Royal Far West is an Australian charity based in Manly, New South Wales, that connects Australian country children to the developmental care they need. Founded in 1924 by Methodist missionary Reverend Stanley Drummond from Cobar, today Royal Far West works in partnership with families, schools, healthcare providers, local government and community groups, offering health, education and disability services for country children and their families at its Centre for Country Kids in Manly, as well as virtually via Telecare and in local rural and remote communities. The charity's mission is to improve the health and wellbeing of children and young people who live in rural and remote communities. Royal Far West's Centre for Country Kids opened in December 2018. This purpose-built, state-of-the-art facility integrates specialist paediatric services with the Royal Far West Department of Education School, enabling the charity to support and strengthen the resilience and wellbeing of children and families in Australia's rural communities. Royal Far West's Patron is the Governor of New South Wales, General The Honourable Margaret Beazley AC QC. History The first Far West camp was organised in 1925, taking 58 children and six mothers from towns including Bourke, Brewarrina and Wilcannia to Cronulla. The following year the camp was held at Manly for the first time In Manly, the operator of a local cottage hospital, Dr George Moncrieff Barron, volunteered his services free of charge, and would continue to do so until his death. Land would later be purchased in Wentworth Street, allowing the Drummond Far West Children's Home to be built. The original facility provided 80 beds. An idea conceived by a doctor from the remote NSW town of Trangie was adopted by Far West in 1931 which saw it operating mobile baby clinics staffed by nurses out of converted railway carriages along railway lines in the west of the state. By 1954, four carriages had been converted and were the only of their type in the world. The Far West Scheme also developed an aerial transport service in the 1930s and successfully lobbied the New South Wales Government to pay for the construction of airstrips to allow better access to communities. Stanley Drummond met Nancy Bird Walton in 1935 and soon hired her to provide the air ambulance service on behalf of the scheme. Walton used her own aircraft, and later was appointed Officer Order of the British Empire in honour of her dedication