THE WAY WE WERE
post-war migrant hostels A NEW LIFE FOR MIGRANTS IN WOLLONGONG Sources Wollongong Heritage and Stories, Lost Wollongong and Migrant Heritage Project Illawarra Images From the collections of the Wollongong City Libraries and the Illawarra Historical Society; Michelle Dubois (Surgeoner Family)
Tucked away in the University of Wollongong Innovation Campus, is the site of one of Wollongong’s migrant hostels. The Balgownie migrant hostel, later called Fairy Meadow, was a temporary home to thousands of post-war migrants from 1951 to the late 1970s.
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Spotted by their curved roofs, the Nissen hut buildings were first designed in 1917 and were widely used in World War Two. Cheap and easily transported, a single hut could be assembled by six men in around four hours, and as a result, they sprang up in migrant camps across Australia. Designed for convenience rather than comfort, they were hot and humid in summer and bitterly cold in winter. A melting pot of nationalities, including residents from England, Italy, Denmark, Spain and Scotland, the hostel was a place
