Caroline Chisholm

by Sarah Goldman

  Having already helped a few of the bounty girls, Caroline’s concern for their sisterhood was growing. Between 1840 and 1841 it was estimated that some six hundred girls were on the verge of penury in Sydney, being unable to find employment.3 Caroline visited the immigrants’ camp near the old Immigration Barracks, where many of the bounty women and families were living. If they had not found work and accommodation before they were forced ashore, most were offered some shelter in tents set up next to the Immigration Barracks on Bent Street, near the Governor’s Domain. Others though, unable or unwilling to chance the encampment, found shelter in the streets or in the nooks and boulders of the public gardens.4

  It was on her initial inspection of the camp that Caroline first saw Flora. In her own words: “About five in the evening, my attention became fixed on a young and beautiful Highland girl (in tent No. 1): the arm of a gentleman was round her waist. I am a great admirer of beauty, and her style pleased me exceedingly. On my two following visits, I still saw the same gentleman; I observed, too, a little extra finery on Flora.”5

  As Caroline soon learnt, Flora was not a lonely, defenceless girl like so many others, but had arrived in Sydney with her mother and brother and at least one male cousin, all of whom may have been expected to protect her — yet they didn’t. Although she was unable to discover the gentleman’s name, Caroline was suspicious of his motives, so she attempted to caution Flora’s mother: “The poor woman said, there was no fear of Flora for her head had never rested but on her mother’s hearth. She was all innocence — the mother all hope.”6

  Caroline meeting immigrants as they arrive in Sydney (Alamy)

  The very next day in George Street, Caroline saw the same man enter the store where she was shopping. She couldn’t fail to notice that an elegant woman “hung on his arm”. Caroline quickly found out the man’s name and that the woman was his wife. With the pedantic precision that became her hallmark, she then double-checked her facts, going next door to inquire if anyone knew who owned the carriage in which she had seen him arrive. Receiving the same information, Caroline said that she “no longer doubted his intentions”.7

  The next evening, she again noticed the man in the tent with her Highland Beauty. At this stage, though, Caroline had been in the colony less than two years and still felt herself to be a “stranger”.8 She was also obviously nervous of a confrontation with a gentleman, one moreover who was probably her social superior — she was to find out later that he was a friend of Governor Sir George Gipps — and although she suspected he was a libertine, she had no firm claim against him. Making further inquiries, Caroline was told that a Ladies’ Committee had already been established to care for the female immigrants but that these ladies failed to help the girls in any meaningful way because they “never visited the institute or in any way interfered”9 — thus opening the door to men of any condition to prey upon the girls without fear of discovery.

  Lacking any influential support, Caroline was “obliged to leave Flora to her fate”.10 That sounds strangely unlike the confident, decisive Caroline who had in the past and would again in the future display considerable temerity when faced with moral and practical concerns. Indeed, she later felt extremely guilty that she hadn’t managed to prevent Flora’s seduction. When the girl vanished from the barracks with her beau, Caroline kept an eye on her family, and learnt a little later of her mother’s death. Flora’s fate continued to haunt Caroline. The girl was Caroline’s first failure. It was a word that did not fit comfortably within her lexicon. Whenever she saw or heard of other girls tricked by lascivious men or deliberately turning to prostitution, she felt she was at fault because she had not done all in her power to prevent it.

  Her inactivity did not last long. As though propelled by an irresistible force, Caroline could not help but involve herself in the crisis she saw surrounding her. Later she wrote, “As a female . . . I naturally felt diffident . . . [but] . . . I was impressed with the idea, that God had, in a peculiar manner, fitted me for this work . . . On Easter Sunday, I was enabled, at the altar of our Lord, to make an offering of my talents to the God who gave them . . . and determined . . . never to rest until decent protection was afforded them.”11 Caroline clearly wanted to show her devotion to God, but there was obviously also little doubt in her own mind that she was capable of taking on the enormous task ahead of her or that, having resolved to do so, she would be successful. Her confidence now restored, Caroline would no longer let herself be handicapped either by her social position or her sex.

  It was whilst grappling with how to shelter the girls that she conceived the idea of a dedicated home to keep them safe whilst she looked for suitable work for them. She knew that each ship disgorging its cargo of single women increased the need for such an institution. Caroline identified the old wooden Immigration Barracks, which was mostly vacant, as an ideal building for her purpose.12 It had the added advantage of being next to the immigrants’ camp. To proceed, she required the governor’s permission and the funds to make it work. After hesitating for three weeks whilst she weighed the various possibilities, she threw herself headlong into the project. “I now considered the difficulties, and prepared my plan,” she wrote.13 She was about to revolutionise the social policies of the colony.

  From the start Caroline’s methods were, yet again, contrary to what was expected of a nineteenth-century woman. She acted on her own volition — there was no husband, or any other “responsible male”, to set restrictions or determine her path. Nor did she race into action without a comprehensive understanding of the problem and how to mitigate it. As she had done in India, she took a highly practical, long-term view. Her aim was not just to relieve the present stress but also to ensure ongoing security for the girls. It was an approach that required both imagination, to devise the plan in the first place, and strong organisational and people skills, to instigate it. Caroline was effectively setting up a residence and employment and transport agencies with satellites throughout New South Wales, at a time when gas lamps had only just started lighting the streets of Sydney and train services were still more than a decade away. In the twenty-first century, the skills required for such an enormous undertaking would first be honed on various tertiary courses, ranging from law and business to marketing, accounting and human resources; and the project itself would require the support of trained employees as well as a range of advanced technology. Caroline had none of those benefits. She implemented her plan drawing only on her own raw ability and resolute pragmatism.

  Having laid her strategies, Caroline launched a multi-pronged attack. Cognisant of the immediate need to support the steady flow of immigrants, she attempted to meet as many of the boats as possible. Soon she became a familiar figure dockside, boarding vessels to talk to the bounty women and rubbing shoulders with genuine employers, as well as, no doubt, the more nefarious variety. She hoped that by explaining the prevailing conditions in New South Wales and advising naïve girls how to avoid the traps laid for them, she would be able to negate the influence of the bordello madams and the philanderers. By January 1841, she was far enough advanced in her planning to take a major step; she wrote to the governor’s wife, Elizabeth, asking for her aid in applying to her husband for permission to use the Immigration Barracks. She also wrote to Sir George Gipps directly, but initially she received only a short letter of acknowledgement.

  Intuition is a potent force that reveals secrets with a clarity defying ordinary perception. Caroline’s instincts told her that she must publicise her plan if it was to gather any traction. She needed friends in high places and funding. Although she knew that the women of the Ladies’ Committee would be useful only for providing her with a certain social propriety and helping raise funds, nonetheless, as autumn turned to winter in 1841, she approached all of the committee members — Lady O’Connell, Lady Dowling, Mrs Richard Jones, Mrs Roger Therry, Mrs W. Mackenzie, Mrs J. Wallace and Miss E. Chambers — and was pleased that “not one refused me — all expressed themselv
es as feeling an interest in the work”.14

  When she broadened her appeal, to friends and acquaintances, both in Sydney and Windsor, Caroline received positive responses and promises of support. This initial success was not to last. She soon came up against one of the sacred cows of colonial society: religious sectarianism. As little as she shunned what society classified as fallen women did Caroline eschew women of other faiths. “I promised to know neither country or creed, but to try and serve all justly and impartially,” she wrote.15 If she made a mistake in this regard, it was probably in being too open and honest.

  In an attempt to engender as much support as possible for her scheme, Caroline had tried to publicise it as widely as possible. The problem was that Sydney was still a small, parochial society that fed intently on gossip and rumour. Churchmen on all sides of the religious divide, and for varying reasons, saw her plan as a threat to their congregations. Caroline’s subsequent struggle with religious leaders was to prove one of the most difficult of her career. The Anglican establishment was wary of her, fearing she was organising a “Popish Plot” designed to proselytise for her own church; even harsher criticism came from other Protestant leaders, such as the Presbyterian minister John Dunmore Lang. All that, to some extent, was to be expected. What bewildered and dismayed her most, though, was the antagonism from her own church, from Catholics who feared that her ecumenical approach meant that she wouldn’t do enough to promote Rome.

  All at once, it seemed that many who had previously backed her had now changed their minds: “Even some of my first promised supporters withdrew their pledges,” Caroline wrote. She was daily requested to give up all thought of her “Home”. Two gentlemen, one a clergyman, visited her and urged her to renounce her plans, and she received a letter from a friend that she described as being “of so painful a nature that I am astonished how my mind held out”. And yet, through all of this she maintained her self-belief: “I had nothing to cheer me but an assurance of success, if there were no failing on my part.”16 The resilience of her childhood reasserted itself. Here she was, in her own words a stranger in a small, hypocritical and censorious society, pitting her judgement and instinct against what seemed to be the rest of the colony. Her husband, the one person she could rely on to stand by her, was almost half a world away. How isolated she must have felt, and yet she still intrinsically believed not only that she was right but that she had the wherewithal to stare down her detractors and accomplish her mission.

  Yet, even as she strove to counter the condemnation, there was worse to come. A priest, Father Michael Brennan, whom she had counted as a friend, published a highly critical letter in the Catholic biweekly newspaper, The Australasian Chronicle, on 18 September 1841. Whilst acknowledging the need to assist the bounty women, Father Brennan rejected any suggestion that the public should subscribe funds, categorically asserting that the problem was best left for the government to address. On a more personal note, he described Caroline’s scheme as a waste of energies and as “Utopian . . . only excusable as the effect of an amiable delusion”.17 It’s possible that Caroline was as offended as much by this attack on her understanding as she was by the criticism of her plan. She labelled the letter a “missile” and it certainly found its mark. “I felt a dreariness of spirit creep over me,” she wrote. That same day, she decided to take a break and accept an invitation to visit friends in Parramatta for a few days, even though she had been invited to a gathering in Sydney in the evening.18

  Setting out to walk to the wharf, she was overtaken by a friend in King Street who offered her a lift, saying that he too was running late and they were both in danger of missing the steamer to Parramatta. She refused the offer, saying she wanted some time alone to think, and arrived after the boat had already pulled away from the pier. Despite feeling dispirited, she was not one to give in to maudlin humours, so she resolved to attend the party in Sydney. She set off on one of her favourite walks, towards Flagstaff Hill (now Observatory Hill), and began to gather her thoughts. Whether she joined friends in Parramatta or Sydney was almost immaterial; she knew that her scheme would be discussed by everyone. In either case, she was determined not to let anyone know that “during that day my feelings had been used as a door-mat”.19 She wanted to seem cheerful, in good spirits, positive.

  Caroline made no attempt to hide her sombre reflections later, but at the time she understood that confidence breeds success and that she therefore had to at least appear assured and optimistic. In modern terms, she had to put the best spin on events. In any case, she was a genuinely outgoing character who thrived in company, and, even though a number of friends and acquaintances, including clergy, had withdrawn their backing, there were still many who she knew would continue to uphold her scheme or, at the very least, remain on good terms with her until events unfolded. Preserving her social connections was critical for Caroline’s wellbeing and future success.

  It was whilst she was walking towards Flagstaff Hill after missing the ferry that Caroline spied Flora and persuaded her to accept her help. Though the encounter with her Highland Beauty left her drained, this small victory restored her resolve and swept away her despondency: “I was able to join the promised party. My spirits returned; I felt God’s blessing was on my work. From this time . . . I increased my exertions . . . From the hour I was on the beach with Flora, fear left me.”20

  For Caroline, the successful outcome of the meeting with Flora was a sure sign that she had been correct to pursue her aims: to do all in her power to help the bounty girls and to establish an immigrants’ home. What she’d thought had been her first failure had actually set her on course for a remarkably successful career.

  CHAPTER 7

  The Immigrants’ Home

  1841

  Sydney, autumn 1841

  Caroline set out in good time for the meeting. She was excited but unable to fully rid herself of the strictures uttered by the two friends she had initially asked to accompany her. Both had refused, saying that their husbands would be shocked by such effrontery. As though, she thought, I am seeking notoriety by courting the notice of the press. It was an uncomfortable characterisation.

  Still, she had taken even more care than usual with the way she looked today: she wore her best walking dress of sky blue and tan checks, with its elegant drop shoulders and deep pointed bodice embellished with cream lace, and her stylish blue and tan poke bonnet framing her soft round face. Knowing she was fashionably dressed gave her an assurance that already felt like success.

  Following her failure to secure an interview with Governor Gipps, Caroline had decided to request a meeting with the publishers of The Sydney Herald. Her letter to Messrs Kemp and Fairfax had received a warm reply and an invitation to visit their offices.

  The May morning was still warm as she trod up the steps of the two-storey building on George Street, south of Circular Quay. She gave her name to the pimply-faced young man behind the counter just inside the door and followed him down a long dark corridor, up a flight of steps and then along another passageway to the end of the building. From somewhere in the distance came the clanging and rumbling of machinery at work, and the tepid air was laden with a heavy chemical odour she recognised as ink and warm metal. As they halted outside a shut door, she was annoyed to find that she was perspiring slightly. The spotty-faced youth asked her to wait while he inquired within, giving her time to dab her upper lip with a linen handkerchief and to settle her racing heart.

  The door then opened wide and there before her were the new owners of one of the colony’s most important newspapers, The Sydney Herald. “Hello Mrs Chisholm, I’m John Fairfax,” said the taller of the two, bowing formally. Caroline curtsied slightly, putting out her hand as she would have done if they had been introduced at any social gathering. She guessed that he was not much older than she was, but he was a big man with a long face and an already receding hairline. Maybe in compensation, he wore a fulsome beard below a pair of thin lips, but it was his eyes more than any
thing that took her attention — not their colour, but their directness. She felt that he was a man who made up his mind and acted upon his decisions quickly and efficiently.

  His partner, Charles Kemp, was very different: a younger, slighter man, almost elfin yet exuding barely restrained vitality. Caroline remembered that Fairfax had been described as the sober publisher and administrator, while Kemp was said to be the literary power behind the paper. Kemp had been born in London, come to the colony as a child and started his working life as a carpenter. She knew he was a man intent on making a name for himself and realised that could be to her advantage.

  Introductions completed, Caroline was invited to sit down and explain why she had requested the meeting. She began by thanking them for seeing her and then set out her case for turning the Immigration Barracks into a home for the bounty girls. “I am certain that you must understand, gentlemen,” she finished.

  “But what do you expect us to do?” asked Mr Fairfax.

  Caroline took a small pile of papers out of her purse, neatly held together with blue ribbon. “If you could see your way clear to support me in your newspaper, then I am confident that, with public opinion behind me, Governor Gipps would listen also.” She unfolded one of the pieces of paper. “If you will permit me, gentlemen.” And she began to read: “‘My name is Mary Cooper. I am a growed woman of twenty-two and was a laundress back in Bath. The Bounty Agent said there’d be lots of good paying work for me. But now I’m near starving and I don’t know what will become of me.’” She took out another letter. “‘We are three sisters who came on the Isabella in October last and we be desperate and scared. I’m nineteen, Lizzie is twenty-one and Maggie is fifteen. We was taken in by one woman who we thought was kindly. But she took us to a house in the Rocks and we all ran away. Our mother, God bless her, would die if she knew the temptations that had been put to us.’” Caroline stopped and looked up to see the effect on her audience.