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Mary Reibey, whose name is spelled variously Reiby, Rabey and Reibey, arrived in Sydney in 1791 as a teenaged convicted horse thief and, through a fortuitous marriage and her own business acumen, became a leading colonial entrepreneur and philanthropist.
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Caroline Chisholm arrived in 1838 in the colony of New South Wales, where she was appalled at the conditions that greeted poor and vulnerable women migrants.
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In 1838, five Sisters were selected to take part in the Australian mission. These five pioneers left Ireland in August 1838, arriving in Sydney on 31 December of that year. The Sisters of Charity were the first Religious Institute of women to arrive in Australia
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From their origins in Waterford, the Christian Brothers spread throughout the world to establish schools and institutions with an educational mission. They originally travelled to Sydney in 1843 until 1847, and then to Melbourne in 1868, but the Australasian Province was not formally established until 1885.
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The Sisters of Mercy went on to found convents, schools and hospitals across the globe. They arrived in Australia in 1846, led by Mother Ursula Frayne.
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Because he suffered ill health he moved to Tasmania in 1855. Julian had completed his theological studies by 1856 and was ordained in 1857. He was given a parish at Penola in south-eastern South Australia.
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The Congregation of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan, colloquially known as the "Good Sams", is a Roman Catholic congregation of religious women commenced by Bede Polding, OSB, Australia's first Catholic bishop, in Sydney in 1857
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Background information. The Presentation Sisters were founded in 1775 by Sister Nano Nagle to meet the needs of the poor in penal Ireland. They came to “the ends of the earth” in Australia in 1866, in Victoria in 1873 and in Dandenong in 1912.
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The Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Sacred Heart are a religious order of women, originally founded in South Australia in 1866, by Sister Mary MacKillop. They ran a number of children's homes in New South Wales as well as Catholic schools, throughout New South Wales.
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When MacKillop returned to Australia in January 1875, after an absence of nearly two years, she brought approval from Rome for her sisters and the work they did, materials for her school, books for the convent library, several priests and most of all, 15 new Josephites from Ireland.