the girl
and her child adopted immediately after birth, she may be inclined to give
little thought to the dangers of returning to her former life”
A Tasmanian Government Department of Public Health
inspection report dated 2 June 1954 on Rock Lynn house is quoted in the general
remarks
“Most babes breast fed for as long as possible (prior to
adoptions)”
As we can see this home partook of emotional and physical
torture of the young girls as well as creating a great trauma when the adoption
took place to both the babe and the mother. I feel there is a need to say here
that a financial report for the salvation Army Home, Elim House Hobart for the
year ending 30 September 1953 should revenue to the total value of 213 pound,
14 shillings and twopence from child endowment. So there was a financial
incentive to retain the mother and it also saved costs on formula. Ewe must
remember these institutions were receiving about 8 pound a week “inmate “
accommodation from persons placing the young girls there.
I said that I would get back to the matter of why there was
more than double the number of adoptions post 1950 than in the five years prior
to 1950. Whilst it is only a theory, I believe that once the government started
querying the maternity homes, around the state as to the status following the
question by Mr Cremean in the Commonwealth House of Representatives, the best
kept secret in Tasmanian was let out. It
would appear that the staff at Rock Lynn had been made aware possibly through
the honorary Gynaecologist, Dr Ida Birchall, MBE or they had read the act more
thoroughly than other homes. This would account for the abnormally high
adoptions rates for that home. But post
1950 others would have become aware and would have started utilising this
loophole to maximise sales and profits in a demand driven economy.
As a final note, the Tasmanian government has apologised for
their past actions but I am sure they were not fully aware of the failure of
government to close a loophole when it was apparent back in 1950. The Salvation
Army however was operating a predatory maternity hospital in Launceston and was
successfully marketing their product until the closure on 13 December 1960. And
as the winds of change slowly started to take hold they decided after the closure
to destroy incriminating records in a “ Laundry Fire” which coincidentally no
record has been found nor firm date as to when this occurred. Most of the mothers who lost their children
in this place of emotional torture would now be deceased or in their seventies
and have lived with the burden and shame heaped upon them for all of their
adult lives. We the adoptees from this place now have to live with the fact
that we were sold like slaves in a country that had at the time fought two word
wars for “ freedom” and were fighting an enemy in Korea, which were treating
their citizens much like we were treated in Rock Lynn House under Salvation
Army Control. At the very least they should give a heartfelt statement of
extreme remorse and yes contribute funds to the federal and state government
programs to assist those who have been so badly affected by the past adoption
era’s.
One thing I would like to add here. An article in the Hobart
Mercury dated Wednesday 26 Jan 1949 was about the big list of young couples
that were registered waiting to adopt. On 14 April 1950 I was adopted. My father was born in 1897, which meant his
age was over the guidelines for adoption. Yet he managed to adopt me. One wonders how much of a premium he paid to
ensure this went smoothly.
Murray Legro
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