page_title: Benalla Migrant Camp
section_title: The Benalla Experiment
hierarchical_section_title: Benalla Migrant Camp / The Benalla Experiment
caption_attribution_description: English: Migrants were employed at the Renold Chains factory.
context_page_description: The Benalla Migrant Camp, formally known as the Benalla Holding Centre and the Benalla Migrant Accommodation Centre, was one of 23 similar camps established by the Australian government to provide temporary housing for non-British new arrivals in post-World War II Australia. The Camp occupied the former Royal Australian Air Force No.11 Elementary Flying Training School, adjacent to a small aerodrome on the outskirts of Benalla in north east Victoria. Opening in 1949, the Benalla Migrant Camp was a modest-sized holding centre, accommodating 200 – 400 people. It survived national reviews of migrant accommodation needs in 1953 and 1959, but by 1967, the number of residents had diminished sufficiently for the Camp to close. By that time, over 60,000 people — mainly of Polish, Latvian, Lithuanian, German and Estonian origins, as well as other nationalities — had been accommodated there.
context_section_description: The Benalla Holding Centre also fulfilled a distinct role within the national migrant camp system, in that it received supporting mothers with children (at the time, dubbed ‘unsupported mothers’ or ‘widows and unmarried mothers’).
  As a humanitarian gesture, Australia's immigration scheme had admitted large numbers of supporting mothers at the request of the International Refugee Organisation, to help it empty the Displaced Persons Camps in Europe. At the time, Harold Holt, the Minister for Immigration, explained, ‘It was fully realised that their employment and accommodation would present a problem’.
  From late 1951 on, many of these supporting mothers were directed to the Benalla Holding Centre, which was close to two newly built factories (the Latoof and Callil clothing and Renold Chains factories). These factories offered the women employment. The Camp also employed some of the women as cooks, hygiene workers and in administration; while others were employed locally as ‘domestics’.
  At any one time, about a third of the resident population of the Benalla Migrant Camp was made up of supporting mothers. Initially, what some social workers dubbed the ‘Benalla experiment’ seemed to work well, especially after Camp facilities were improved and adequate childcare for working mothers was provided. Women were given English language training and homemaking classes, to increase their prospects of marriage and assimilation into the wider community. Benalla was intended only as a short term solution for accommodating supporting migrant women, and initially, with the turn-over of 30-50 Camp residents each month, the system seemed satisfactory.
  However, the jobs open to supporting mothers did not pay enough for them to accumulate sufficient savings to establish their own homes. For most of these women, their best prospects for leaving the Camp lay in marriage or by moving into accommodation with their eldest child once he or she was working and could establish a home; but where these opportunities did not exist, there was a problem. Living under temporary conditions for long periods was demoralising for both women and children, and yet by 1956, social workers found that Benalla had many ‘long stayers’ who had little prospect of leaving, and some who were even fearful of leaving the protection of the Camp.
  As the Camp closed in 1967, a psychiatric social worker, Mrs K. Patterson, was appointed to recommend ways that remaining residents could be ‘absorbed effectively into the community.’ One former social worker later recalled that, far from the ‘Benalla experiment’ being a success, ‘Benalla was a sad and tragic camp where widows and single mothers were sent… The morale of the women was low and assimilation into the community poor.’
caption: Migrants were also employed at the Renold Chains factory.
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