03 -’TENT CITY’ COMMONWEALTH MIGRANT HOSTEL

Edward St, Orange

Accommodation in Orange was scarce when post-war migrants started arriving in the late 1940s. The first group of male migrants to be allocated work at the Emmco factory were given two-man tents to live in situated on land between the factory and the railway line. ‘Tent City’, as it became known, was home to them for several years until a Commonwealth migrant hostel was built just south of the factory in 1952.

Some migrants found accommodation in the ‘Duration Cottages’ located on the hill east of the factory, which had originally been built during the war for munitions workers.