As early as 1841 Melbourne newspapers recorded cases of destitute children. A government orphanage was promised, but in the meantime various church relief societies moved to fill the gap. In 1847 Fr P.B. Geoghegan formed the Friendly Brothers' Society which utilised the informal Catholic network to find foster families for the destitute children.
The discovery of gold in 1851 prompted a flood of hopeful immigrants into Victoria. Over the next decade te colony's mushrooming population generated unprecedented numbers of neglected or destitute children. In the absence of a coordinated governement response to the problem, a number of church-based charitable organisations sprang up offering care. In 1854 Fr Gerald Ward and the recently formed St Vincent de Paul Society began to care for orphans in a house in Prahran. Meanwhile, the foundation stone for the first orphanage in Melbourne (the Melbourne orphanage) was laid in 1855 (continuing today as part of Oz Child). The establishment of Melbourne's first Catholic orphanage, St Vincent de Paul orphanage at South Melbourne, followed barely a month later, when Fr Ward moved the operation to the Cecil Street site.