Jane Macartney

Jane Macartney (born Jane Hardman; 19 January 1803 – 10 January 1885) was an Australian philanthropist, religious worker and teacher in Melbourne and surrounding regions in the 1800s. An Irish member of the Church of England, in 1833 she married Hussey Macartney, later to become the dean of St James' Cathedral in Melbourne. Her position as wife of the dean enabled her to help establish the Orphan Asylum, the Carlton Refuge, the Melbourne Home and the Lying-In Hospital, along with Frances Perry, the wife of Bishop Charles Perry. Her work in Melbourne was a continuation of her earlier charitable works in Ireland and regional Victoria, where she set up and taught in girls' Sunday Schools and visited poor families, especially assisting young mothers. Personal life and religion Jane Macartney was born Jane Hardman at Castle Bellingham in Ireland, daughter of Edward Hardman an Irish parliamentarian and Rebecca M'Clintock. As a young women, she became a Christian and a member of the Church of Ireland and began her lifelong ministry of establishing schools, charitable institutions and visiting underprivileged families. Her later diaries written in Victoria, Australia, show she was a woman of faith and daily prayer believing her calling was to minister to mothers and poor families. She often attended the regular prayer meetings held on a Saturday in the country parishes and woke up early on weekdays in Melbourne for personal prayer. She married a cleric, Hussey Burgh Macartney, the son of Sir John Macartney, member of the Irish House of Commons and Lady Macartney, in March 1833 at St Peter's Church, Dublin, and moved with him to a remote and poor area of Ireland where she lived with her mother-in-law, widowed sister-in-law and two nephews. In 1843, after the death of her mother-in-law, and her sister-in-law with two sons had left the household, Jane and Hussey Macartney moved to a parish near Dublin. While in Dublin, they decided to emigrate with their eight children to Melbourne, Australia, then known as Port Phillip. On 23 January 1848, the family arrived on the ship "The Stag" in Port Phillip Bay with Bishop Charles Perry and his wife Frances Perry, the Reverend Mr Newham and his wife and child and the Reverend Mr Hales and his wife. The care and support given to each other on the voyage led to a long friendship between Frances and Jane and their partnership in charitable work.