Melbourne City Mission (MCM), known as the Community Welfare Foundation during the 1970s, is a charitable organisation in Melbourne, Australia.
History
Melbourne City Mission is the city's oldest charity, having been founded in 1854. In 1850, there were only around 25,000 people in Melbourne, but this number grew rapidly to nearly 500,000, mostly men, by 1891. The rapid increase was due to the discovery of gold in the colony of Victoria, and camps and wooden shacks sprung up across Melbourne. Many people fell into poverty and succumbed to disease, and charities, which had Christian evangelism at their core, could not cope.
David Nasmith had started the City Mission movement in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1826, and by the time of his death in 1839, there were 45 such missions in Great Britain, and 36 in North America. Melbourne City Mission was the first of these, founded in 1854, and similar missions followed in Hobart, Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane, and various regional cities. While each mission was run independently, several, including Melbourne and Sydney, adopted London City Mission as their parent body.
Philanthropists John Singleton (1808–1891), a medical doctor, and Hester Hornbrook, founder of the city's ragged schools movement, lobbied the protestant churches and organised a public meeting on 11 August 1854, which was attended by 650 people who voted in favour of the proposal to set up a mission in the city. Their vision was "a mission embracing all denominations and unsectarian in its character" to ameliorate the hardship caused in the wake of the gold rushes. After the first attempt at the mission, which employed five missionaries, ran out of funds in 1856, a second committee was established in August of that year, initially employing just one missionary full-time.
For some time, the mission was named the Ladies' Melbourne and Suburban City Mission, and run by a Gentleman's Committee and a Ladies' Committee. The mission did much to help support women and children. The home for prostitutes and the Benevolent Ladies' Society gave general assistance and the so-called ragged schools helped to education children who were too poor to attend school. Hornbrook founded nine schools over the four years before her death in 1862. After the death of Hornbrook in 1862, the men took over the running of the mission.
Compulsory universal education was introduced in 1872, so the ragged schools were no longer necessary.
20th century
By the end of the 1800s, the aims of the mission encompassed charitable or welfare work as well as administering residential care in institutions for those in poverty or distress.
Around 1900, the mission renewed itself, and work started to be done more from district halls. On 5 June 1902 the mission reverted to its original name. MCM worked from district halls in Brunswick, Collingwood, North Melbourne, Port Melbourne, Richmond, Fitzroy, and Carlton. Laymen became more prominent than clergy on the committees. Many of the missionaries were working-class women.
Institutions run by MCM
These included: 1900: Melbourne City Mission Maternity Home, in Albion Street 1935: Toddlers' Home, on the same site Services to homeless men, led by the work of Sister Grace, at 169 Exhibition Street Home for "Friendless Girls" (aka Sister Grace's Auxiliary), a hostel for respectable young women looking for work Home for Aged Women, in Collingwood (in the former Home for Fallen and Friendless Women set up by Singleton) Pilgrim's Rest, in Fairfield
In 1926, the mission moved into a new building at 280 Exhibition Street, a former hotel. It included dormitory accommodation for up to 30 "friendless girls". The hostel was known by various names, including the Haven of Hope and Sister Grace's Home for Friendless Girls.
Happy Days was a seaside respite home for children "in delicate health", in Black Rock, run by MCM for about five years after its opening on 4 March 1933.
In 1943, MCM took over the management of the Elizabeth Fry Retreat (which had been opened by Sarah Swinborn in January 1885 for women leaving gaol, although its purpose had changed over time) in South Yarra from the Quakers, a home for "wayward girls"; renamed Swinborn Lodge in 1957 and under MCM until 1970.
In 1949, the mission described itself as "an interdenominational institution registered with the Charities Board of Victoria operating amongst the poor, outside the Churches, supported by voluntary contributions".
The Maternity and Toddlers' Homes in Brunswick merged to form Hartnett House in around 1955, which lasted until 1970.