Remembering the Papatoetoe Orphan Home

Fifty years ago on 5 August 1963 the Health Department's Division of Mental Health began using the former Papatoetoe Orphan Home as a hospital for children with special learning and living needs. The home, also previously and variously known as St John’s Orphanage, St Mary’s Home and the Church of England Orphan Home was now renamed St John’s Home. St John’s Home eventually became a satellite home of the Mangere Hospital (in Robertson Road) for young people with intellectual challanges. Papatoetoe Orphan Home had been laid out according to a 1907 plan by the architect George Selwyn Goldsbro’. Ref: AWNS-19070815-5-1, plan for the proposed orphanage in Papatoetoe, 1907, Sir George Grey Special Collections However because of budgetary constraints it would be built in stages. Only three of the four dormitory blocks were built initially. (The fourth dormitory block was never built). The blocks were linked by corridors. There was a dining hall and laundry building behind t...