The Smith Family - 100 years social history
Our centenary
The year of 2022 marks the milestone of one hundred years for The Smith Family. In our centenary year, we look back at what we’ve achieved for Australians living with financial disadvantage and look ahead toward our ongoing work with families and our community partners to improve educational outcomes for children in need.
Where we started
In the history of philanthropy in Australia, the beginnings of The Smith Family are unique. One story, in particular, has long been associated with the organisation’s humble beginnings. In December 1922, five entrepreneurs were travelling through Parramatta on business. At the time, the north-west Sydney region was semi-rural and dozens of orphanages, industrial schools and reformatories were located on the city’s fringe. Conversation amongst the five men of industry turned to the living conditions of the poor across the city, and how the most vulnerable in the community were likely to fare during the upcoming festive season . In an era when disadvantage was certainly visible across the city, but there was little statistical account taken of the incidence of poverty, the men could only conjecture on the magnitude of the problem. Each man resolved to find out more about the plight of the poor in the city, and committed to do more to help.
On Christmas Eve, the five men drove to a Children’s Home for orphaned, destitute and neglected children in Parramatta, their cars loaded with gifts. Shocked by the meagre rations on which the children were expected to live, and the poor state of the dormitories where they slept, the men resolved to do more to help. The Matron of the Home sought to thank the gentlemen for their generosity, but the five businessmen hesitated to answer. Eager to preserve their anonymity because they held positions of influence in the city, it is said that in that moment the five men made a secret pact that would come to define the core philosophy of the organisation. “We are all Smiths. We are the Smith Family” was the reply. While this story has assumed an almost legendary status, it also captures the spirit of solidarity that remains within the organisation to this day.
Why are the beginnings of the organisation important?
To understand why the origins of The Smith Family are so significant, it is important to understand what was happening in Australia at the time. In the early twentieth century, Australia was a newly federated nation eager to implement policies which would advance the country economically and socially . WWI (1915-19) took an economic, social and personal toll on Australians, and in the 1920s, the nation was slow to rebuild as soldiers struggled to return to the lives they had left before the war. While it was broadly acknowledged that education could play a transformative role in the lives of children, the foundations of public secondary education had only just begun to gain traction . Participation in primary school education was compulsory, but many students from the poorest families did not participate in any formal learning beyond this mandatory minimum.
It is also important to contextualise the work of The Smith Family in the broader landscape of charitable institutions at the time. With little in the way of government-subsidised charity, social welfare was administered and managed by specific churches. Catholic orphanages and welfare institutions looked out for Catholic families, Church of England dispensed care to their own congregations and Wesleyan Methodist did the same. Historians have described the predominant model of welfare provision at the time as “suffused with faith” . Public acts of charity were particularly important for the church organisations throughout the state at the time. Acts of charity to others were considered part of Christian duty, and also played an important role in lifting the visibility of the good works of churches in their communities. While church funding provided much needed welfare to the most vulnerable in the community, it also resulted in a segregated social welfare system which brought many moral judgements to bear on the families who needed help. Families who received charity felt stigma for doing so. Unwed mothers and single fathers were treated particularly unkindly by society and were often deemed unfit to raise families. Children in these situations were typically removed and placed in institutional care. When The Smith Family formed in 1922 it was unique in the context of charitable bodies at the time because it was independent and non-secular.
When The Smith Family formed in 1922, this represented a radical approach to charity in two very important ways. Firstly, the conversation the founders started about the need for better welfare for the poor broadened the debate on poverty beyond the relationship between church and the individual. At a time when social welfare was strongly affiliated to specific churches, The Smith Family appeared to have an independence which the other charities did not have and challenged prevailing notions of what constituted charity at the time.
The foundation year
The first two years were an important time, as The Smith Family began to emerge as an organisation with its own philosophy. By July 1923, what had begun as an informal set of conversations between five entrepreneurs had now begun to take shape as a philosophy and assume a basic organisational structure .
Within the first year, The Smith Family had clarified some key principles including the assertion to be:
“…founded on the true principles of charity – that charity which compels a true man to ever assist the other fellow in his hour of need, to spread cheer and goodwill throughout the year, and not confine it to any particular season to be ever mindful of all unfortunates, the aged and feeble in their eventide, the sick who live in our hospitals friendless, and all with whom misfortune has dealt”.
The importance of humility, and therefore anonymity, was asserted from the outset. So too, the affirmation that the organisation had no formal religious affiliation, which was highly unusual for charity groups at the time:
“…no member of this family of Smiths is permitted to reveal his true identity at any time…This family is non-sectarian, and non-political, for the introduction of either or both must cause dissension”.
The objects of the organisation included:
“to maintain throughout the whole year the spirit of true charity, letting not the right hand know what the left hand doeth.
“to maintain a continuous campaign of good cheer and good will, to brighten the lives of the afflicted, distressed, sick and needy and to restore confidence in those whom misfortune has dealt with”.
“to develop a centre of service so that the spirit of the family shall radiate throughout the length and breadth of the country”.
In keeping with the social norms of the early twentieth century, in the beginning only men could become members of The Smith Family. In addition, candidates needed to be nominated by at least two existing members of the organisation, be at least twenty-one years old, and be of good moral character.
Annual subscription fees were a half guinea (10 shillings and six pence). Members also had to agree to donate a full day of volunteer service to the organisation.
The early years: 1920s
Within only the first year of operation, it became very clear that The Smith Family would have to grow as the incidence of poverty across the city was far greater than the five founders had ever imagined. Initially at least, the organisation confined its efforts to Sydney. There was much to do. An industrial city which had grown quickly, urban poverty in Sydney was very visible and the quality of life for those living in and near the factory hubs of Surry Hills, Redfern and Waterloo was very poor. The inner city in particular, was characterised by high levels of homelessness, derelict housing, poor sanitation and high crime. By the 1920s, the urban management challenge associated with the public squalor of the industrial suburbs was deemed to be so great, it had even earned its own stigmatising epithet. The policy challenge of addressing inner city poverty was unkindly dubbed “slum clearing” .
For a newly formed charity, the challenge was significant indeed. Fundraising for the demands of a Christmas campaign represented an important first step. In the first year of operation, a dance was held at the Palais Royal at Moore Park, with proceeds used to purchase toys, gifts and household staples. Described as “convivial” gatherings, the events including jazz bands and dancing, and readings of poetry. While the evenings aimed to provide a sense of fun and entertainment, they also reinforced the serious message that society has a responsibility “to maintain throughout the whole year the spirit of true charity” .
As an important first step, a partnership with The Commonwealth Bank was established for the opening of a Christmas Cheer account. This allowed the organisation to be able to pay membership fees directly into a financial account to then actually fund the charity efforts. Fellowship societies were a common model at the time. Employing a subscription model commonly used by many community-based organisations The Smith Family began advertising in newspapers and offered Christmas season memberships (for a humble shilling) or members could elect to contribute the more generous donation of one pound for a year-long membership . With this membership, ‘Smiths’ were encouraged to attend events and/or donate their labour to fundraising events or charity drives . Volunteers were the lifeblood of the organisation. They ran social events, coordinated and planned events, and managed fund-raising .
In December of 1923, an anonymous group of volunteers known only as The Smiths, but now much larger than the previous year, set out for a series of Christmas visits. Cars loaded with Christmas stockings filled with food, chocolates, toys and small gifts travelled to Ormond House, Bidma Home in Glebe, the Industrial Home for Girls in Parramatta, the Metropolitan Boys’ Home in Surry Hills, a Boys’ Home in Mittagong in the Southern Highlands and shelters in Rookwood and Newington. Hospital visits were also scheduled to Parramatta, Dundas, Carlingford, Eastwood, Waterfall (a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients in isolation) and to a large base hospital in Gosford . Smith Family musicians attended some events to provide musical entertainment. Institutions were provided with large Christmas cakes to share with staff and residents. At the Industrial School at Parramatta which had a reputation for housing girls with particularly troubled pasts, each resident was provided with luxury items which many had never seen before including a bottle of perfume, an embroidered handkerchief and a bag of candy.
The sites chosen by The Smith Family for these Christmas visits communicate much about the compassion that formed part of the organisation’s charter from the very beginning . In the early 1920s there was significant stigma, and particularly moral stigma felt by children living in any refuge, reformatory or orphanage. Ormond House, located in Oxford Street in Paddington, cared for some of the most marginalised children in the state at the time. The main receiving house for the State Children’s Relief Department, Ormond provided dormitory accommodation for babies and children who had been removed from their parents for reasons of neglect, and those who had spent time in one of the state reformatories. The Smith Family entourage arrived not just with stockings with gifts for the children, but provided a donation sufficient for the purchase of a Christmas spread which had the unusual inclusion of sweets and puddings .
By the Christmas appeal of 1924, the organisation had begun to develop its own terminology to describe their unique charitable works. Perhaps stemming from the organisation’s commercial origins, The Smith Family knew the importance of messaging and language when seeking to communicate with an audience. To emphasise the noble aspirations of the organisation to help the poor, and to affirm the important role that people would play in deliverance of this goal, The Smith Family coined a unique concept -the Joyspreader. This term powerfully communicated the two halves of The Smith Family story. Joyspreaders were acts of charity, but they were also the volunteers and members who formed the lifeblood of the organisation to “be merry and bright and be of service in any good cause” ..
The first official annual meeting of The Smith Family happened in September 1924. Within two years, the Christmas campaign arranged by The Smith Family had expanded significantly. As the report noted “the Joyspreaders” have done a “vast amount of unadvertised good”. Successful fundraising campaigns had seen the reach of the organisation grow even further, and advertising had led to an increase in subscribers . After months of collecting donations, on 20 December, the Saturday afternoon before Christmas, 100 lorries loaded with gifts set out for locations across the city and as far north as Gosford. As many as thirty different Old Men’s and Old Ladies’ Homes, Orphanages, Homes for the Destitute, Sanatoriums (for those under tuberculosis quarantine), Refuges and Reformatories were visited by The Smith Family that Christmas . Successful fundraising in these years led to more substantial purchases by the organisation. Institutions (including orphanages and hospitals) were presented with books, wireless sets, gramophone records and a cinema machine .
Growth happened quickly and it was very early on in the organisation’s history that The Smith Family recognised the importance of data in the measurement of impact. In 1926, there were 563 members . Membership grew from 750 in 1927 to 984 in 1928. In this year, the organisation noted that clothing had also been supplied to 297 women, 200 men and 870 children .
Social evenings and galas still provided a much-needed fundraising source for the organisation. In September 1927, a large social was organised at The Town Hall, and a record 700 ‘Smiths’ attended. Navy and pale blue streamers were said to hang from the high ceilings and novelty dance competitions provided the entertainment. With emphasis placed on raising money for charity, no prize money was awarded to the winners, instead the dance champions were awarded the unusual gift of a pedigree pug dog . Sometime in 1928 women were permitted to become members because it was recognised that behind-the-scenes women were doing much of the work to support the fundraisers including the organisation of the Cabaret dance held in David Jones main hall, and in the management of charity deliveries .
The work of The Smith Family with youth in the area of school to work transition also represented one of the organisation’s earliest forays into specialised programs. In the 1920s, the Training School model institutionalised teenagers who had either come through the orphanage system, or were effectively serving time for juvenile crimes. Industrial or Training Schools sought work ‘situations’ for the boys, often on farms or within estates of wealthy homes which required unskilled staff. The Smith Family identified that these boys had been offered little in the way of support while transitioning to making their way in the world alone. The Smith Family offered additional help to the boys with their situations, assisted them in finding stable employment and sought to give the boys apprenticeships in skilled areas such as Carpentry, cabinet-making, plumbing and French polishing .
By this time, the logistics of the organisation had become significant. Throughout the year, the organisation accumulated clothing, household and grocery items for hampers, in addition to toys for children. In 1927 The Smith Family had a small office in the Kembla Building, Margaret Street. But the exceptionally cold winter that year highlighted that a bigger space would be needed, as the space was soon crowded with donated parcels of warm clothing . In 1928, the organisation moved to bigger premises in Pitt Street, which comprised a small distribution centre and office .
Throughout this time, a complex set of social welfare debates were occurring within government about how to manage and address the growing problem of poverty amongst both the working and unemployed poor. A Basic Wage Commission in 1919 identified a need for baseline levels of pay (minimum wages) for heads of households and the Royal Commission on National Insurance and the Royal Commission on Child Endowment or Family Payments in 1927 highlighted the importance of better economic security for families . For years, complex and contentious debates at the state and federal government level raged over how best to define and deliver social welfare. While these debates continued, The Smith Family re-doubled their efforts to connect locally with families in Sydney. The coming of the Great Depression would bring an even greater urgency to these efforts.
The 1930s – 1940s
The 1930s
In the 1930s The Smith Family began to focus on the systematic provision of charity across the entire year, and not just at Christmas. As the decade rolled from one crisis to the next, The Smith Family had to quickly adapt to address the challenges facing both the economy and the community.
Economic crisis and the impacts for poor families.
Since the late nineteenth century, Australia had relied heavily on primary exports including wheat and wool. In the 1920s, due to overseas competition, the prices of both of these commodities began to fall in international markets. The effects of the economic downturn hit families in the industrial belt of Balmain, Glebe, Alexandria and Redfern particularly hard. When the stock market crashed completely in 1929, families who were already doing it tough, now faced destitution. By 1932 Australia had an unemployment rate of 32 per cent .
With single breadwinner families the norm, and countless men now out of work, families struggled to meet the basic costs of living. There was little in the form of social welfare at the time and it was common practice for charity to consist of the bare minimum for subsistence. Known as ‘rations’, families were typically provided with only small quantities of bread, dripping and tea. It was commonly believed at the time that providing welfare would only create dependence and those receiving welfare faced significant stigma. Indeed the stigma surrounding the receipt of rations was so profound that many families simply struggled on without assistance, rather than face the public humiliation of joining a ration queue.
Doctors and educators across the city began to observe that children were being impacted very directly by the recession. Many children were found not to be eating at all, and if they were, their diet was poor. While today the term food insecurity has become an important part of the vernacular and accepted undestandings about nutrition, in the early to mid twentieth century, the connection between poverty, undernutrition and education outcomes was only just beginning to be understood . The Smith Family played a vital role at this time in highlighting the growing problem of malnutrition amongst children in poor families . Supported strongly by local inner city schools, a formal program to address the issue began to gain traction. Though there was no way to map this in any statistical way, anecdotally at least, the link to poverty, malnutrition and school outcomes was beginning to be recognised. As an interview with the acting headmaster of inner city school, Erskinveville Public, the school Mr L Mogg noted in 1931 “Ill-nourishment is definitely affecting the work of the school children” . Working closely with The Red Cross, The Smith Family developed a Malnutrition Scheme which distributed free fruit, vegetables, eggs, pints of milk and staples of good nutritional quality to poor families across Sydney . In one week of October 1931, the Smith Family reported distributing 2000 pints of milk, 150 dozen eggs, and vegetables to the value of fifteen pounds for families with children in need every week without fail . The Smith Family worked closely with news outlets to run not just fundraising, but also ‘malnutrition appeals’ for struggling families . Improving the health of children was considered to be such an important priority for the organisation that a designated “malnutrition fund” was isolated in the expenditure accounts along with funds set aside for the “christmas cheer” activities of the organisation .
The pressures on families during the depression was also felt when, at a Christmas toy drive organised by The Smith Family at the showgrounds, they seriously underestimated the number of people likely to attend. In a normal year, a few thousand people might attend. In 1933, a staggering 15,000 people turned up at the annual Toy Drive. In the crush of people, a riot broke out .
The Smith Family solicited the help of other professionals to ameliorate the long term impacts of malnutrition on children. In 1931, The Smith Family worked closely with 73 volunteer doctors to alleviate the impacts of malnutrition among children in poorer communities . Defective teeth and decay were also identified as being a significant outcome of severe malnutrition and The Smith Family had the foresight to approach local dentists to volunteer their services. Children were also found to need glasses, so honorary opticians were sourced as well.
In the 1930s the concept of “acute privation” was used to describe severe financial disadvantage, and this term was applied widely, to the circumstances of many in 1932. Teams of Joyspreaders travelled to the South Coast and Mittagong and to locations all over the state. Informal teen committees were rallied to engage with local unemployed young people in poor neighbourhoods. Joyspreaders mobilised as local chapters to arrange the delivery of essentials – cases including a mix of clothing, groceries, joints of meat, fresh milk, bread and medicine were delivered to underprivileged families across Sydney . Morale in the community, and particularly amongst frontline staff was so low that year that The Smith Family worked particuarly hard to maintain the spirits of those living and working within institutional settings in the Christmas of 1932. One party at Lidcombe State Hospital comprised a team of thirty Smith Family members who prepared a Christmas feast for over 500 men, including 400 pounds of cake, 14 cases of cherries, 14 bags of oranges, 14 cases of plums, 18 cases of apricots, 15 cases of peaches, and 1600 bags of sweets. The thirty volunteers then went from ward to ward visiting patients who were too sick to be able to leave their beds and served each patient Christmas dinner .
Fundraising in the 1930s and the dawn of the information age
The Smith Family worked closely with news outlets, and had a long standing association with The Sun newspaper because reporters investigated stories on malnutrition and squalor and agreed to provide information to the organisation about the challenges the communities faced . Throughout this time, social evenings and galas continued and helped to highlight the importance of charitable donations to those in need . The Dance competition and cabaret nights continued, but in the 1930s these were expanded as teen committees ran events for young people in community halls .
The 1930s represents an important time for the work of The Smith Family because this period highlights the deep sense of compassion which remains central to the organisation’s philosophy. At a time when charity was often dispensed with a degree of judgement for families living in poverty, doing it tough, The Smith Family’s call for Christmas appeal in 1939 gives some insight to the sensibility of the organisation. As an appeal for support in the Herald notes at that time: “Just drop me a note saying you will lend a hand to one of the poor families on my list who, through illness or sheer bad luck, are finding it almost impossible to ‘break even’ with the world” . Recognising the power of a small gesture, when the organisation saw a need, it responded. At the Girls Industrial School, members of The Smith Family noted that the girls (many of whom had no families) would not mark the celebration of a birthday. Throughout the 1930s, The Smith Family made sure that every girl received a gift and a card on her birthday .
While 1930s is regarded as one of the most difficult economic periods in Australia’s history, changes in communication and the dawning of the information age were also creating significant opportunities for a burgeoning charity organisation. Theatre nights began to be held in the 1930s, in addition to community singalongs – with both being broadcast on 2UW . Advertisements could also now occur on radio, as well as in broadsheet newspapers. The use of this new communication technology would prove to be vital, as The Smith Family would seek to amp up their fundraising efforts to meet the significant challenge that lie ahead. A major public health crises would see The Smith Family venture into new territory as the organisation rose to a unique medical challenge which disproportionately impacted children in vulnerable communities.
Public health crises and the impact for families living with financial disadvantage
While the city of Sydney struggled to face the economic challenges presented by the early 1930s, a public health disaster was escalating. Outbreaks of rheumatic fever began to occur across the city. The early to mid-twentieth century was marked by some particularly serious childhood illnesses, which if left untreated could have serious long term health consequences for those affected. A highly contagious droplet-based bacterial infection known as streptococcal pharyngitis (Rheumatic or Scarlet fever) was spreading across the city. At the time it was perceived as one of the most dangerous illnesses a child could contract, second only to tuberculosis, and one of the leading causes of death for children and young people between the ages of five and twenty years old. If children did survive the initial infection, they often faced months of recuperation. If not properly cared for, children ailing with rheumatic fever developed lifelong health problems, most notably lower life expectancy because the infection could compromise the heart .
An illness which not only made children gravely ill but required a long period of recuperation, those in poorer communities were identified to be at especially high risk of death without significant intervention. In addition, medical professionals highlighted that the existing problem of malnutrition present in parts of the community heightened the risks of exposure to any disease, including any bronchial conditions. The Smith Family worked quickly to provide residential care because it was believed this was the most effective way to cure the condition . City hospitals were unsuitable for children recuperating for long periods of convalesence. For children living in large houses with good sanitation, recuperation could occur at home. For children living in cramped or derelict housing, proper recuperation was impossible. A special children’s hospital was proposed by The Smith Family based on the best medical advice available: a purpose built facility could provide the fresh air, and long hours of sunlight needed to assist recuperation .
The importance of Mt Arcadia
From accumulated donations, The Smith Family purchased a ten acre property adjacent to Burnside Homes in North Parramatta for 1250 pounds. With the help of volunteer labour, a small timber hospital was constructed on the site. Called Mt Arcadia Children’s Hospital, the facility could provide long term care for any children with non-tubular chest infections and any chronic long term conditions requiring an extended period of recuperation. Given the demand for hospital beds in the wake of the rheumatic fever outbreak, the hospital was almost exclusively dedicated to the care of children with that condition.
Mt Arcadia officially opened in August 1933 in Parramatta as a humble weatherboard house with a few beds. It quickly became the most significant provider of long term care for young people with acute care needs who could no longer be treated in hospital. The services of Mt Arcadia were vital at the time because they filled a much-needed gap in the provision of health care. The hospital provided care for children from disadvantaged communities so they could rest and recuperate fully, at no charge to their families. Mt Arcadia provided residential care for children with Rheumatic fever, but also a range of other related conditions .
Children with Sydenham’s Chorea, a neuropsychiatric condition which caused the body to jerk and twitch uncontrollably, were also treated at Mt Arcadia. At the time the condition was known more commonly in the community as St Vitus Dance. Mt Arcadia would be the only hospital in the Commonwealth undertaking specialised treatment for rheumatic fever, and for twenty years The Smith Family was the only charity organisation working with health experts to provide residential support for treatment of the disease in poor communities . Demonstrating the immense value of the service to families - the average stay of children in the hospital was six months.
The 1940s
With a plan in place to contain the public health threats of the 1930s, and measures implemented to manage the continuing impacts of the Depression, yet more crises would surface in this decade to batter communities already living with economic vulnerability.
The war
WWII is often regarded as the most important event of the twentieth century. One million Australians served both overseas and at home, and the economic demands of the war required the government to divert money away from the production of domestic food, clothing and household essentials and toward the war effort. On the home front, the federal government launched austerity and security measures which limited the quantity and quality of what staples and essentials could be purchased, and restricted how, when and where people could work . A more severe form of rationing led to even greater hardships for those families who were already struggling to make ends meet.
Like all charity organisations during WWII, The Smith Family sought to respond to the altered demands that come with war. While specific data on the numbers of people assisted are not available for this period, descriptive accounts of The Smith Family’s activities during this time report much greater demand for the services and staples provided by the organisation. During the war, The Smith Family continued to hold social functions, placing special emphasis on keeping morale in the community high. More events than ever before were organised by The Smiths, with the decision made to hold functions in network of Returned Soldiers’ League Halls. More competitions were organised, and more prizes offered as a way for local families to win luxuries they could not normally afford. Chocolate wheels and Housie provided winners with a ham (which had become impossible for many to obtain), “high grade blankets”, “cherry cheer” (a sweet soft drink considered a luxury at the time), preserved fruits, boxes of chocolates, cups and saucers and pyrex dinner ware .
Security measures also impacted The Smith Family operationally as Sydney took additional steps to secure the city. In 1941, the government commandeered city space for the war effort. After seventeen years operating out of a basement at 81 Pitt Street, The Smith Family hurriedly vacated the premises to make room for much needed air raid shelters to be built in the CBD .
WWII, and the many returned servicemen with injuries and trauma from the frontline brought new challenges for The Smith Family. In response to a shortage of long term recuperative care for the returned, in 1945, The Smith Family launched the biggest fundraising appeal in the history of the organisation to raise 50 000 pounds for the building of a new hospital.
Natural disaster
In addition to the mounting of a largescale military campaign, Australia would face other challenges. The onset of a strong El Nino weather shift at the tail end of the war would bring very low rainfall for a prolonged period of time. While there would be many droughts to follow, the dry spell which occurred across the Eastern states from 1937-45 was considered one of the worst to have occurred in Australia up to that point . Isolated regions such as the northern west and central west regions of NSW were hit particularly hard. Prompted by the burgeoning economic crisis facing many rural communities, this period saw The Smith Family expand the reach of their charity efforts toward the rural and remote communities.
A decision was made to sponsor local chapters, because this would allow programs to be developed and delivered by the community for the community. Local newspapers advertised for volunteers to come forward, managed and assisted by a mentor based in Sydney . With the good reputation of the organisation now growing, the response to the recruitment drive was overwhelmingly positive. The Smith Family tree began to grow with Tamworth, Wollongong, Wagga and Griffith first, followed by branches in Dubbo, Goulburn and Orange . How the organisation decided to tackle this challenge continues to shape the organisation today because emphasis was placed on benefiting from the efficiencies and expertise that flows from local knowledge. A slogan used by The Smith Family at the time captured the sentiment of the organisation in its commitment to help the regions: “Wherever help is needed, it must be given”.
The 1950s to the 1970s
The 1950s would be a critical period operationally for The Smith Family as the organisation expanded capacity in response to the changing population profile and as the landscape of urban poverty itself began to change.
The baby boom, and the need for more housing
Increased population growth (colloquially known as the demographic phenomenon of ‘the baby boom’) meant a greater number of young and bigger families. A housing shortage in the post war period, combined with the recognition that a large number of families were struggling to re-build their lives and their communities after the war, prompted a shift in policy approach. A strong period of building reform occurred after WWII in Australia. The Smith Family looked for ways to build the economic reserve necessary to sustain their work as an increasing number of families appeared to be struggling to obtain housing. The first Commonwealth State Housing Agreement (1945-55) sought to address what was recognised to be a fundamental precondition for poverty – a lack of safe and security housing. Urban renewal projects were planned to re-design the city, and those areas which had been labelled as ‘slums’ were scheduled for re-development. Public housing, and the development of large scale housing commission developments, formed an important part of the new public policy approach to address poverty . Government schemes provided much needed private accommodation, but also increased residential density at key locations across the city. Walk up flats were built throughout Waterloo, Redfern and Surry Hills and large scale estate developments were built in Mt Druitt in the west and Green Valley in the South West. This would have important implications for The Smith Family’s operation as it re-calibrated to be a provider of essential household goods and to source and distribute food and clothing to families across the growing city. The Smith Family knew they needed to expand their capacity to source and receive donations of furniture and household goods. To do this, they needed more warehouse space in the city.
Changing operational demands associated with meeting the needs of even more families
In the early 1950s the demand for the services of The Smith Family had grown so much that the organisation explored new ways to improve their outreach to families. In 1952, the organisation loaded rail carriages and lorries to distribute Christmas hampers and toys to country NSW. Toys were provided to give joy, but the organisation also sought to provide gifts that “were worthwhile and suitable to the age of the individual child”. The toy drives sought to cater to a wide range of children’s tastes and interests including everything from felt toys and dressed dolls, model cars and trains, kites, cricket bats, dinkies (small tricycles) through to books, games, peg boards, modelling clay and puzzles.
In addition, The Smith Family trialled Christmas parties at the Showground ovals as a way of reaching even more families. While the first year was considered a resounding success, by the time of the second Christmas party, word had spread across the community. In 1953, the estimates of 3900 children were drastically underestimated and approximately 6000 people crammed the showgrounds . In the overcrowded stands and with the heat typical of Sydney in summer, tensions rose. Fights broke out between families and some members of the crowd fainted in the crush. Event planners at The Smith Family went back to the drawing board. The approach taken by the organisation demonstrates a genuineness and willingness to work directly with the community in a way that resonated with families. As Secretary Smith of that year notes “The Family has never been a group of naïve, unworldly and impractical idealists. We don’t believe that the society we live in is perfect…” . Further to this, the Secretary noted with a degree of realism, and indeed humour, in the closing statement for the Annual Report of that year “Next year we plan to greatly augment the entertainment offered the children!”.
In 1953 The Smith Family also began to grapple with the logistical demands associated with the administration and management of such a large scale operation. Throughout the 1950s, The Smith Family would still occupy headquarters in the city centre (12 Bridge Street) however, things were beginning to change. The organisation sought storage locations at various locations across the city. The Smith Family purchased their own printing press which enabled them to print 80 per cent of their own material in-house . This increased the speed with which The Smith Family could share communication with the public and with other members, and reduced the cost of producing this material as well.
Medical advancements
New medical advancements brought changes to the organisation as well. By the late 1950s, the widespread use and greater availability of antibiotics radically improved the treatment of conditions like rheumatic fever. After twenty years of successful health care delivery, the specialist services provided by Mt Arcadia were no longer needed and the hospital closed, almost overnight.
Support for an increasingly diverse range of needs: vulnerable older people in the regional areas
During the 1950s the organisation began to adopt a more regional focus, and sought to expand their capacities to deliver to communities facing the double disadvantage of economic deprivation and geographical isolation.
The post war era of the 1950s was an important time for The Smith Family as the organisation sought to deliver assistance to very different groups with very different needs. While The Smith Family asserted its unique position as a totally independent charity, the organisation also formed strong collaborations with religious groups in the interests of improving the effectiveness of service delivery. In partnership with local church groups, who had an active presence south of Sydney, The Smith Family expanded the delivery of essential fresh food delivery (vegetables, fruit, eggs and homemade bread) to regions where they had previously had little presence. With the help of the Methodist church, The Smith Family distributed much needed supplies regularly to families in the south from Helensburgh as far down as Lake Illawarra South . Expanding their reach beyond Sydney and to rural sites across NSW, families with young children however remained a key target group. However, the 1950s also saw the organisation significantly expand its charity work with older people and those on invalid pensions .
Between 1952 and 1955, The Smith Family identified that the Goulburn branch was in dire need of accommodation for the growing number of older people in the region. Initially, The Smith Family made the modest purchase of just over three acres of land in the southern tablelands to provide affordable private residences for those without stable accommodation. The land was described as “boxthorn and broken down fences”, but was cleared by volunteer labour to create a green space for a neat and tidy estate. Almost immediately it became clear that even more land would be needed as the organisation received even more demands for assistance from older people. In a short period of time, and in conjunction with assistance from Lions, Rotary and Apex, the estate expanded to 10 acres. The land was graded, paved roads were built, and single storey units were built to provide flats for singles and couples. The estate was put on a bus route and a public telephone was installed. The development was called The Smith Family Home Estate.
The achievement of the first ever supported accommodation for the aged in Australia was a significant milestone for The Smith Family. In the era before superannuation, this innovation provided not a much-needed safety net for older people without the accumulated life savings to fund retirement. The accommodation for aged couples were modest but designed to offer comfort and privacy with a bedroom, living room, a kitchenette, private bathroom and laundry and small sun porch . At a time when older people without extended family to care for them were particularly vulnerable, the accommodation afforded older people in the community with a level of dignity and privacy unavailable to them in boarding houses with shared dormitories. The success of the Goulburn facility expanded to the establishment of locations in Bankstown, Coonabarabran, Cootamundra, Gosford, Griffith, Maitland, Mona Vale, Queanbeyan and Tamworth.
The launching of VIEW
In 1960, women were excluded from participating in many aspects of public, political and working life . Very few women served in public office, and once married many women were forced to resign from employment. Other service clubs including Apex, Lions and Rotary were also exclusively male organisations. While The Smith Family had initially prohibited the involvement of women in its early years of operation, in 1960 this changed. That year, The Smith Family launched a club structure which actively encouraged the involvement of women. The Voices, interests and entertainment of women (VIEW) clubs offered a unique model for charity work. VIEW clubs offered the dual benefit of providing another base of volunteers for the organisation, while also providing an organisation that provided companionship for women in rural and remote areas of Australia.
Logistics and the changing nature of service delivery in a growing organisation
In the post war era, The Smith Family began to grapple with the very real logistical complexities of transport, accommodation and operational streamlining that must come with evolving into a larger organisation. The Smith Family sought to consolidate and for the first time to systematically map and project need (albeit it in a rudimentary way). It was in this era that the organisation developed a donor database – a significant task in an era before computers and digital spreadsheeting. Reliant on donations to support their charity efforts, finding adequate warehouse space for clothing, footwear, furniture, prams, cots, wheelchairs, kitchen equipment and bedding so it could be stored and sorted, had also become imperative. The organisation took very practical steps to improve their mobility. They purchased a van to aid the distribution of donated goods. It was in the 1950s that The Smith Family for the first time began to take careful and separate data counts of the number of adults and children who received: food; clothing; meals; financial aid; toys at Christmas; and household equipment.
This also represents a period in which the organisation began to define the other acts of charity and kindness they provided in the act of giving welfare including guidance, emotional support and social care. The annual report for 1953 was the first year that included data counts for the “number of people who received advice and guidance” . This accounting is symbolic of a burgeoning recognition within The Smith Family that their impact went far beyond the distribution of household goods and consumer durables. The sense of connection, comfort and compassion The Smith Family extended to the most vulnerable people in society, though difficult to measure, was profound.
Impact snapshot 1950s
- Adults and children who received:
- Clothing 1432
- Food 3140
- Financial aid 260
- Meals 3720
- Christmas toys 4473
- Advice & guidance 720
- Household equipment 110
Emergency and relief work changes
As the 1970s approached, the organisation began to operate on a mixed model: some branches were staffed with paid labour, and others were run entirely by voluntary labour. In order to reach as many people as possible, welfare centres maintained an open door policy to families and children in need, particularly in regional areas where other options for emergency report were limited. Welfare workers operated centres in locations across Sydney, but also in Wollongong, Newcastle, Tamworth, Gosford, Goulburn, Griffith and Nowra.
The Smith Family also showed a capacity for being in touch with the needs of the community and anticipating and responding to these needs quickly. The first secret women’s shelter for domestic violence, the now very famous Elsie’s Refuge, was opened in Glebe in 1975. The Smith Famly Wollongong branch, in respond to a percieved crisis locally, operated secret emergency accommodation exclusively for women and children which opened at approximately the very same time as Elsie’s Refuge .
In 1979, The Smith Family also began to offer services to families outside of NSW. The organisation had operated in Melbourne briefly during the peak of the depression, but had ceased operation when the crisis eased. In the late 1970s, the organisation would return to Victoria .
Recycling and rag and trade
The recycling function performed by the organisation also played an important role during this phase of growth for The Smith Family. Although The Smith Family had been involved in recycling since the 1920s to help provide for poor families, the operations were developed and significantly expanded after George Forbes became the Secretary General in the 1950s. A Waste Division helped support economic self-sufficiency as used furniture, household goods and clothing were all restored and re-conditioned for sale or re-distribution. Glass and china were either provided to families directly or made available for sale to the general public in the retail outlets known as White Elephant stores. These retail shopfronts provided an additional income stream for the organisation after 1963. Donated furniture, where possible, was restored. Donated electrical goods were examined by electricians before being re-issued to families.
In the mid-1960s The Smith Family purchased an existing clothing recycling business from its aging owner. Clothing and linen donations which were wearable were washed and pressed for re-use by needly families. Any items not deemed wearable were processed as rag in a specially-built waste factory in Rosebery. At the time recycled wool and cotton waste was highly sought-after source material for the production of wiper and cleaning cloths for overseas markets.
By the 1970s, The Smith Family was collecting material from over 3,000 homes a week in the Sydney area alone.
Each-One-Teach-One
In the 1970s, the patterns of migration to Australia began to shift, with many newly arrived immigrants coming from war torn countries . Conflicts in a variety of places across the world brought diverse groups of immigrants. Refugees from Vietnam and Cambodia displaced by war and persecution, the invasion of East Timor by Indonesia and the war in Lebanon all led to a sustained influx of migrants to Australia throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In the decade following the Vietnam War, more than 80 000 Vietnamese refugees settled permanently in Australia. Between 1975 and 1986 12 813 Cambodians came to Australia under the Refugee and Special Humanitarian Program . In the same period, The Department of Home Affairs had authorised the resettlement of 95 000 Indochinese refugees in Australia .
In response to the challenges posed by new migrants arriving in diverse locations across Australia, often with little to no English, The Smith Family developed an innovative program. The Each-One-Teach-One initiative in 1972 provided survival English classes to individuals in the privacy of their own homes. While the program outwardly focused on building English literacy, The Smith Family also focused on offering a sense of connection and emotional support to newly arrived migrants entirely alone in a new country. The Smith Family paired a trained volunteer tutor with women so they might learn English and reduce the sense of isolation felt by women when they arrive. When established, it was the first home tutoring service of its kind to operate in Australia. In 1990 the program was awarded the United Nations Merit Certificate in the Year of Literacy.
Working on poverty in the 1970s: building understanding
Throughout much of the twentieth century, social welfare organisations had used rudimentary tools to measure the incidence of poverty. This monitoring typically relied on raw counts including the number of people fed, clothed or housed using under emergency programs each year . In the 1970s however, perceptions of economic disadvantage in Australia began to change and The Smith Family played a vital role in progressing understanding of poverty and its complexity.
Two landmark research investigations into poverty initiated a shift in thinking around poverty in Australia. The work of Professor Ronald Henderson in 1970 (People in Poverty: A Melbourne Survey) sought to understand the incidence of economic disadvantage in Australia. The research findings were significant because they identified a threshold point for impoverishment, based on survey data about income and expenses provided by diverse types of families . Shortly after, the Commonwealth government established a Commission of Inquiry into Poverty (1972) and appointed Henderson as the Chair. Acknowledging the significant insights that The Smith Family could bring to bear, Henderson consulted heavily with the organisation to provide research and practice insights to inform his investigation. Professor Henderson charged The Smith Family with the responsibility of providing high level insight and the submission of a formal report on the dietary challenges faced by poor families. It is an indication of the value placed on the input of The Smith Family to high level policy and practice debates about social welfare administration at the time .
The findings of the Henderson inquiry changed the landscape of the poverty debate in Australia because for the first time, policy makers and practitioners could reflect on hard data that sought to offer a definitive measure of poverty in Australia .
While there remained no regular counts of welfare activity in Australia, The Smith Family continued to experiment and sought to continually improve the internal data it collected each year. As the 1970s drew to a close, the number of people who had receive aid or assistance from the organisation had clearly continued to grow.
Impact snapshot 1970s
Adults and children who received:
- Clothing 27769
- Food hampers 4684
- Financial aid (cash amount) $24768
- Homes furnished 1281
1980s
Up to the 1980s, The Smith Family had devoted the majority of their time, effort and resources to the provision of emergency relief. For those families desperately needing to pay an electricity bill, or needing school shoes for children, The Smith Family could assist. But in the 1980s, Australian families faced a different range of challenges and this in turn, prompted reflection on what they needed most to support their children.
In 1980 a world-wide economic recession affected many countries and hit lower socio-economic families in Australia particularly hard. High unemployment and high inflation created intense economic uncertainty and when manufacturing industries began to collapse they took many employment options for lower and unskilled workers with them. The unemployment rate rose rapidly in only two years, from 5.4 per cent in June 1981 to 10.3 per cent in May 1983 . The fear amongst lower socio-economic families was very real as they were disproportionately impacted by job losses.
The recession prompted reflection across the social welfare sector, as charity organisations considered how best to respond strategically to the growing economic crisis. Within The Smith Family, frontline workers began to report that families were raising concerns about their children, and in particular, their education options. Building on this anecdotal evidence, The Smith Family sought to investigate further, with the intention of providing a formal submission to the upcoming Commonwealth Government’s Social Security Review .
When The Smith Family undertook focus groups with families, the feedback reinforced what staff had been hearing anecdotally for months. Parents and carers were worried most about the future, and above all they wanted better education options for their children.
The Smith Family entered a period of innovation, with a plan to provide an education support program which changed in step with the needs of the community. Within a year, The Smith Family had developed a pilot project: EDU-CATE. Its aim was to provide scholarship support to sixty students in Sydney, aged between the ages of twelve and sixteen. The students would receive cash assistance but also be offered advice, support and mentorship as they navigated challenges at school.
EDU-CATE offered financial assistance to students at those times of the year which made it most difficult to afford the upfront costs associated with schooling. Out of the success of EDU-CATE came a tertiary scholarship which offered financial aid and personal support to students as well . Recognising the support that mentorship can provide to a student in their specific field of study, The Smith Family developed one of the first ever schemes in Australia to combine scholarship with mentorship for students facing barriers to education because of financial disadvantage. While these education programs would continue to evolve over the next two decades, the genesis for the scholarship concept, which now exists in the form of the Learning for Life program, had its origins in the mid-1980s with the EDU-CATE model.
Impact snapshot 1980s
Adults and children who received:
Clothing 44458
- Food hampers 11210
- Financial aid (cash amount) $81686
- Homes furnished 2718
1990s – 2000s
The 1990s represents an important research and development phase for The Smith Family, in the realms of methodology, data analysis and practice. The programs that would come to define the organisation would take shape in this era, and the research and advocacy function of the organisation would begin to refine the measurement tools needed to map poverty. This heightened ability to analyse and understand poverty would facilitate the strategic planning to come.
Working on poverty in the 1990s: deepening understanding
In the 1990s, the debate over poverty was re-ignited in Australia as a range of policy makers, not for profit agencies and researchers continued to assert the need for more accurate measurements of poverty in Australia. The Smith Family made a significant contribution to this debate and helped to deepen the understanding of poverty in Australia.
In seeking to improve the methodologies used to investigate poverty, The Smith Family commissioned Professor Ann Harding at NATSEM to undertake rigorous economic modelling . Harding’s findings on financial disadvantage are widely recognised to be a significant turning point in the debate on inequality because they “prompted an extensive debate about the extent of poverty and how it is measured” . Harding’s work concluded that previous estimates of poverty have significantly underestimated the scale of disadvantage and inequality in Australia and further noted that the benefits of unprecedented economic growth had not been shared by all Australians. Harding argued that educational attainment, labour force status, family type, and housing all require greater considerations in comparative examinations of poverty and the implications for children. Most notably, the research identified that one in eight Australians lives in poverty .
Since the year 2000, The Smith Family has made a vital contribution to progressing the debate surrounding poverty in this country, through the regular publication of estimates of poverty. It is now widely recognised that a wide range of factors can conflate to create educational disadvantage for children and young people including: family characteristics; community context; the presence of chronic health conditions and/or disabilities within a family; geographical location; individual neuroscience; developmental psychology; and economic conditions .
The ongoing importance of corporate partnership
Corporate partners continue to be central to The Smith Family’s charter. In 2007, the organisation peaked with more than 75 separate state and national business partnerships and around 500 regional partnerships . In 2001, 2002 & 2007 The Smith Family won the Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence in Community Business Partnerships. Corporate partnerships helped to sustain the independence of The Smith Family in this period through financial contributions. In return, however, business partners received a reciprocal benefit . Since the 1990s, the notion of corporate social responsibility has had strong currency. Philanthropic deeds, it was argued at the time, helped to build and positively enhance good business brand . Put another way, there was a good business case for good business virtue.
The birth of Learning for Life
It was during the 1990s that the scholarship model began to properly take shape for The Smith Family. In 1997 this practice model became officially known as the Learning for Life program. Within two short years, in 1999, there were almost 7000 students enrolled in Learning for Life.
The program acknowledges that students from financially disadvantaged families often face challenges in participating in the full range of mainstream school activities, and this can affect engagement, attendance, retention and performance. To this day, the scheme continues to provide much needed direct financial assistance to families who are struggling to meet the costs associated with education, and also offers students and their families access to support and advice from trained professionals.
Consolidating a solitary focus on education
With the shift in focus to education, The Smith Family began its move away from many of its traditional charitable activities, including the recycling business. But it was still a long process. The non-woven materials business was sold in 2011 but the last elements of the recycling operations were only wound up in 2020.
21st century
In the twenty-first century The Smith Family continues to support families living with financial disadvantage, but now through an exclusive focus on addressing inequalities experienced by children and young people in education. A more globalised economy and the growing reliance on knowledge and technology jobs means that lifting educational opportunities for young people has now become more important than ever.
A suite of evidence-informed programs designed to improve education outcomes for the most vulnerable children in our communities seek to: improve school attendance and year twelve completion rates; improve academic outcomes; and enhance post school engagement in employment, education and training . The Smith Family have made preparations for the challenges that lie ahead in the twenty-first century by relying on a rigorous set of analytical and evaluative tools.
Corporate relationships continue to be important for the organisation. Strategic partnerships with more than thirty major corporations help to build the capacity of the organisation to meet the diverse needs of our families through a range of ventures including: development of education resources; provision of supports that will aid and enhance student access to education; health education; work experience; financial literacy; improved access to technology to aid education; lifted digital literacy; career development and mentoring. Corporate partnerships provide reciprocal and mutually beneficial opportunities for both The Smith Family and the business community. This assists the organisation in the form of much needed funds but also through the sharing of expertise with young people as they seek to navigate the job world.
Connecting with communities
Throughout its history, The Smith Family has demonstrated a willingness to meet families where they are, listen to their needs and adapt programs in ways which can respond to the real challenges faced by children living in contexts of disadvantage. Since the 1980s, a growing body of academic research has helped to raise awareness about poverty, and the clustering of disadvantages in communities. It is now well understood that geographic, demographic, and a range of socio-cultural factors can combine to compound economic disadvantage. The Smith Family has consistently sought to build on this knowledge in ways which strengthen the direct relationships it maintains with families experiencing financial disadvantage and to build trust within the communities in which they live. The VIEW clubs have now adjusted the scope of their activities in line with the broader education-focused goals of the organisation. Almost 300 VIEW clubs now operate Australia-wide, and their fundraising efforts help to support over 1,500 students on Learning for Life.
Working on poverty: implementing our understanding in the 21st century
We now understand that measurement of poverty is about much more than income level. While it must be noted that there is no universally agreed measure for poverty in Australia, The Smith Family has played an important role in enhancing understanding of the complexities of poverty. Over a century of research and practice, The Smith Family has raised the level of community understanding regarding the challenges faced by families living with financial disadvantage, and has worked to ameliorate the long term impacts of poverty on educational opportunities for children and young people.
In the twenty-first century, research and evaluation continues to play a vital role in building and designing the programs and educational supports the organisation provides to support young Australians living with financial disadvantage in the long term. A research and advocacy team within The Smith Family collaborates with leading researchers in order to understand the gradients of poverty that exist and determine how these shape educational experience for children and poverty . As the research in this field grows, The Smith Family will continue to play an important guiding role in shaping the instruments and tools we use to understand and measure poverty.
A research partnership between The Smith Family and the University of NSW Social Policy Research Centre has culminated in better tools to understand poverty. In 2019, the release of data from the Child Deprivation Index help to better capture how children specifically perceive and experience poverty .
What does education support look like for The Smith Family in 2022?
Central to The Smith Family’s educational support is the Learning for Life scholarship program. It provides wrap-around support for the student, consisting of three elements: financial, practical and personal. Financial support is provided to help families purchase things like school uniforms, shoes and bags, and pay for excursions and extra-curricular activities. Personal support is provided by a Family Partnership Co-ordinator (FPC) who supports the student’s education journey and connects them and their family to relevant local services and supports. And practical support is provided through access that students have access to out-of-school educational and mentoring programs.
This suite of after-school programs helps students experiencing severe barriers to education, often in some of the most disadvantaged communities in Australia. A program of continual innovation supports the development of program content including key areas such as:
• Transitions from school to work
• Improved life skills, self-esteem and confidence to succeed at school
• Strengthened peer connection
• Enhancements to technology and digital access
• Lifted literacy and numeracy
• Improved carer awareness and understanding of the education system and how to navigate it
• Learning for Life provide financial scholarship but also mentoring and coaching programs and skill development in areas such as digital literacy.
Looking to the future
Over a hundred years the level of understanding about the barriers to education have deepened, and the tools used to measure disadvantage have improved also. In the early years of operation, the organisation focused on aggregate recipients of charity, in the twenty-first century The Smith Family now closely monitors the progress of children and young people enrolled in their programs and develops targets for both fundraising and student outcomes. Strategic planning, based on five-year cycles guide the operational planning and practice of the organisation by determining the targets and goals to be achieved in the short and long term.
The organisation now also has an influential advocacy role as it contributes to major policy debates, public inquiries and in the preparation of expert advice to government on the extent of disadvantage in the community and its implications for the education of young people. The Smith Family prepares comprehensive submissions to approximately ten major national and state inquiry processes in any calendar year, on a wide range of issues impacting education including (but not limited to): Curriculum Review; Education Delivery and Schooling; Vocational Education and Post-School Options; Skills Reform; Welfare Dependence; Support for Families; Employment Services, Child Rights and Inequality.
What began as one act of charity in one Sydney orphanage on a Christmas eve in 1922, has expanded to a national organisation with a strong platform of advocacy and research and impactful practice partnerships in 736 schools, across 90 communities Australia-wide. More than 170,000 children and young people are currently registered to our programs.
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