The Australian Women's Register

Summary

The Anglican Mission to the Streets and Lanes of Melbourne was established in 1886 by the Bishop of Melbourne as the Diocesan Mission to the Streets and Lanes of Melbourne. The Council, the governing body of the Mission comprised mainly women with the exception of the Bishop of Melbourne and the Chaplain. The Council’s aim was to employ deaconesses commissioned by the Bishop to ‘visit in the lanes and courts and bring the message of the Gospel to the poor and fallen and by the force of their sisterly sympathy, compel the outcast to come in’. It wanted to include people who were not reached already by the ordinary parochial organisations, especially the category described as ‘fallen women’. Miss Emma Silcock ( known as Sister Esther) assumed responsibility for the Mission in 1888. She was also the founder of the Community of the Holy Name in Victoria. By 1900 the Mission had a staff of six deaconesses and one probationer. Its first address was 171 Little Lonsdale St. It moved to a new building in Spring St in 1913 and in 1958 to Fitzroy St Fitzroy. In 1997 it merged with the Mission of St James and St John and the St John’s Homes for Boys and Girls to form Anglicare.