The site of a block of units at 15 Stuart Street, Manly, has an interesting and contrasting history in the education of boys.
In 1885, Mr James Smith built a large two-storey mansion on the corner of Stuart Street and Addison Road, which he sold to Mrs Rosina FitzStubbs, widow of a wealthy land agent.
From 1905 to the mid-1920s, Mrs J Ritchie was the householder and the house, now referred to as Keira Hall, was a bed and breakfast establishment.
After a brief period as a home for babies, run by the Church of England, it was purchased in 1932 by the Presbyterian Church. The Church then converted it to the Manly Presbyterian Grammar School for Boys.
The school catered for both boarders and day pupils. One of the latter recalls how the uniform included a straw boater hat and that boys from the public school down on the flats used to delight in knocking them off the heads of the Grammar boys whenever their paths crossed in Manly.
With the outbreak of war in 1939 the school closed but, just a year later, the Church repurposed the site as a home for “underprivileged and delinquent children”.
It was called the St Andrew’s Boys’ Home, and mainly took in boys from the Children’s Court. It could accommodate 32 at a time, with ages ranging from 11 to 14.
The driving force within the Church was the Reverend Joseph Faulkner, who became the superintendent of the Presbyterian Social Service Department in 1941. He also started a home for aged women (at Auburn) and agitated for one for girls.
In the 1960s, the home’s activities were transferred to a 400-acre rural property at Leppington and, with the formation of the Uniting Church in 1977, it was placed under the auspices of Burnside Homes. St Andrews Boys’ Home finally closed in 1986.
