PM announces funding for FOS facelift
The Female Orphan School at Parramatta is set for a facelift to bring it back to its former glory, thanks to $7 million in funding announced by Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
The generous funding will significantly contribute to the restoration of the interior of the Female Orphan School’s East Wing (opens in a new window), which has stood empty and derelict since the mid-1980s.
The restored East Wing will become the permanent home for the Whitlam Institute within the University of Western Sydney, and the Whitlam Prime Ministerial Library – a collection that spans thousands of papers, books, letters and other important items belonging to former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam.
The Prime Minister addressed a distinguished crowd, joining staff, students and community members on the Parramatta campus.
“It’s fitting that the Whitlam Institute has found a home here in the region where Gough became the first leader to elevate the needs and aspirations of suburban Australians to the level of national concerns.
Here, in one of our most important heritage buildings... one of the nation’s greatest stories can be told and retold, and one of nation’s greatest sons can be esteemed.”
The oldest three-storey brick building still standing in Australia, the Female Orphan School was constructed under the direction of Governor and Mrs Macquarie as a home for orphaned and destitute girls of the Colony of New South Wales.
The full restoration of the Female Orphan School is due for completion just in time for the building’s bicentenary in 2013.
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