Nineteenth Century Prototype Social Work: Catholic Sisterhoods in Sydney
In the late nineteenth century Catholic sisterhoods undertook a variety of social welfare work with the poor in Sydney. This paper argues that their work displayed many of the features of twentieth century professional social work. Foremost amongst the characteristics of the sisters’ work was an underlying stance towards the poor of respect, compassion and a commitment to develop skills that would facilitate their economic independence. The sisterhoods’ prescriptive documents included guidelines for the operationalisation of these core values in different fields of practice. The existence of such specifications for practice are not surprising given that the sisterhoods in question were founded specifically to undertake works of mercy and charity. However, in addition to a stance which pre-figured twentieth century social work values, the sisters also had well-developed structures and processes governing the administration of their social welfare work. These included provisions for accountability and efficiency and norms of ‘professional conduct’. The sisters’ narratives and account books, as well as documents from external sources, reveal administrative sophistication and considerable skills in various facets of management, including property, finance and service development. Rules about conduct and demeanor in public seem to have been associated with maintaining public respect and credibility. In spite of being proto-professional in various respects, the Sisters’ work did not develop into professional social work, for a number of reasons.