This scrapbook is filled with ephemera relating to Chisholm’s work assisting immigrants in, or trying to get to, Australia. Items include newspaper clippings, public notices, correspondence, the constitution and meeting minutes for her Family Colonisation Loan Society, and documents containing her signature.

Posters advertise her lectures; railway tickets stamped for free travel indicate official support for her project; accommodation receipts document her Victorian gold diggings shelter sheds; invitation cards reveal connections in high society, which were the focus of her fundraising efforts; and lists of names record the people she assisted financially to migrate to Australia.

Most of the material dates from 1852-54 during Chisholm’s time in the United Kingdom promoting her Loan Society, and her second period in Australia from 1854-66. It is not known who collated the scrapbook.

Perhaps it was Chisholm herself, but it might also have been a family member. The personal nature of much of the material suggests the compiler was a close associate. Handed down through the Chisholm family, it was presented to Museum Victoria in 2000 by the family of a Chisholm historian.