A Emigrant's Best Friend Dies

An Emigrants’ Best Friend Dies

On the Day March 25 1877

Khen Lim

Caroline Chisholm, 1852, by Angelo Collen Hayter, from Dixson Galleries (Image source: Caroline Chisholm Society)

There are many catchwords that are often used to describe Australia. ‘Ocker’ is certainly one of them and so is ‘larrikin.’ Both play to the unique character of the Australian individual but it is ‘multiculturalism’ that perhaps define the national culture of what was once White Australia and of the names in history that are linked to the multicultural movement, it was Al Grassby, the late Gough Whitlam’s Minister of Immigration till 1974 who was even known in some circles as the father of Australian multiculturalism.

Yet with all the hoopla about Grassby’s role, what we may not realise is the link to Australia’s immigrant history goes farther back to at least the nineteenth century when a certain woman from Northampton, England who, with her husband, made Australia her home chose to fight for alien rights in the most unprecedented spirit of them all. It was on this day, one-hundred and forty years ago, in 1877, that she passed away.

Introduction

Australia has had a history replete with racism but then this was a time when the same can also be said of many countries. As a matter of fact, many centuries earlier, China – then known as Cathay – was just as racist if not more so. 

In Australia’s case however, racism was an irony because much of its history was predominated by migrant convicts who were sent from England to what was more infamously known as a ‘penal colony’ for the British government. It was these prisoners who ultimately comprised the early generations of settlers who chose Australia as their home and till today, that remnant continues to be a vibrant part of the country’s multicultural makeup.

In Caroline Chisholm’s days, the situation was dire and yet when she finally succumbed to bronchitis in London on this day, the English press afforded her ten lines of coverage but her adopted home of Australia hardly paid scant notice. If it weren’t for her own children who paid for a printed notice of her passing, very few would have known. 

The paradox was that by the time she died, local newspapers in Sydney (SMH, Empire, Chronicle), Melbourne (Argus), Bathurst (Free Press), Hobart (Courier), Adelaide (SA Register, Advertiser) and Maitland (Mercury) had all published articles about her since 1841 with the earliest in Sydney’s Australasian Chronicle and the Herald. The shocking treatment was unbefitting for someone who did so much for the emergence of the migrant working class.

Caroline Elizabeth Chisholm (nee Jones) was born in 1808 to a very large family where her mother was her father’s fourth wife following the death of his earlier three spouses from childbirth or illness. In fact Caroline was her father’s sixteenth and youngest child. 

Even so, her father’s piggery business had made the family sufficiently stable that when he died in 1814, he was able to not only leave Caroline’s mother with £500 (which is equivalent to between £28,000 and £32,000 today including inflation) in cash but also quite a number of landed properties for his dozen surviving children.

Caroline’s earliest encounter with charitable causes might have been the time when as a young lass, her father brought home a poor and maimed soldier to nurse back to health. At the same time, her father reminded all his children about those who fought for their country and in many cases, lost their lives for a just and valiant cause. In doing so, her father inculcated in Caroline and her elder siblings the obligation to honour them.

 

Lessons from India

Caroline's Female School of Industry for the Daughters of European Soldiers (Image source: mrschilsholm.com)

When Caroline was 22 years of age in 1830, she was married to Captain Archibald Chisholm, a Catholic thirteen years her senior who served with the East India Company, but only on the proviso that she continued her philanthropic work. As this was a time when Catholics were not legally authorised to perform marriage ceremonies, they were married at the Northampton Anglican Church of the Holy Sepulchre instead. Though an evangelical, she eventually converted to her husband’s faith.

By 1832, her husband Archibald was posted to Madras, India where he was returned to his regiment. After joining him eighteen months later, Caroline began to catch on to young girls in the barracks taking after the unsavoury conduct that they see in some of the soldiers. Being alarmed at what she saw, she went to see the Governor of Madras with the idea of starting up a school but her appeal was turned down. 

Undeterred, it took her two further years, in 1834, before she could then establish the Female School of Industry for the Daughters of European Soldiers that offered insights into practical education for young girls. There, Caroline provided an instructional curriculum that taught the girls to read and write, to embrace the Christian faith, to cook and do housekeeping and where in need, to know something about nursing. The idea caught on so quickly that soldiers began to have their wives attend the school.

It was this grounding that Caroline experienced that set her up for the greater challenges that came later in her life. This russet-haired, grey-eyed, tall and sweet-sounding young woman might have begun by embracing established social norms and conventions but it was when she faced the callous indifference of officialdom that her composure changed. 

Once demure, Caroline hardened her attitude and went head long towards universal suffrage. She was uncompromisingly radical as she knew no other way to get past the intransigence she encountered. In the harsh colonial society of white Australia, she would have been ostracised for her efforts but fuelled by her pugnacious idealism, she plugged on and was ably supported by her unwavering husband by her side.

 

Caroline’s first encounter

Caroline meets the immigrants disembarking in Sydney (Image source: Getty Images)

Four years after successfully setting up the school in India, the Chisholms decided to move to Australia in September 1838 after Archibald was granted a two-year furlough on grounds of ill-health. They arrived in Sydney in the Emerald Isle and later settled in Windsor. In 1840, Archibald was once again recalled to active service, leaving Caroline to care for her three sons, Archibald, William and Henry. 

But even by then, the Chisholms were in the throes of experiencing depression in the state of New South Wales where despite demand for rural labour, the government refused to mobilise the many jobless immigrants who had remained in Sydney. In fact, Caroline was often seen at the wharves, watching every immigrant ship arrive but none were given any employment.

One day, she witnessed a group of migrant girls standing by the shore. She noticed that they looked disoriented and depressed. As she began to speak to them, she realised they were immigrants who had come from England and they had been spending their nights sleeping in the shelter of ‘the rocks,’ which was notorious for being a crime-infested area of Sydney. 

With no job prospects, the girls were headed for destruction and being orphans, the locals had stigmatised them, calling them ‘trollops,’ a typical Australian word for ‘sexually disreputable’ or simply, promiscuous. As it turned out, quite a number of them was forced to turn to prostitution once hunger became unavoidable.

The other problem with these immigrants was religious. The fact that they were predominantly Irish meant they shared the same Catholic faith as the Chisholms but it also meant that they were despised by the local Protestants. It seemed that the immigrants could not unshackle themselves from the religious estrangement that they had weathered so miserably back in their own homes. 

Besides the religious issues, the girls were also faced with their past criminal record, which was the main reason why they were set sail for Australia in the first place. What of course locals conveniently ignored was that the crimes these girls were charged with were out of hunger. Stealing a loaf of bread to feed the family was a crime unworthy of the punishment meted out. 

More often than not, immigrants who were sent to the distant penal colonial did not deserve to be separated from their homes but this was their story that nobody wanted to hear or know about.

Most of these immigrants who arrived in Australia came without a dime in their pockets. They neither had friends or family members who would take them in the moment they came on shore, which is how many of them ended up working the streets and doing tricks. 

In 1841, with Archibald returning to service in China, Caroline was left with her husband’s encouragement to persist with her philanthropic endeavours and armed with that, she acted to help these girls by first asking what each of them could do before she could make good her promise to come to their aid. 

Once her conscience was fired up, Caroline called on her friends – usually financially-sounded mothers like her – to have as many of these girls as possible to be placed as domestic maids. With her sound reputation, her word was always good. Her guarantee concerning these girls was often more than good enough and with that, the ladies all gave them a shot at a better life. 

For those she could not find homes, she brought them to her own household where her own housekeeper trained them. Once sufficiently ready, Caroline was able to find families that would take them in.

 

Caroline’s barracks

The barracks offered by Governor Gipps (Image source: contributionstoaustraliancolony.weebly.com

In the seven years that Caroline was in Australia, 11,000 people came through her hands and from there, they found homes and jobs to go to. The home she originally set up in 1841 for the young women called the ‘Female Immigrants’ Home’ eventually brought invaluable help to more than 40,000 people in its 38-year history. Invariably, the services rendered by the home had extended to include young men and families at large. Yet despite the great success, the ‘Female Immigrants’ Home’ had a history worth telling.

Before the home was established, Caroline had fought tooth and nail lobbying the government to help her find a home that she could use to house the homeless and jobless girls but all was in vain until a new migrant girl by the name of Mary Teague had come into the picture by way of a charge of drunkenness to which she denied, alleging that she was wobbly because she had nothing to eat for two days. 

Not believing her, the magistrate convicted her to the stocks where she laid exposed under the sun for an hour. After Mary was released, she wandered in total disorientation until she collapsed in a ditch. Near death with nothing on her except the clothes she wore, her story was finally made public by the Australasian Chronicle in the same year.

By that time, Caroline had been, once again, approaching the Governor George Gipps. Unlike before, this time, she proved a more than worthy adversary even though Gipps was unrelenting in his view, shared by many others, that woman had no place in public life. Moreover, her Catholic faith was also viewed with sinister suspicions. 

During Easter Sunday in 1841, Caroline prayed and made a vow before God, saying, “…to know neither country nor creed but to serve all justly and impartially. I asked only to be enabled to keep these poor girls from being tempted by their need to mortal sin and resolved that to accomplish this, I would in every way, sacrifice my feelings – surrender all comfort – nor, in fact, consider my own wishes or feelings but wholly devote myself to the work I had in hand.”

Her meeting with Governor Gipps this time was in the presence of the owners of the Sydney Herald. The idea was to make a big push for a girls’ home. In the tussle between Gipps and Caroline, he finally backed down once the compromise had been reached. Having her accept that no state funds would be used to finance the home, he then acquiesced and offered a small part of the old immigration barracks.

On the first day of securing the barracks, Caroline decided to spend her night there. In her own words, she said, “But I was put to the proof at starting: scarce was the light out when I fancies a few dogs must be in the room and, in some terror, I got a light.”

Much to her horror, rats were everywhere around her. Under most other circumstances, she would have otherwise fled but this was an extraordinarily different setting. Two things made her hesitate and not run. Firstly, she did not want to end up being mocked and derided. If she’d beaten a hasty retreat, that would have been a sure thing. Secondly after pulling all stops to secure the barracks from a clearly reluctant governor, running would have stymied her plans for the home. Her dream would have been in tatters.

“I therefore lighted a second candle and seating myself on the bed, kept there until three rats, descending from the roof, alighted on my shoulders. I knew that I was getting into a fever, in fact, that I should be very ill before morning; but to be out-generaled by the rats was too much…” she wrote.

Plucking all the courage she had, she decided to stay the night regardless. In fact she ended up feeding the rats poison the following night. From then onwards, Caroline made good her word, dedicating all her leisure time to keep a roof over the girls’ heads, “determined with God’s blessing never to rest until decent protection was afforded them.” She was so resolute in her promise to deliver the girls that she actually ended up leaving her own children in the care of others. 

Hiring immigrants at the Depot, Hyde Park (Image source: State Library of New South Wales)

To help her operations along, she created a job registry to keep up with which homes the girls were all at and to maintain tabs on all the available jobs that the girls could fulfil. In fact, it was the only free registry of its kind in Sydney. Furthermore, she even took the initiative to drive the girls to rural towns herself as and when that was required.

In the first year of the Female Immigrants’ Home in Bent Street, Sydney, Caroline moved through about 1,400 girls, settling them mostly in the rural areas of New South Wales. This invariably meant that she rode her white horse, Captain, or at least, she travelled extensively enough accompanying parties into the country areas to not only ensure that the girls ended up in suitable households but to prove that fears about ‘the bush’ were unfounded. Realising the reality of her successes, Gipps helped Caroline by franking hundreds of circulars and despatched them to the rural areas especially to families looking for more information and wanting to support.

By the end of 1842, Caroline successfully planted sixteen branch homes right across the north-eastern region of the state. In the same year, she wrote and published her report in the form of a book called ‘Female Immigration Considered in a Brief Account of the Sydney Immigrants’ Home (Sydney, 1842),’ making her the first woman to make it to publication in Australia. In it, took the opportunity to announce the closure of the home following her successful endeavour in helping to fan out the immigrants into the rural areas.

 

From individuals to whole families

Portrait of Caroline Chisholm, 1852, by Thomas Fairland now located at the National Library of Australia (Image source: Culture Victoria)

With the depression coming on strong in Australia, Caroline turned her attention towards settling not individuals but whole immigrant families on land they could call their own. Although demand for labour in the rural areas remained high, purchasing land was all but impossible. Due to the British land-settlement policies, the prices were kept so high that only the wealthiest immigrants could afford. 

However, Caroline saw permanent settlement by the immigrants in the outback as an effective means to achieve two things. Firstly such a move could overcome the economic depression and secondly, it could relief England of overcrowdedness. To do that, she actually came up with the idea where immigrant families could settle in rural New South Wales albeit with a ten-to-fifteen year clearing leases – rather than rent – that could be instrumental in helping them to be economically stable.

Caroline’s idea was impressive to a number of highly visible landowners of whom Captain Robert Towns was one. He was so taken by the scheme that he offered the enterprising woman up to 4,000 acres of land at Shell Harbour within the state where as many as fifty immigrant families could settle and live. 

Even so, there were fears of repercussion and unintended results. The Select Committee on Distressed Labourers actually felt that Caroline’s idea could backfire and inadvertently produce a new class of landowners that could create conflict within the political structure of the area.

Caroline Chisholm's cottage in East Maitland, NSW (Image source: Office of Environment and Heritage)

Undeterred and with her husband working with her – having been invalided by the army – both teamed up in 1845 to travel throughout the state of New South Wales where they gathered from working immigrants more than 600 testimonials about their lives in Australia. With these, they compiled it into a guide based on a survey she conducted called, ‘Voluntary Information from the People of New South Wales’ that could prove invaluable for potential emigres from England seeking new lives.

And with that, they decided to take the bull by its horns and go directly to the British at their own turf. Later in the year, they visited England to stimulate interest in immigration. Now that she was far better organised back in Australia, Caroline felt that a steady flow of immigrants was possible and she could be at the forefront to handle it. She wrote, “…for all the clergy you can despatch, all the schoolmasters you can appoint, all the churches you can build and all the books you can export will never do much good with ‘God’s Police’ – wives and little children.’

To put her plan into action, she needed to turn it into a national project in which she could attain a sustainable form of colonisation. For that, she began by putting up an office in London where she could use to conduct interviews of prospective immigrants. 

To help forward her goals, she published yet another article called, ‘Emigration and Transportation Relatively Considered,’ in which she promoted the benefits of systematic emigration in deference to forced transportation. Her efforts were successful enough to warrant attention among the elite of Victorian society. Even Charles Dickens wrote in support of her cause in his magazine ‘Household Words.’

From the scrapbook of Caroline Chisholm, a baggage ticket on board the 'Nepaul' bound for Australia from the East India Docks, Poplar, England by the Family Colonisation Society (Image source: Museums Victoria)

Soon enough the Family Colonisation Loan Society was established in 1847 and in two short years, 200 families had registered for settlement in Australia with plans to charter a ship following thereafter. Given her vast experience by now, Caroline was in the position to ensure better ship conditions and by doing so, she avoided overcrowding and hence, avoided potential injuries among the travellers. The first chartered ship sailed successfully with 250 families in 1850, paving the way for other similar voyages in the subsequent years.

Overall, the Family Colonisation Loan Society proved so popular that the Legislative Council of New South Wales approved a sum of £10,000 (equivalent to £1.28 million today) to aid Caroline’s immigration work. And soon thereafter, the federal Australian government added their support thus sealing her place among Australian legends. 

However, ships had become unavailable in 1854 with the arrival of the Crimean War and with her colonisation plans going up in smoke for now, the Chisholms returned to Australia only to discover that the prosperous goldmining had caused the local government to rescind on the huge swathes of land locked in by originally-agreed boundaries in the 1830s pertaining to the nineteen counties in the state of New South Wales. Angered by how the government had reneged on the deal she meted out, she travelled to the goldfields in support of the small farmers where together, they vociferously chimed their chorus ‘Unlock the Lands!’

“Our aim must be to make it as easy for a working man to reach Australia as America and we must hold out a certainty of being able to obtain land. Nothing else will tempt the honest working man of the right sort to emigrate,” she wrote.

 

Caroline’s decline

Nonetheless, her championing efforts proved fruitless. Her call to open up the land and to sell them at affordable prices had not materialised, much to the chagrin of those who had already arrived from England but with nowhere to settle in. By 1857, Caroline’s health had deteriorated. At 49 years old, her health gave her no other option but to back off from the fight. In fact, she withdrew from public life altogether. 

At the same time, Archibald’s pension, which he drew from his previous employer, the East India Company, had also begun to dwindle. Alarmed by the depleting funds and the onset of economic hardship, Caroline launched a ladies’ school at Rathbone House in the Newtown suburb of Sydney in 1862 but for reasons unclear, it was closed hardly two years later.

Caroline Chisholm (Image source: National Portrait Gallery, Canberra)

In 1866, Archibald and Caroline Chisholm decided to head back to England where she was given a government annual pension of £100 (equivalent to £11,600 today). At the beginning, the couple chose to live in Liverpool and soon thereafter, they moved into drab lodgings in Highgate, London. Caroline spent the last five years of her life bedridden and struggling with illness.

On this day in 1877, which was a Sunday, Caroline Chisholm passed away, leaving behind Archibald her husband as well as her children, Archibald Jr (1834-c1877), William (1836-c1879), Colonel Henry John (1838-c1879, last surviving son*), Sydney (1846-c1880), Caroline Agnes (1848-1927) and Monica (1850-c1884). She was 69 years of age. Her beloved husband died in August of the following year and was buried along her side in the same grave in Northampton, England.

* According to some biographers and genealogists, Colonel Henry John Chisholm was the last surviving son and not Sydney. It is also notable that their eldest son, Archibald Jr died before his mother. Having said that, while the years of birth of all of Caroline’s children seem agreeable by all, the years of demise aren’t. The estimated years given are to the best of my knowledge based on what I can find on the Internet. Therefore, they do stand corrected.

Northampton's simple tribute to Caroline and Archibald Chisholm in a forgotten corner of the disused Billing Road Cemetery (Image source: Marist Messenger)

The Times in London published a ten-lined obituary that offered useful details about Caroline’s achievements whereas local papers in Australia marked her death with as much significance as sand pebbles to an Arab although the etched description on her headstone called her ‘The Emigrant’s Friend’ for which she is still renowned for today. 

World-famous French historian Jules Michelet (1798-1874) who died before her, said, “The fifth part of the world, Australia, has up to now but one saint, one legend. This saint is an Englishwoman.” 

The legendary Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), an Englishwoman herself, considered herself Caroline’s “friend and pupil” while Robert Lorne, a member of the Legislative Council of New South Wales who remembered their encounters well, offered her profuse praise, writing, “It was the most original ever devised or undertaken by man or woman and the object, the labour and the method were beyond all praise.”

 

Remembering Caroline

The Caroline Chisholm Mosaic unveiled in Goulburn, NSW by the Governor-General of Australia, Ms Quentin Bryce in 2011 (Image source: Monument Australia)

Through principally her tireless philanthropy, Caroline became legend not just in the whole of New South Wales but Australia. Well-known and much admired for the work she had done in the field of immigration and philanthropy, she went about her work with no reliance on any funding, which meant that she was freed of any encumbrances that might have had compromised the integrity of her work. 

More importantly, by being independent of any church or political body, she was not beholden to any agenda. Instead, Caroline depended purely on God using her to raise the money through nothing but subscriptions.

What she accomplished was incalculable and for a woman of that time, unthinkable. Australia probably realised the true significance of what she had done a little later. Yet today, we see many examples of how she is being revered. Many educational institutions throughout Australia as well as England carry her name including the following:

-        Caroline Chisholm College (Glenmore Park, NSW, Australia)

-        Caroline Chisholm Education Foundation (Melbourne, VIC, Australia)

-        Caroline Chisholm School (South Northampton, UK)

-        Chisholm Catholic College (Perth, WA, Australia)

-        Chisholm College (LaTrobe University, Bundoora, Victoria)

-        Chisholm Institute of TAFE (Melbourne, Victoria)

A suburb in the capital city of Canberra is named after her and so is a federal electoral division created in 1949 in the state of Victoria. The Caroline Chisholm Centre (known widely as ‘CCC’), located in Tuggeranong, ACT is the Federal Government’s Department of Human Services. 

Charles Dicken, an admirer of Caroline’s, amalgamated her and two other women into the matronly but formidable character who is also a ‘telescopic philanthropist’ called Mrs Jellyby in his novel ‘Bleak House’ (1852-53).

Caroline Chisholm on Australia's 5c stamp (Image source: emaze.com)

There is also a blue plaque mounted at the front of the address at 32 Charlton Place, Islington, London to commemorate the time when Caroline once lived there. 

The Australian five-dollar paper currency featuring Caroline Chisholm in 1991 before the change to the modern polymer banknote (Image source: Blogart)

And of course, she has appeared on various Australian stamps and for over twenty years, she was the visible face of Australia’s five purplish coloured dollar bill.

 

Useful reading sources:

-       “A-Z of Islington’s Plaques” in Islington Council. Available at https://web.archive.org/web/20141022153504/http:/www.islington.gov.uk/islington/history-heritage/heritage_borough/bor_plaques/Pages/a_z_plaques.aspx

-    “Caroline Chisholm Facts” in Encyclopaedia of World Biography (1998) (Detroit, MI: Gale Research). Available online at http://biography.yourdictionary.com/caroline-chisholm

-    “Chisholm, Caroline” in Stephen, Sir Leslie, author and Lee, Sir Sidney, editor (1998) The Dictionary of National Biography (London, UK: Oxford University Press). Available at https://www.amazon.com/dictionary-national-biography-Leslie-Stephen/dp/0198651031

-    Chisholm, Caroline (1999, orig. 1842) Female Immigration Considered: In A Brief Account of the Sydney Immigrants’ Home, Reprint (Sydney University Press). Available at https://books.google.com.my/books/about/Female_Immigration_Considered.html?id=okhyHAAACAAJ&redir_esc=y and also at https://www.amazon.com/Female-Immigration-Considered-Account-Immigrants/dp/B01953FJP8

-    “Chisholm, Caroline” in The Australian Encyclopaedia (1958), Volume 2 (East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press). Available at https://books.google.com.my/books?id=j1AhAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y

-    Chisholm, Caroline with Moran, John, editor (1991, orig. 1859) Little Joe (Ashgrove, QLD: Preferential Publications). Available at http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/20150786?q&versionId=23756286

-    Chisholm, Caroline with Moran, John, editor (1994, orig. N/A) Radical, in Bonnet and Shawl: Four Political Lectures by Caroline Chisholm (Ashgrove, QLD: Preferential Publications). Available at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Radical-bonnet-shawl-political-lectures/dp/1875211071  

-    Clark, Manning (2012) A History of Australia, Volumes 3-4, From 1824 to 1888 (North Sydney, NSW: Melbourne University Press Digital). Available at http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/6181285?q&sort=holdings+desc&_=1490629242923&versionId=234824734

-    Hoban, Mary (1973) Fifty-One Pieces of Wedding Cake, A Biography of Caroline Chisholm (Kilmore, VIC: Lowden). Available at https://www.brotherhoodbooks.org.au/books/fifty-one-pieces-of-wedding-cake-a-biography-of-caroline-chisholm-9780858843844/

-    Kennedy, Richard (Dec 1982) Australian Welfare History: Critical Essays, Reprint Edition (South Yarra, VIC: Macmillan). Available at https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/Australian-Welfare-History-Critical-Essays-Richard-Kennedy/0333338642

-    Kiddle, Margaret (Apr 1992, orig 1950) Caroline Chisholm, New Edition Edition (Melbourne, VIC: Melbourne University Press Australian Lives). Available at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Caroline-Chisholm-Melbourne-University-Australian/dp/0522847331

-    Molony, John N. (1987) The Penguin Bicentennial History of Australia: The Story of 200 Years, First Edition (New York, NY: Viking Press). Available at https://www.amazon.com/Penguin-Bicentennial-History-Australia-Story/dp/B002KPQO80

-    Rogers, Tim () Caroline Chisholm – The Emigrants’ Friend 1808-1877 in Beacon Media available at http://www.beaconmedia.com.au/bm/images/docs/caroline%20chisholm%20sec.pdf

-    “Time-Line – Caroline and Archibald Chisholm” in www.mrschisholm.com available from archive in PDF format at https://web.archive.org/web/20081120190512/http:/www.mrschisholm.com/pdf/Time-line.pdf

-    Walker, Carole (Sept 2011) A Saviour of Living Cargoes: The Life and Work of Caroline Chisholm (Redland Bay, QLD: Connor Court Publishing). Available at http://www.connorcourt.com/catalog1/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=170#.WNk0d_mGOM8

-    Younger, R. M. (1970) Australia and the Australians; A New Concise History (New York, NY: Humanities Press). Available at http://www.worldcat.org/title/australia-and-the-australians-a-new-concise-history/oclc/87787

Newspaper Articles Covering Caroline Chisholm:

-     Sydney Morning Herald (Nov 12 1843, Apr 7 1846, Apr 13 1846, Feb 12 1848, Apr 18 1854, Feb 8 1911, Feb 21 1914, Mar 22 1924, Jan 30 1947)

-    Sydney Empire (Jul 3 1854, Jul 12 1859, May 7 1862, Oct 14 1862, May 13 1862, Oct 9 1862)

-    Melbourne Argus (Sept 12 1848, Mar 15 1853, Dec 15 1853, Oct 22 1948)

-    NSW Bathurst Free Press (Sept 4 1852, Oct 2 1852)

-    Sydney Australasian Chronicle (Oct 26 1841, Apr 14 1842)

-    Sydney Herald (Sept 24 1841, Mar 19 1842)

-    Sydney Chronicle (Nov 11 1847)

-    South Australian Register (Jul 26 1851)

-    Hobart Courier (Jan 5 1853, Jan 4 1854)

-    Maitland Mercury (Oct 14 1862)

-    Adelaide Register (Jul 27 1926)

-    Adelaide Advertiser (Apr 15 1944)