In 1809, Brother Jan Porter of the Byloke hospice, started to teach the alphabet to some street urchins at the gate.

In 1815 the brothers began to tend to patients with mental illness that had been confined and restrained in the cellar of the Gerard-the-Devil castle.

[2] The services provided by the Brothers of Charity were appreciated by the people and Government of Belgium, and in a short time the community developed and expanded.

Benedict, the principal of the primary school in Bruges, translated and published a book on education by Jean-Baptiste de La Salle.

At the Brothers' orphanages, much attention was paid to teaching the children a trade; this trend was continued later with people with a disability.

Peter Joseph Triest, titular canon of the Church of St. Bavon in Ghent, on account of his services in the cause of charity, was called the Vincent de Paul of his country, and was three times decorated by royal hands with the highest civic orders of the land.

[3] In 1911, the first mission took place in Democratic Republic of Congo; thereafter, new houses were established in South Africa, Rwanda and Indonesia (1929), Burundi (1938), India (1936/1994), Peru (1962), Italy (1967), Japan and Papua New Guinea (1970), The Philippines (1981), Sri Lanka (1989), Pakistan (1990), Tanzania and Kivu (1994), Ivory Coast (1996), Brazil (1997), Romania (1999), Kenya (2002), Vietnam (2004), China (2008), Zambia (2009), Ethiopia (2010), Central Africa Republic (2011) etc.

The first Brothers started with the care of elderly men; this first apostolic work continues even today and has developed specializations for patients with Alzheimer and other types of senile dementia.

Bro Ebergist De Deyne published a book on "L'éducation sensorielle chez les enfants anormaux" in 1922; it broke new ground in special education.

The Brothers of Charity offer support services to over 500 people with learning disabilities across the North West of England.

They were guided by Dr Joseph Guislain, the first Belgian psychiatrist and doctor-in-chief of the two existing mental hospitals in Ghent.

Thereafter Peru, Japan, New Guinea, The Philippines, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, The Ivory Coast, India, Tanzania, Brazil, Vietnam, Nicaragua, etc.

For all matters concerning religious life, the congregation is under the jurisdiction of the Catholic Church, as expressed in the Canon Law.

In order to develop their social engagement in collaboration with lay co-workers, they share this mission with them, so as to maintain the spirit of charity in their works.

In order to develop fund raising, the congregation has a foundation called Caraes, based in Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy.

The history of the Brothers of Charity also bears the scars of decades of sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Church.

In 2011, Superior General René Stockman stated before the special parliamentary committee in Belgium that he was aware of fifteen cases of sexual abuse of minors within his congregation.

[8] In 2023, the Coghe family testified in a documentary series titled "Godvergeten [nl]" (Forgotten by God) about their fight for the recognition of the abuse of their slightly disabled daughter in an institution of the Brothers of Charity.

In this documentary, a former pedagogical director of a Brothers' school and a former BOB (Belgian federal police officer) testified that René Stockman prevented them from investigating a complaint of sexual abuse of a mentally handicapped girl by a priest who was later found guilty by the Kortrijk court in the first instance but was acquitted on appeal on the basis of doubt whether the specific priest was the one who committed the abuse.

[9] In response to the documentary,[10] the congregation acknowledges that the name "Brothers of Charity" was mentioned several times and that a dark chapter from the history, the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, was highlighted.