Mrs. Chisholm was a lady who gave early tokens of her vocation.  At the age of seven she began to form benevolent plans for the colonies of Great Britain.  She built ships of broad beans, filled them with poor families of Couchwood, sent them to sea in a wash-basin, landed them in a bed-quilt, and started them growing wheat.  Then she loaded her fleet with a return cargo for the British pauper, one grain of wheat in each ship, and navigated it safely to Old England.  She made many prosperous voyages, but once a storm arose which sent all her ships to the bottom of the sea.  She sent a Wesleyan minister and a Catholic priest to Botany Bay in the same cabin, strictly enjoining them not to quarrel during the voyage.  At the age of twenty she married Captain Chisholm, and went with him to Madras.  There she established a School of Industry for Girls, and her husband seconded her in all her good works.

Mr. Chamier, the secretary, took a great interest in her school; Sir Frederick Adams subscribed 20 pounds, and officers and gentlemen in Madras contributed in five days 2,000 rupees.  The school became an extensive orphanage.

Mrs. and Captain Chisholm came to Australia in 1838 for the benefit of his health, and they landed at Sydney.  They saw Highland immigrants who could not speak English, and they gave them tools and wheelbarrows wherewith to cut and sell firewood.

Captain Chisholm returned to India in 1840, but the health of her young family required Mrs. Chisholm to remain in Sydney.

Female immigrants arriving in Sydney were regularly hired on board ship, and lured into a vicious course of life.  Mrs. Chisholm went on board each ship, and made it her business to protect and advise them, and begged the captain and agent to act with humanity.  Some place of residence was required in which the new arrivals could be sheltered, until respectable situations could be found for them, and in January, 1841, she applied to Lady Gipps for help.  A committee of ladies was formed, and Mrs. Chisholm at length obtained a personal audience from the Governor, Sir George Gipps.  He believed she was labouring under an amiable delusion.  He wrote to a friend: 

“I expected to have seen an old lady in a white cap and spectacles, who would have talked to me about my soul.  I was amazed when my aide introduced a handsome, stately young woman, who proceeded to reason the question as if she thought her reason, and experience too, worth as much as mine.”

Sir George at last consented to allow her the use of a Government building, a low wooden one.  Her room was seven feet by seven feet.  Rats ran about in it in all directions, and then alighted on her shoulders.  But she outgeneraled the rats.  She gave them bread and water the first night, lit two candles, and sat up in bed reading “Abercrombie.”  There came never less than seven nor more than thirteen rats eating at the same time.  The next night she gave them another feast seasoned with arsenic.