<P> The Sisters of Charity of Australia (formally the Religious Sisters of Charity, who use the postnominal initials of R.S.C.) is a congregation of Religious Sisters in the Catholic Church who have served the people of Australia since 1838 . </P> <P> Mother Mary Aikenhead, who had founded the Religious Sisters of Charity in 1815 in Dublin, Ireland, then part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, was requested by John Bede Polding, O.S.B., the first Catholic bishop in Australia, to send some Sisters to help the many female convicts who had been transported to Australia as penalty for their crimes . Arriving in New South Wales, then still a colony of the British Empire, on the Francis Spaight on 31 December 1838 the Sisters who had volunteered to go to Australia from Ireland were the first Religious Sisters to set foot on the Australian continent . The Sisters of Charity of Australia have operated independently of the congregation in Ireland since 1842 . </P>

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