The former St John’s Orphanage resident lamented the building’s neglect at exactly this time last year.

“It’s in a very sad state with just about every window smashed,” he said at the time.

“…There’s no soul left in the building. We’re seeing what we called our home rotting.”

Just days earlier, in November 2014, a small grass fire, which police deemed suspicious, had taken hold in grass near the western boundary.

Mr Merrigan at that time was trying to garner council and community support for a ‘Save St John’s’ action group.

Learning of Wednesday’s fire, Mr Merrigan said it was “incredibly sad, devastating but not unexpected.”

“Like most people in Goulburn, all the ‘old boys’ have been expecting this fire,” he said.

“I have already received calls from some of the Old Boys and they are most upset. One of the boys mentioned to me how the Sisters at St John’s instilled a high level of respect for other people’s property and how important it was to do the right thing by people. They cannot understand how this could happen.

“The destructive state of the building and the fact that no one claimed to own the responsibility to repair or save it, have greatly contributed to this fire and they should all hang their heads in shame,” he said.

Mr Merrigan was at St John’s for 10 years until 1969. He now lives on the Central Coast and organises the orphanage’s reunions.

Another ‘old boy,’ Lindsay Chesworth said the “ongoing vandalism and neglect” had been a sore point for the past decade.

“This has seen a beautiful EC Manfred-designed local heritagelisted building go to rack and ruin,” he said.

Mr Chesworth said former residents had not been impressed by the ‘inaction’ over the structure’s condition.

“There is also no respect or caring from the many young juveniles living in Goulburn today or over the past 10 years as they have gone on to trash, smash, burn and graffiti to the point ghost tours are taken there,” he said.

“A 100-year-old hotel in Gatton, Queensland, makes the national news but no one cares about a beautiful old building in Goulburn. No reports have made the national news about the fire at St John’s and many boys are spread far and wide in every state of Australia.”