The school became an
extensive orphanage.
Mrs. and Captain Chisholm came to Australia in 1838 for the benefit
of his health, and they landed at Sydney. They saw Highland
immigrants who could not speak English, and they gave them tools and
wheelbarrows wherewith to cut and sell firewood.
Captain Chisholm returned to India in 1840, but the health of her
young family required Mrs. Chisholm to remain in Sydney.
Female immigrants arriving in Sydney were regularly hired on board
ship, and lured into a vicious course of life. Mrs. Chisholm went on
board each ship, and made it her business to protect and advise them,
and begged the captain and agent to act with humanity. Some place of
residence was required in which the new arrivals could be sheltered,
until respectable situations could be found for them, and in January,
1841, she applied to Lady Gipps for help. A committee of ladies was
formed, and Mrs. Chisholm at length obtained a personal audience from
the Governor, Sir George Gipps. He believed she was labouring under
an amiable delusion. He wrote to a friend:
"I expected to have seen an old lady in a white cap and spectacles,
who would have talked to me about my soul. I was amazed when my aide
introduced a handsome, stately young woman, who proceeded to reason
the question as if she thought her reason, and experience too, worth
as much as mine.
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