Our Boys Institute
Our Boys Institute (OBI) was a junior branch of YMCA.[1] Opened in 1896, the club was housed in a purpose-built premises at 221 Wakefield Street, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia.[2]
The Our Boys Institute included lecture and games rooms, indoor running track, pool, and was available for boys aged 13–18, a forefunner to the various youth groups which flourished in the first half of the twentieth century such as the Boys' Brigade, Scouting, etc.[3]
The Our Boys Institute promoted a Christian philosophy and also ran camps and provided employment assistance for young men.[4]
F.W. Danker was the architect for the building.[5] The carved sandstone Venetian Gothic facade of the building was listed on the South Australian Heritage Register on 24 July 1980.[3] The facade of the Our Boys Institute bears similarities to the Chicago Athletic Club; it has been suggested that Danker was influenced by the Club and its architect, Henry Ives Cobb.[6]
The building has since been used as office space and an external studies college[2] and was converted by architects JPE Design Studio[7] to a boutique hotel in 2008. The hotel opened as Wakefield Residence but has since changed the name to Adabco Boutique Hotel.[8]
A plaque on the facade of the building shows the role played by the wife of the South Australian Governor, Sir Thomas Buxton, 3rd Baronet, Lady Victoria Buxton. Lady Buxton was a Christian Philanthropist who supported the Mothers' Union and YWCA and who resided in Adelaide between 1895 and 1898.[9]
Wakefield Street was named for Daniel Bell Wakefield, brother of the better-known Edward Gibbon Wakefield[10]
Our Girls' Institute was a similar organization run under the auspices of the YWCA. Phoebe Chapple (1879–1967) and Edith Lavington Tite (1877–1955) were prominent leaders.
Notes
- ^ "YMCA of South Australia". YMCA of South Australia.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ a b "Our Boys Institute (former), 219-223 Wakefield St, Adelaide, SA, Australia - listing on the now-defunct Register of the National Estate (Place ID 6401)". Australian Heritage Database. Australian Government. 21 March 1978.
- ^ a b "Facade of Former "Our Boys" Institute Building". SA Heritage Places Database. Government of South Australia. 24 July 1980. Retrieved 24 August 2019.
- ^ SA Memory http://www.samemory.sa.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=61&c=1743
- ^ http://www.architectsdatabase.unisa.edu.au/arch_full.asp?Arch_ID=12
- ^ Perterson, B. State History Conference 2006, Community History Unit, History Trust of South Australia http://www.history.sa.gov.au/chu/programs/history_conference/BobPetersonPaper.pdf
- ^ JPE Design Studio http://www.jpe.com.au/#/projects
- ^ Adabco Boutique Hotel http://adabcohotel.com.au
- ^ Joan B. Huffman, ‘Buxton , Lady Victoria (1839–1916)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004
- ^ "Streets of Adelaide and North Adelaide" (PDF). State Library of South Australia. Retrieved 21 May 2016.