The Sydney Foundling Institute, later renamed The Infants’ Home, was established on 15 May 1874 in inner city Sydney. It was founded by a committee of forward-thinking women as a secular refuge for abandoned babies and single mothers. The organisation was created in response to the high rates of child abandonment, infanticide and suicide that beset the city at the time.
The first foundling taken in was an unnamed baby boy, aged about three weeks, who had been left on the steps of the Institute, wrapped in a blanket on 3 June 1874.
The infant was christened ‘Sydney Hope’, named after the city and for the hope the Committee held for his future.
Sydney was a resident of The Infants’ Home until age five or six, when he was taken in by foster parents in Newcastle NSW. According to a 1951 newspaper article, Sydney went to the NSW South Coast in his early teens to work on a farm, and ‘from then on had “tried just about every job there is going,” from being a valet to delivering milk.’
Sydney’s last job before retiring at 75 was as a casemaker for a cordial factory in Newcastle. He spent his final years in a retirement home in Dee Why. As he had done throughout his lifetime, Sydney continued to visit The Infants’ Home regularly.
The 1951 newspaper article reports that, at 78 years of age, Sydney ‘called in at the Ashfield Infants’ Home yesterday to have tea with the matron and play with the children’. According to the article, Sydney ‘hardly missed a year to visit the Ashfield Infants’ Home’, and he always donated some money ‘“to buy something for the kiddies.”’
Sydney was a lifelong supporter of The Infants’ Home, and an enduring symbol of our work. When The Infants’ Home set up an infant feeding and settling clinic for mothers and babies in 1988, it was named Sydney Hope Family Cottage in his honour. The Sydney Hope Family Cottage Postnatal Service still runs today; in 2023, 188 families were supported by this service.
Contact Us
If you have any questions or would like more information, please email us at childrensservices@theinfantshome.org.au.