The Australian Women's Register

Summary

Emma Crawford probably migrated to Brisbane in 1896 and almost immediately involved herself in the work of the Society of the Sacred Advent, a religious order committed to the care of Brisbane’s underprivileged women and children. She presided over the Society’s establishment of Anglican schools (all public teaching in Queensland was legislated secular) and made them financially viable. After developing an industrial school for wayward girls in Brisbane, the community took charge of a school in Stanthorpe in 1909 which was later moved to Warwick and named St Catharine’s. She also helped to establish boarding schools for girls in Townsville, Herberton, Charters Towers, Yeppoon and Brisbane.

By the time Mother Emma died, in 1939, the Society was active in three of Queensland’s five Dioceses – this despite never having more that thirty professed sisters working during the course of her lifetime.