Scheyville National Park

SCHEYVILLE

Between 1802 and 1893 Scheyville was part of a grazing common set aside for local settlers.  During the depression of the 1890’s a village settlement was established to ease the high levels of unemployment then in 1896 it was converted into a government training farm.

In 1911 the farm was taken over by the Dreadnought Trust where young British men were sent to Australia and sponsored to learn agricultural skills.    In 1914, 87 Germans taken from boats held in Sydney Harbour were interned and in 1915 a short lived program was introduced to train women in agricultural skills while men were at war. The scheme for the boys concluded in the 1930’s and a similar project provided farm training for Australian city boys.

World War II saw Scheyville used for military training by the 73^rd Australian Anti-aircraft Search Light Company and later by the RAAF 244 1^st Parachute Battalion.  In 1949 the decision was made to convert into a centre for migrants.  It became one of the larger immigration hostel in Australia, with immigrants mainly from Eastern Europe and Scandinavia, the hostel closed in 1964.

In 1965 Shcheyville once again became an army camp with the needs through conscription for the Vietnam War.

Today there are only empty buildings only the outside shell but if walls could talk  we are sure there would be lots of stories.  As you walk through the dormitory areas with only the frame holding everything together you can only imagine what may have been, this place has great Australian historical memories.

Sunday 1st July 2012

We decided one morning to drive to Scheyville National park which is about a 30 minute drive.

This use to be for me a migrants camp for Dutch, Latvians and some other countries.




The kids use to go to my school which was Windsor Public School and that was about 1956 to 1960.

They were wonderful kids who enjoyed their life but must have been a hard life for their parents all living on a big camp site.

These families went on to become established residents in the Hawkesbury. The Army moved in and my brother Darrel had a friend whose father was the camps commanding officer (Studdart). When they moved out I can remember the Windsor Rugby League club holding gambling nights out at the camp.