Format: Place

Linked To

People

Father Thomas Dunlea

Places

Engadine

Photograph

Depicted in (5)

Map

Related maps

Oral History

People who recall this place

Map

StreetView

Recollections

Add

no stories yet

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

You are free to reuse and adapt this work providing the work is not used in a commercial setting and you attribute Sutherland Shire Libraries as the copyright owner without indicating that the Library endorses you or the work. Any other usage must be negotiated by contacting the Library. Please use the following attribution statement: Courtesy of the Local Studies Collection, Sutherland Shire Libraries

Tools

Download Add to My Collection Contact us about this Citation for this item

Boys' Town (Dunlea Centre)

Main

Collection SummaryFor 80 years Boys’ Town (known since 2010 as the Dunlea Centre) has provided invaluable educational, social and residential care, assistance and training to thousands of young people and families in the community. But the facility had very humble beginnings.HistoryIn 1934, Father Thomas Vincent Dunlea was appointed as the parish priest at Sutherland. At the time, the district had several unemployed camps including a large one at Engadine which was home to around 40 families. Amongst the many people from the camps who sought Dunlea’s assistance were a number of boys in need of accommodation and employment. Although none was available, Dunlea took a special interest in these underprivileged youngsters and one night in 1939 he realised how he could best help these boys and others like them.

Dunlea’s inspiration was Boys’ Town, a 1938 Hollywood film that told the real life story of Father Edward Flanagan and the home for boys that he had established in Omaha, Nebraska in 1917. The movie featured Spencer Tracy as the Catholic priest who believes that there is ‘no such thing as a bad boy,’ (Tracy won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance) and Mickey Rooney as Whitey Marsh, a troubled youngster who eventually decides to reform and manages to go on to become the new mayor of Boys’ Town. When the film played at Sutherland, Father Dunlea took three local boys along to watch it. Throughout the screening the boys repeatedly asked Dunlea if he could also start a Boys’ Town so that they too might have the same opportunities as those revealed in the film. Two days later, on 1 August 1939, the three teenage lads, along with a fourth sent from the Children’s Court, moved into a ramshackle rented weatherboard cottage – dubbed ‘Boys’ Town’ – on the corner of Glencoe and Flora Streets in Sutherland. Incredibly, in one of life’s truly remarkable coincidences, one of these boys was also named Mickey Rooney – just like the Hollywood actor in the film.

Michael Edward (Mickey) Rooney was born in County Cork, Ireland in 1923 and was just a baby when he immigrated to Australia with his mother. Sadly, just a few months after the pair arrived in this country, the mother died and Mickey was left a penniless orphan. After spending most of his early childhood in and out of institutions, Mickey, by the age of 16, had become very much the product of a hard, unsympathetic Sydney environment. It was then that he happened to come under the influence of Father Dunlea and his life was turned around.

As in the movie, Father Dunlea entrusted much of the decision-making and management at his Boys’ Town to the boys themselves. The youngsters constituted their own council and conducted their own elections for the positions of mayor, aldermen, health inspectors and other officers. And like his famous namesake’s character in Boys’ Town, young Mickey Rooney was elected as mayor. But the similarities do not end there because when he eventually left Boys’ Town, Michael Edward (Mickey) Rooney also became a performer. Or more specifically a tenor. He was a regular singer on radio programmes and, at one stage, even toured Australia with the cast of the Italian Grand Opera Company.

In August 1939, just after the teenage Mickey Rooney and the other three boys first moved into the original cottage at Sutherland, Father Dunlea was asked what he hoped to achieve at his new Boys’ Town. ‘I want to make the venture dynamic and revitalise the boys,’ he replied, ‘I am starting the Boys’ Town with nothing. Our credit is in the bank of Providence and the hearts of the Australian people.’ Moreover, when it came to whether a boy might be accepted into his Boys’ Town, Dunlea ‘placed no distinction on colour or creed’. Not surprisingly, news of the venture quickly spread and before long lads started arriving from all parts of Australia – from children’s shelters, off the track, as well as some who had run away from home. Soon there were too many for the cottage.

Almost one year after it opened, on direction from the Health Department, Sutherland Shire Council issued the establishment with a minor nuisance notice over problems with yard drainage. In protest, the 21 boys in residence at the cottage evicted themselves. On 17 July 1940, Father Dunlea led the youngsters in procession through Sutherland. They were accompanied by their two dogs, two horses and two goats – one of which the boys had rather cheekily named after the Council’s health inspector. As the boys marched along they carried banners, and an announcer told those who had come out to watch the procession: ‘We are leaving Boys’ Town. All we ask is a chance. All we want is a home.’ After a trek of a little over 3 kilometres the boys pitched their tents in the National Park near Loftus, and there they lived for 9 weeks.

People came in their hundreds to visit the boys camped in the bush at ‘Canvastown.’ Telegrams and cablegrams of compassion and support poured in; representatives from government institutions and various churches sent notes of sympathy and encouragement; and newspapers across Australia informed readers of the boys’ plight. But more importantly, financial assistance – although not actively sought by Dunlea – was forthcoming. Amongst those who made donations was Sydney sportsman Mr George Nathan who raised £100,000 to erect a new Boys’ Town. On 4 May 1941, then Premier of New South Wales, Mr Alexander Mair, laid the foundation stone of a new building at Engadine.

Father Dunlea began his Boys’ Town in 1939 with a handful of needy lads, an inspired idea, and an enormous amount of goodwill and fortitude … just one month before the world fell into the awful abyss of another long and bloody war. Indeed, many of those who passed through Boys’ Town went on to serve their country in one of the arms of the military, here in Australia as well as overseas. At Engadine, Father Dunlea and his growing army of staff and supporters also fought on. By the time the Second World War at last ended in 1945, Boys’ Town had blossomed into a vast area of educational facilities, residential buildings and open spaces where 110 boys – mostly orphans aged between 8 and 18 years – were being educated, trained and cared for.

Following the 70th anniversary of Boys’ Town in 2009, Senator Michael Forshaw addressed the Australian Senate:

Boys’ Town has become synonymous with youth care and with offering a second chance and, many times, the last chance for young people and their families. It is fair to say the local community regard Boys’ Town Engadine with great pride. It is part of our community and part of our history…The highest admiration however is for all those who have worked in Boys’ Town over its 70 years…It takes special people with great patience, determination and compassion to spend their lives working in this difficult area and in particular facing some of the very difficult challenges faced by the young boys and now young girls at Boys’ Town. Their reward has been to see the success of their work in the young men who have left Boys’ Town to take their place in the world.
Senator Michael Forshaw, 14 September 2009.

Photograph