History of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan

Imagine the streets of Sydney 150 years ago. For some it was a place of excitement and a new start; a place of ambition and prosperity. But for many the streets were a place of poverty and degradation.

Life was extremely difficult for women either on their own or struggling to support a family. There was no social welfare, no state education and often nowhere to live.

This is where the story of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan began.

In 1857, Archbishop John Bede Polding, anxious to help the destitute women of Sydney, gathered together five women and formed a new religious congregation.

He named the congregation the Sisters of the Good Samaritan of the Order of St Benedict. The specific ministries of the Sisters were the care of needy women and the education of children, although Polding, a Benedictine monk from Downside Abbey in England, also wanted the Sisters "to apply themselves to every other charitable work".

The Sisters began working in a women's refuge in Carters' Barracks, an old building once used as a prison in Pitt Street, Sydney. They visited the sick and the poor and looked after orphans, initially at Parramatta, then at Manly and finally at Narellan from 1910. The work begun at the refuge in Pitt Street was continued at St Magdalene's Retreat, Tempe, in Sydney, where the Sisters looked after girls committed to their care by the courts. Opened in 1887, Tempe closed almost 100 years later in 1983.

Education was always a major area of activity for the Sisters of the Good Samaritan. The first school was set up in Sussex Street in the heart of Sydney in 1861. Later other schools were established in NSW and throughout Australia. Now, there are ten incorporated college across Australia, and one in Japan.

The Sisters first went to Japan in 1948 in response to an appeal made by the Bishop of Nagasaki to start a school there. On October 15, 1948, six Good Samaritan Sisters left Sydney on board the SS Changte bound for Nagasaki, the city devastated by the atomic bomb. Currently, there are Good Samaritan communities at Tokyo, Nara and Sasebo.

In 1990 the Sisters established a community-based ministry in the Philippines and in 1992 two Sisters formed a community in Kiribati. In 2001 two Sisters began ministry in East Timor.

Today, there are more than 100 Good Samaritan communities active in a wide variety of ministries across Australia and in Japan, the Philippines and Kiribati.