[4] Between 1880 and 1891, the boys were moved to a moored hulk called the Fitzjames at Largs Bay[5] and later further up the Port River (and various other anchorages nearby, depending on the weather[6]), with the girls remaining at Magill.

[8] A Royal Commission was ordered into the Destitute Board in 1883, which found the boys at Fitzjames in "pallid and dull appearance" and conditions described as "depressing" with "wearisome monotony of life", "gross improprieties" between younger children and older youths and officers, "deplorable" education standards and "defects in the dietary and want of open-air exercise".

"[16] The South Australian Children's Welfare and Public Relief Board was aware of sexual abuse at the site in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

[3] One boy aged 14 held in the centre in the early 1960s reported he was stripped naked and placed in solitary confinement for three days as a punishment for an attempted breakout.

The commission heard from ten people held in the Magill Reformatory in 1950s and 1960s who were sexually abused or raped by staff and older boys.

[18] After a tour of the site by Australia's Youth Representative to the United Nations, Chris Varney, in 2009, the centre was described as "the worst of its kind" and a "living human rights abuse".

[19] In 2009 more than 40 welfare groups and individuals including the executive director of the Youth Affairs Council of South Australia and chief executive officer of Anglicare SA signed an open letter to the South Australian Premier calling for a closure of the site for its appalling conditions and contravention of the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child.

[20] The South Australian Guardian for Children described the centre as "barbaric", and "a blight on the state" and the Social Inclusion Commission described the conditions there as "deplorable".