What did they do as a result of what was happening in the colony?

She arrived in Sydney, still a convict town, and found the women in similar conditions to those she had witnessed in Madras. Girls who had gone to Australia in search of a new life in a new world found themselves instead in dire poverty and need with no home or jobs.

Many had resorted to prostitution, others were convicts with no hope of a future who had returned to crime in order to survive. As a result, Caroline Chisholm set up a home for them.