Caroline Clark

Caroline Clark (1825-1911) campaigned tirelessly for improved conditions and rights for destitute and orphaned children. She advocated for the boarding out of children from institutions into suitable family care which resulted in the amendment of the Destitute Act in 1872.

Clark set up the Boarding-out Society with herself as Secretary, and Catherine Helen Spence as Treasurer, to help the Destitute Board implement the system.

In 1887 she was appointed to the new State Children's Council and in the 1890s helped achieve reforms that saw the establishment of the Children's Court in rooms separated from the Supreme Court, and the suppression of children's names in published reports of trials.

In 2015, the Adelaide Cemeteries Authority established the Caroline Clark Memorial Garden, located in the West Terrace Cemetery, GS Kingston Park/Wirrarninthi (Park 23), to commemorate around 50,000 people buried there in unmarked graves, including 50 children who died while in state care.

Celebrating 125 years of women's suffrage in South Australia.

Image: State Library of SA, PRG 331/1/1, 1903