Caroline Chisholm was a woman of many contradictions. She became a Catholic and has many Catholic schools and institutions named after her, but is honoured as a saint only by the Anglican Church.
She was supported in her work by her husband who became Catholic before marriage – she had made him sign a pre-nup allowing her to continue her work for people who were poor. She spent much of her life trying to help solve Australian social and economic challenges but received little help from government, and her most effective work was done lobbying in England. She became one of the best-known women in England, but with her husband died in relative poverty and obscurity. Her removal from the Australian five dollar note provoked outrage from the Prime Minister and Opposition leader of the time, but led to images of women appearing on all Australian notes.
One of the threads that runs through Caroline Chisholm’s life was her attention to young women in need. After her marriage she went with her husband to his military posting in India. She immediately became concerned for the welfare of the soldiers’ daughters who lived idly and at risk in the barracks. She opened a school where they could learn practical skills and manners that would help them as adults.
When she came to Australia with her husband on leave she noticed the crowds of young women around the docks. They had come to Australia for employment only to arrive in a time both of depression and of shortage of rural labour. She opened a refuge for young women in Sydney and, on her horse Captain, accompanied groups of them to find suitable placements in the country.
Her experience made her turn her attention to the more general difficulties facing immigrants to the colony, and especially migrant families. She recognised their need to be treated respectfully and Australia’s need for immigrants to build the nation. She faced opposition from government and landowners to the measures needed to ensure these needs were met. Immigrants needed regulation to ensure they could travel safely and with dignity, grants of land with long-term leases to build their lives, support for family members of immigrants, and assistance in finding suitable positions.
When her proposals were rejected in Australia, she returned to England to encourage people to settle in Australia, to lobby parliamentary committees to subsidise and regulate travel, and to establish an organisation that could accompany migrants at each stage of their journey. Her husband travelled to Australia to assist migrants on their arrival. Her writing and her speaking made her a public heroine.
After the discovery of gold in Victoria Caroline travelled to the Victorian goldfields. She was appalled by the conditions facing women who accompanied the diggers, and worked to establish a system of huts at the end of each day’s journey. To support themselves and their children she and her husband opened a store in Kyneton, a stopping place on the goldfields route, where her husband also became a magistrate. As her health declined they returned to England with their youngest children. Since she had always refused any private or institutional donations during her life, they lived simply and obscurely until her death.
If she is ever made a Catholic saint, Caroline Chisholm could become the patron saint of non-government organisations – passionate in her companionship of people in need, always discerning new areas of need, courageous in her advocacy and publicity, and unintimidated by financial risk.
CAROLINE CHISHOLM
30 May 1808–25 March 1877
19th century humanitarian and philanthropist, known for her support of immigrant female and family welfare in Australia
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