Mary MacKillop was born on 15 January 1842 in what is now the Melbourne

suburb of Fitzroy, Victoria. When she was baptised, six weeks later she received
the names Maria Ellen.
MacKillop's parents lived in Roybridge, Scotland, prior to emigrating to Australia.
MacKillop visited the village in the 1870s where the local Catholic Church, St
Margaret's, now has a shrine to her.
MacKillop was educated at private schools by her father. She received her First Holy Communion on 15
August 1850 at the age of eight.
MacKillop started work at the age of 14 as a clerk in a stationery store in Melbourne. To provide for her
needy family, in 1860 she took a job as governess at the estate of her aunt and uncle, in Penola, South
Australia where she was to look after their children and teach them. Mary MacKillop was already set on
helping the poor whenever possible; she included the other farm children on the Cameron estate as
well. This brought her into contact with Fr Woods, who had been the parish priest in the south east
since his ordination to the priesthood in 1857.
MacKillop stayed for two years with the Camerons before accepting a job teaching the children of
Portland, Victoria in 1862. Later she taught at the Portland school and after opening her own boarding
school, Bay View House Seminary for Young Ladies, now Bayview College, in 1864, was joined by the
rest of her family.
Fr Woods had been very concerned about the lack of education and particularly Catholic education in
South Australia. In 1866, he invited MacKillop and her sisters Annie and Lexie to come to Penola and to
open a Catholic school. Woods was appointed director of education and became the founder, along
with MacKillop, of a school they opened in a stable there. After renovations by their brother, the
MacKillops started teaching more than 50 children. At this time MacKillop made a declaration of her
dedication to God and began wearing black.
On 21 November 1866, the feast day of the Presentation of Mary, several other women joined
MacKillop and her sisters. MacKillop adopted the religious name of Sister Mary of the Cross and she
and Lexie began wearing simple religious habits. The small group began to call themselves the Sisters
of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart and moved to a new house in Adelaide. There they found a new
school at the request of the bishop, Laurence Bonaventure Sheil Dedicated to the education of the
children of the poor; it was the first religious institute to be founded by an Australian.
MacKillop died on 8 August 1909 in the Josephite convent in North Sydney. The Archbishop of Sydney,
Cardinal Moran, said that: "I consider this day to have assisted at the deathbed of a Saint. She was
laid to rest at the Gore Hill cemetery, a few kilometres up the Pacific Highway from North Sydney.
After MacKillop's burial, people continually took earth from around her grave. As a result, her remains
were exhumed and transferred on 27 January 1914 to a vault before the altar of the Virgin Mary in the
newly built memorial chapel in Mount Street, Sydney.The vault was a gift of Joanna Barr Smith, a
lifelong friend and admiring Presbyterian.