The unsaintly behaviour of Mary Mackillop: her early teaching career at Portland

Purpose Mary Mackillop, the only Australian to have been declared a “saint” by the Roman Catholic Church, co-founded the Institute of the Sisters of St Joseph, a religious congregation established primarily to educate the poor. Prior to this, she taught at a Common School in Portland. While she was there, the headmaster was dismissed. The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which the narrative accounts of the dismissal, as provided in the biographies of Mary, are supported by the documentary evidence. Contemporary records of the Board of Education indicate that Mary played a more active role in the dismissal than that suggested by her biographers. Design/methodology/approach Documentary evidence, particularly the records of the Board of Education, has been used to challenge the biographical accounts of Mary Mackillop’s involvement in an incident that occurred while she was a teacher at the Portland Common School. Findings It appears that the biographers, by omitting to consider the evidence available in the records of the Board of Education, have down-played Mary Mackillop’s involvement in the events that led to the dismissal of the head teacher at Portland. Originality/value This paper uses documentary evidence to challenge the account of the Portand incident, as provided in the biographies of Mary Mackillop.