Caroline Chisholm

1808-1877 19th century

Hospitality organised; a charity that gives itself the practical means to keep its word.

Who was Caroline Chisholm?

An Englishwoman married to a Catholic officer, she first opened a school for soldiers' daughters in Madras, then landed in Sydney in 1838 and found immigrant women sleeping outdoors, without work or protection. She obtained an empty government building, set up a home there, and for seven years drove the drays into the interior herself to settle thousands of women and families. Back in England she set up a loan fund to reunite families separated by the ocean, and died without money.

In their own words

I promise to know neither country nor creed, but to serve all justly and impartially.

A vow she records making on Easter Sunday 1841, in Sydney