Easy enough cache to find in a significnt location in Molong's history. Cache is small, log available as well as small swaps. Bring own pen to sign log.
Significant place due to the history of Fairbridge Farm in Molong. The views of Mr Fairbridge and what he envisioned for Fairbridge Farm can be read about while here, while views of Fairbridge Farm can be seen overlooking the caches location.
The Fairbridge plan for caring for child migrants from Great Britain originated with the founder, Kingsley Fairbridge. He was a Rhodes Scholar from Rhodesia and was appalled at the conditions of the thousands of under privileged children in England with no future but poverty and probable degradation. He wanted to transplant such children to the wide-open spaces in colonies. With support from well wishers at Oxford and elsewhere, from whom evolved The Fairbridge Society, he founded the first Fairbridge Farm School at Pinjarra near Perth WA in 1912.
The Committee approved the purchase by Mr. Reid of 'Narragoon', four miles from Molong to be the site of the Fairbridge Farm School. It consisted of 1700 acres, in a rectangular form, 1 mile by 2 ½ miles, with a frontage to the Molong Creek.
The original stock for the farm consisted on two Shorthorn cows and 450 Merino wethers. Other purchases were 129 bags of seed wheat, 11 bags of superphosphate, a horse-rake, a grinder and pickler and a ton of salt.
By November 1937, sufficient progress had been made to have the Farm School officially opened by the Governor-General, Lord Gowrie, on November 26th.
The first party of 28 migrant boys arrived in March, 1938, and a second party of 28 arrived in June. In 1939 two more parties reached Molong bringing the number of children in residence to over 130. Altogether, some 1200 children passed through the Fairbridge Farm School.
At the peak of its activities the Fairbridge Village consisted of some eighteen to twenty children's cottages, a dining hall and kitchen, donated by Lord Nuffield, the Principal's house, a cottage hospital, staff quarters, a chapel, in which many Old Fairbridgians were married, a laundry, a wood shed, Gloucester House (a focus for Old Fairbridgians reunions), a dairy and piggery.
Through the co-operation of many private citizens the children were able to spend Christmas holidays away from Molong. Sydney Legacy Club and some Rotary Clubs and Apex Clubs also provided holidays away from the village.
The post war decision of the United Kingdom Government to ban the migration of children led to considerable difficulties in the administration of the Farm School at Molong. The Fairbridge Society instituted its family schemes whereby one parent families and two parent families were assisted to migrate to Australia, the children being cared for by Fairbridge until the parents had established a home for them. But this scheme proved to be impracticable in New South Wales mainly because of the distance separating the children in Molong from their parents in Sydney. The result was that no more children came to Molong from Britain after 1966.