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43-45 Latrobe Street, Melbourne
Archbishop Carr, wanted to invite the Sisters of St Joseph to take up work among the poor in the slums on the edge of the city. He was hesitant about his request, and so asked Mary’s opinion before he lodged a formal request with the Mother General.
Mary MacKillop’s response was a whole hearted. She said “of course we have no objection to the locality, it is there that the real work lies”.
The First Providence began on this site, 45 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne. Providence is so named, because it had no fixed source of income and relied on donations for its continued existence. A plaque remembers the work established by Mary MacKillop in the early 1890’s
The residence provided safe accommodation for unemployed, homeless, and vulnerable women. These places Mary set up were not convents per se but accommodation that provided accommodation for the sisters as well as the poor and needy.
In 1892 the Sisters advertised a home for unemployed servants and the providence moved to ‘Nottingham Place’ at 535 Victoria Parade and then to ‘Floraston’ at 39 Victoria Parade where women and girls employed in warehouses could also board. It existed there for 10 years before moving to 362 Albert Street East Melbourne at the end of 1902.
No persons other than bawds and prostitutes attempt to reside in that locality.’ During the depression the population of this block peaked. The Archbishop simply wrote that while the need was overwhelming one would have to live in the area to do anything worthwhile. He wouldn’t ask the Sisters to live there. Predictably Mary replied, ‘Of course I have no objection to the locality, it is there that the real work lies’. She and Sister Gertrude moved into 43 and 45 Latrobe Street using these houses as a Providence; a name the Josephites coined when they had no idea where the money would come from. God would have to provide. Mary and Gertrude would beg once more for food and donations of money. The Sisters offered accommodation for homeless out-of-work servant girls, a soup kitchen and clothes distribution in the back yard, and a night school for street children.
Mary’s sister Annie MacKillop who stayed for a short time at the Latrobe Street Providence wrote, ‘It was a dreadfully noisy place—women screaming at night used to be so awful I thought it was murder, and the noise of cattle and dogs moving down the street during the night”
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