Chisholm became aware that young girls growing up with their families in the barracks were picking up the bad behaviour of the soldiers.

In 1834 she founded the Female School of Industry for the Daughters of European Soldiers, which provided a practical education for such girls.

Rather than return to England, the family decided the climate in Australia would be better for his health so they set sail for Sydney, aboard the Emerald Isle, arriving there in October 1838.

[5] On trips to Sydney, Chisholm and her husband became aware of the difficult conditions that faced immigrants arriving in the colony.

Chisholm found placement for these young women in shelters, such as her own, and helped find them permanent places to stay.

She converted them into a single cottage to be used as a hostel for homeless immigrants who had travelled to the Hunter Valley in search of work.

[9] Before Chisholm and her husband returned to England in 1846, they toured New South Wales at their own expense, collecting over 600 statements from immigrants who had already settled there.

In England, the couple published some of those statements in a pamphlet titled Comfort for the Poor – Meat Three Times a Day.

Chisholm gave evidence before two House of Lords select committees and gained support for some of her initiatives.

In 1849, with the support of Lord Shaftesbury, Sir Sidney Herbert, and Wyndham Harding, Chisholm founded the Family Colonisation Loan Society from her home in Charlton Crescent in Islington.

Chisholm also held regular meetings at Charlton Crescent to give practical advice to emigrants.

Chisholm's insistence that the Society's ships improve their accommodations resulted in the upgrading of the Passenger Acts.

In 1851, her husband, Archibald Chisholm, returned to Australia to act as an honorary colonial agent, to help newly arrived migrants and to collect repayment of loans.

Chisholm had an audience with Pope Pius IX at the Vatican, who gave her a Papal Medal and bust of herself.

She proposed the construction of shelter sheds about a day's walk apart so that prospectors and their families could travel to the work of the goldfields.

Chisholm's body was taken to her home town, Northampton, where it rested overnight in the Cathedral of Our Lady and St Thomas.