John Plunkett defended the dignity of the natives of Australia; Caroline Chisholm defended the dignity of vulnerable immigrants to Australia. In doing so, they offer a living witness to the Lord’s commandment that we love our neighbors.
Long after European adventurers had first sailed into the mystic West to discover the New World of the Americas, other intrepid European explorers sailed south to discover the newer world of Australia. The Dutch were the first to arrive, in 1606. But it wasn’t until 1770 that Captain James Cook claimed this new land for Great Britain. Ever since, Australia’s remote location, out on a far latitudinal limb, under the Southern Cross and other strange constellations, has separated it from the mainstream of European culture. It is, therefore, fitting that we should acknowledge those faithful and pioneering Catholics who served the Church under the Southern Cross.
Perhaps the most eminent Australian hero of the Faith is John Plunkett (1802-1869), Attorney-General of New South Wales and a member of its Legislative Assembly. Born in County Roscommon in Ireland, he studied law at Trinity College Dublin and practiced as a barrister with great distinction in his native Ireland before accepting the appointment to serve in the antipodean colonies.
In June 1832, the month in which he turned 30 years old, Plunkett arrived in Sydney from Cork aboard the convict ship Southworth, accompanied by his wife and by his friend Fr. John McEnroe, whom he appointed as official chaplain to the Catholics of Australia. At the time of his arrival, most Catholics in the colony were convicts, but this was about to change. By 1840, convict transportation had ceased, and assisted “free” immigration had begun in earnest. By the 1850s, only 3 percent of the population were convicts.
Plunkett was a controversial figure, often finding himself at loggerheads with the Catholic hierarchy, not least for his efforts to promote a national education system along nondenominational lines. In this respect, he might be considered a villain, rather than a hero, who undermined the principle of subsidiarity in his favoring of a state education system over the religious liberty of the Church. It is not for this that he should be celebrated but for the courage with which he defended the legal rights of the aborigines.
He is best known for the prosecution of the colonists who brutally murdered at least 28 aborigines in the Myall Creek Massacre of 1838. Plunkett’s successful prosecution of the case resulted in the conviction of seven of the defendants, six of whom were white Europeans and the other a black African, who were subsequently hanged for their crimes. It is, therefore, as a defender of the dignity of every human person, irrespective of race, that John Plunkett should be remembered and celebrated.
Caroline Chisholm (1808-1877) was a Catholic convert who worked tirelessly to help homeless women and other impoverished immigrants. Born in England, she and her husband arrived in Australia in 1838, with their two sons, settling in Windsor, near Sydney. She became aware of the difficult conditions which many young women faced when arriving in Sydney as immigrants. Many had no friends or family, nor jobs or money, and they were forced into prostitution to survive.
She established women’s shelters in Sydney and beyond to save these penurious women from the sordid realities of life on the streets. During the seven years that she was in Australia, prior to her return to England, she placed over 11,000 people in homes and jobs.
In 1854, Chisholm collected her son William from Rome, where he had been studying for the priesthood. During an audience with Pope Pius IX at the Vatican, the holy pontiff presented her with a Papal Medal and with the gift of a bust of herself. In the same year, she and her family returned to Australia where she continued her tireless work for impoverished immigrant families.
At the end of 1859 and the beginning of 1860, she gave a series of political lectures in which she called for land to be granted to immigrant families so that they could establish small farms. With a vision which foreshadowed Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum, published more than 30 years later, she argued that the granting of land would provide economic security for new settlers and greater social stability and cohesion for the colony itself.
Returning once again to England in 1866, Chisholm died in London eleven years later, predeceasing her husband by only a few months. They were survived by five of their eight children.
The heroic examples of John Plunkett and Caroline Chisholm, an Irishman and an Englishwoman, both of whom were emigrants from their own homelands and immigrants to Australia, offers a timeless and timely testimony to the problems associated with immigration in our times as in theirs.
On the one hand, the plight of the aborigines, the indigenous people of Australia, whose cultural traditions were uprooted by the impact of immigration, should offer pause for cautionary thought for those who fail to see the consequences of immigration on native populations. On the other hand, the plight of poor European immigrants to Australia should serve to remind us of the need to respect the dignity of all human persons, native-born citizens and immigrants alike.
John Plunkett defended the dignity of the natives; Caroline Chisholm defended the dignity of vulnerable immigrants. In doing so, they offer a living witness to the Lord’s commandment that we love our neighbors.
Republished with gracious permission from Crisis Magazine (June 2025).
This essay is part of a series, Unsung Heroes of Christendom.
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The featured image combines a photograph of Judge John Hubert Plunkett and a portrait of Caroline Chisholm. The former file has no known copyright restrictions, and the latter file is in the public domain, and both appear here courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
