These photographs illustrate the farm property and buildings, the training programs and aspects of daily life of the people working at Scheyville (near Windsor). Scheyville was a training farm for young men selected from the Sydney area, and those arriving under various British immigration schemes.
During the 1790s plans to establish an orphan asylum in Sydney gathered pace as the number of neglected and destitute children increased. The first Female Orphan School, championed by Governor Philip King and Reverend Samuel Marsden, opened in 1801. Initially boys were apprenticed out rather than being institutionalised until the first Male Orphan School was established in 1818 in George St, Sydney. The Male Orphan School then moved to Cabramatta in 1823.