Caroline Chisholm is remembered for her philanthropic work. After her arrival in Sydney, Mrs Chisholm met every immigrant ship and became a familiar figure on the wharves. She found positions for immigrant girls and sheltered many of them in her home.She was granted use of part of the old immigration barracks for her Female Immigrants' Home. Entirely dependent on public subscription, it sheltered up to ninety-six women, and the only free employment registry in Sydney was attached. Her next concern was to disperse the unemployed into the country. Throughout 1842 she was almost continually on her white horse, Captain, accompanying parties into the interior and helping to allay their fears of the bush. She soon had resting stages and employment agencies at a dozen rural centres. In her first year's report, Female Immigration, Considered in a Brief Account of the Sydney Immigrants' Home (Sydney, 1842), she was able to announce the closing of the home because her plans for dispersing immigrants into the interior had been so successful. Denied government assistance, the Chisholms travelled throughout New South Wales and collected over 600 statements from immigrants about their lives in Australia, this 'voluntary information' to serve as a guide to those in England who wished to emigrate.
In October 1854 she toured the Victorian goldfields, and at a meeting in Melbourne in November proposed a series of shelter sheds along the routes to the diggings; with some government help ten were under construction by the end of 1855. Because of her passionate belief in the beneficial effects of a small farmer class, she agitated in support of unlocking the lands.
Caroline Chisholm's scorn for material reward and public position contributed to the obscurity of her last years in Australia.
