Twelve Came First FCJ Mission To Australia

Some 127 years ago, a group of twelve FCJ Sisters - Faithful Companions of Jesus - boarded the SS Liguria at Gravesend, England, and set off for Australia.

After a voyage of six weeks, the little groip had arrived on 1 June 1882 in the Great South Land of the Holy Spirit. They had travelled in response to requests from Archbishop Goold in Melbourne and Fr Joseph Dalton, the Jesuit Provincial, and were quickly taken to the Jesuit parish at Richmond. Within twelve days of their arrival, the Melbourne Catholic paper reports that the Sisters had opened their high school and free school.

This book recounts the work of these pioneering Sisters, and of the three other groups who arrived over the next six years It draws upon journals kept of the sea voyages and correspondence and early accounts of establishing their mission.