Caroline Chisholm was renowned for her charitable work at a personal and public level and for the social reforms and improvements she achieved in the 19th century. Some hundreds benefited directly from the School of Female Industry she set up in Madras, India, during the 1830s when she was newly married and a mother. Over 11,000 benefited directly during her first period of assisting new and recent emigrants and others in Australia from 1838 to 1846. After she and her husband Archibald returned to England in 1846, they won a raft of social reforms and improvements for emigrants, particularly poor emigrants. Over the years these benefited, directly and indirectly, a very large number of those going to Australia to settle individually or as a family group or to be re-united with their families there. When the Chisholms returned to gold-rush Australia in the 1850s, then with a family of six children, they again acted decisively for the common good. This included provision of affordable accommodation for those traveling to the goldfields and advocating fairer distribution of land.

Emigrant Depots and Journeys
Mrs Chisholm began the Female Immigrants’ Home in Bent Street, Sydney at the end of 1841. Over the following year, she achieved a great deal, housing homeless emigrant girls, finding them and other job seekers fairly paid work, and establishing emigrant depots to assist new settlers. She regularly took “bush parties” of single girls and families to the country. For a map showing the depots and her journeys by land and sea, click here.

Image of the younger Mrs Chisholm:

This portrait of the young – late teens? – Caroline Chisholm [nee Jones] was executed by Thomas Fairland (1804-1852) – nla.pic-an9267591. It is reproduced with the kind permission of the National Library of Australia. Digital and quality copies are available from the library on www.nla.gov.au.

A new Time-line has been finalised. This shows the important dates and activities for Caroline Chisholm and selected details for her husband Archibald and their children. Click here Time-line. As well, a reliable summary of Caroline Chisholm’s life and work has been included as another pdf file. This was written by the late Percival Serle and included in his 1949 Dictionary of Australian Biography. His summary presents a secularized description of Caroline Chisholm’s motivation and significance, but it is nonetheless fair and balanced – to view the summary click ADB_1949_Serle . . . it is in the public domain.

Image of an older Mrs Chisholm:

This etching of the middle-aged Mrs Chisholm was included in Samuel Sidney’s The Three Colonies of Australia, published in 1853. Private copy.

Interest in Caroline Chisholm’s admirable life and work has ebbed and flowed in England and Australia, influenced by various extraneous factors within the Church and in society generally. Interest is again growing, and her Christian discipleship, which was recognized as being impressively faithful and fruitful by preceding generations, is again being seen as a trustworthy model for lay people, but especially for those in the largest vocational stream . . . the vocation of marriage.

While the definitive account of her life, which was so spiritually and humanly rich, is yet to be written, Margaret Kiddle’s 1950 biography entitled Caroline Chisholm remains the best all-round treatment of Mrs Chisholm’s life and work. Unfortunately, both the hard cover and paper back versions are currently out-of-print. Mary Hoban’s Fifty-one Pieces of Wedding Cake, published in 1973 but now out-of-print, endeavoured to redress some of the lacunae of Kiddle’s biography.

What’s on the Web?
Typing “Caroline Chisholm” in a search engine will generate a lot of hits, for an Australia search and for a worldwide one. But, whichever you choose, you’re not likely to find many that have reliable, worthwhile historical information. Among the first few pages of search results in mid-January, 2008, the only hit that can be totally recommended is: www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A010208b.htm

This is the online Australian Dictionary of Biography’s entry for Caroline Chisholm. It is reliable, and the sole (minor) quibble is the inference that she became a Catholic on marrying Archibald because he was “thirteen years her senior”. In matters of faith and conscience, Caroline Chisholm was never swayed by that sort of consideration. Her Female Immigration Considered book, for instance, displays the depth of her religious feelings and convictions [the book is reproduced in Unfeigned Love, which can be ordered through this website]. The Australian Dictionary of Biography’s entry is based chiefly on Margaret Kiddle’s biography of Caroline Chisholm.

At www.womenaustralia.info/biogs/AWE1145b.htm is the Australian Women biographical entry for Caroline Chisholm, but it is uneven in quality. The first paragraph of the “career highlights” section incorrectly states she set up the Female Immigrants’ Home in Sydney with the support of the clergy. That support came after the Home was established. The six years in which Caroline Chisholm assisted 11,000 people to settle was, as she related to the House of Lords Committee in England in 1847, in New South Wales from 1840 to 1846. The fourth “career highlights” paragraph needs to go before the third paragraph; otherwise, it is misleading.

The www.sydney.catholic.org.su/Archdiocese/History/Chisholm.shtml website is generally useful, but it has limited historical detail. The remaining websites with information about Caroline Chisholm that were visited in mid-January, 2008 are either less useful or simply incorrect in some or many respects. In short, the highest-rated search hits did not have much that could be relied on, beyond the websites identified above.

www.livingmuseum.org.au/chisholms%20homes/index.html . . . was not among those hits. However, it is a handy website that presents Caroline Chisholm’s life and significance from a creative arts perspective and with emphasis on her work in gold-rush Victoria in the mid 1850s.

Please email suggestions for inclusions, leads and descriptions to webmaster@mrschisholm.com . . . thanks.