Mary Aikenhead entered St. Mary’s Convent, York, England in 1812, in preparation for founding the Sisters of Charity in Dublin, Ireland in 1815. In addition to the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, the women who belonged to this Institute took a fourth vow of Service of the Poor, as it was Mary Aikenhead’s dream to work with the Poor. Poverty was very common in Ireland in the nineteenth century; it resulted in many people being unable to afford shelter, food, health care or education, abandoned children, and many desperately needy people resorting to petty criminal activities to survive.

Initially, the Irish Sisters visited and assisted poor people in orphanages, hospitals, gaols and in their homes. Later, they opened a house of refuge for young girls and started giving religious instruction in schools. Growing numbers in the Congregation and generous donations enabled Mother Mary Aikenhead to open and conduct Catholic schools and hospitals for poor people in Ireland.

In 1834, Dr. John Polding, then Vicar-Apostolic of New Holland and later Archbishop of Sydney, requested from Mother Mary Aikenhead a community of Sisters to care for the convicts at the Female Factory in Parramatta, the children at the Parramatta Orphan School, and other poor people in the colony. Australia was then described as the "most neglected portion of the Catholic world". Mary Aikenhead offered her services at once and decided to establish a mission in Australia. In 1838, she selected five of her Sisters who had volunteered to take part in the Australian mission. These five pioneers left Ireland in August 1838 and arrived in Sydney on 31^st December 1838. The Sisters of Charity were the first Religious Institute of women to arrive in Australia.

The Sisters stayed at the Bishop’s house in Woolloomooloo for a short while, and then moved to Parramatta mid-January 1839. They started work immediately: visits to the Female Factory twice a day, to the Women’s Hospital once a day, daily visits to the Orphan School where they taught catechism and needlework, and visits to the poor in their homes every day. The Sisters were successful in negotiating changes at the Factory which resulted in improved living conditions for the inmates. They continued their work at Parramatta until the closure of the Factory in 1848.

With the growing number of applicants, the Sisters expanded their work with the needy, the poor and the sick, visiting them in their homes, the schools, the gaol, convicts at the factory and on a ship, and orphans at the orphan school.

One of Mary Aikenhead’s dreams was to open a hospital for the sick poor, to enable her Sisters to carry on the healing mission of Christ: she first realised this dream when she opened St. Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin in 1834. St. Vincent is the patron saint of the Poor. The Sisters in Australia shared the same dream, particularly as the colony’s health services were totally inadequate for the needs of the sick poor. As a result, the Sisters opened in 1857 the now famous St. Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney. The Hospital delivered free health care services to patients who were poor. The hospital was non-denominational as it received patients of any creed, or none.

The education ministry of the Sisters of Charity, both in Ireland and in Australia, has been a very significant aspect of the Congregation’s work. The Sisters opened the first convent school in Australia in 1858.

Since that time, the Sisters of Charity have conducted infant, primary and secondary schools, some with boarding facilities, in New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, Queensland, as well as establishing a college for the training of Catholic teachers in 1897.

The motto of the Congregation is "The Charity of Christ urges us".

Campbell, MG. The History of the Sisters of Charity in Australia: According to information in the Archives

of St. Vincent’s Convent, Potts Point, NSW. Sydney 1987.

Donovan, Margaret Apostolate of love: Mary Aikenhead 1787-1858. Sydney. Polding, 1979.

Skewes, Edna M. Mother M. Berchmans Daly: foundress of St. Vincent’s Merlbourne. Richmond Vic.: Spectrum,1989

Skewes, Edna M. This little gem: St. Joseph’s Hospital Auburn 1886-1986 Auburn NSW: St. J. Hospital,

1986.

Skewes, M. Agnes Life comes to newness: Mount Olivet Hospital, Brisbane. Brisbane: Boolarong, 1982

Anonymous Australian Sisters of Charity, 1839-1988 Potts Point: Srs of Charity,

1988.

Burns, Rosina Those that sowed: first religious Sisters in Australia. Sydney: Dwyer, 1968

Cullen, J.H. Australian daughters of Mary Aikenhead: A Century of Charity 1838-1938.

O’Carrigan, C., `St. Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney: Pioneer in Nineteenth Century Health Care’, theses (M.A.)

University of Sydney 1986

O’Sullivan, M. Cause of Trouble. Sydney 1998.

O’Sullivan, M.M.K. ` Some Implications of the 1846, 1847 and 1859 Conflicts between the Sisters of Charity

and the Sydney Catholic Hierarchy’, thesis (Ph.D.), University of Sydney 1993

Dunstan, M. Sisters of Charity in Australia. 1/1. 17-29. 1954. Australian Catholic History Society Journal.

If further information is required about individual Sisters, the following address is given.

The Archivist

Congregational Offices of the Sisters of Charity

P.O. Box 42

Paddington NSW 2021

In writing to the Archivist, it would be appropriate that a financial contribution be made for the Archivist’s time and expertise.