Rachel McMillan began to lodge at the house, then in Kent, in 1895, while working for the county council. Margaret joined her in 1902, earning her living by lecturing for the Ethical Society and Workers’ Educational Association. She continued to write, and books such as Education through the Imagination (1904) brought her to international attention. According to Sister Ester, the women living at the shelter vary in age and with regard to their level of trauma. Hell was let loose. The saga started. On June 17, 1980, the government filed a court action, claiming that the hospital was to revert to the government because the sisters had refused to acquire the required permit and were therefore unable to operate the hospital. Alas, the Court of Appeal failed to reach great heights. Unexpectedly, the president of the court himself suggested to the parties a section of the law on usufruct which allowed a usufruct in favour of a legal – as opposed to a physical person – to be applicable only for a maxi­mum period of 30 years. It was another way of saying that, in any case, the Blue Sisters no longer enjoyed title to the hospital. This had not been referred to by either party.

The McMillan sisters set up the country’s first school clinic in Bow, East London, in 1908. This closed within two years, but paved the way for their clinics at 3 Deptford Road, Greenwich (1910), and at 353 Evelyn Road, Deptford (1911), which treated some 6,000 children a year. The Little Company of Mary is currently present and operational in Australia, New Zealand, Tonga, Ireland, Italy, South Africa, South Korea, Philippines, United Kingdom, United States of America, and Zimbabwe. [4] They continue to assist in healthcare in these countries, as well as praying and accompanying them during their illness. Our goal is to gradually integrate these women into society with the adequate spiritual and mental stability, and with a clear plan for their future,” said Sister Ester. In 2011, South Sudan became an independent country, but in in December 2013, President Salva Kiir Mayardit accused his former deputy Riek Macho of attempting a coup, unleashing a civil war that Pope Francis himself has tried to stop by inviting both leaders to a recent spiritual retreat at the Vatican. The conflict has generated more than 1.5 million displaced people. In 1882, they went to Italy. Mary Potter had gone to gain approval for the constitutions of her new congregation, and while there she established Calvary Hospital on the Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, not far from St. John Lateran. [5]Margaret published her first article in Christian Socialist magazine in 1889; she would soon join the Fabian Society and made her first speech on May Day 1892 in Hyde Park. After the sisters’ conversion to Christian Socialism, Rachel decided that she would support her sister’s budding political career. In 1893 they both went to work for the new Independent Labour Party (ILP) in Bradford, where Margaret would be elected to the School Board for the ILP. It was, indeed, a ground-breaking judgement, valiant and audacious in the face of executive arbitrariness, a judgement which was met with even more arrogance by the government authorities.” Blue Sisters Hospital was the first private hospital to be opened in Malta in 1911. It was run by the Sisters of the Little Company of Mary (known as Blue Sisters – originating from their distinctive habit which was partially blue). The sisters help some women cope with AIDS, and others to raise their children, many of whom were conceived in rape. According to Sister Ester, "the connection with their children, surprisingly, is a significant part of the healing process, and not part of the trauma, as some tend to believe."

The counsel for the government did not agree with such a strong direction from the court and insisted on continuing the case as originally filed. But the government filed a new action the following day along the lines suggested by the president of the court himself. In 1980, the government introduced the need for a licence to run a hospital. Sur­prisingly, a condition was introduced in the Blue Sisters Hospital licence that at least one-half of the hospital beds were to be made available to the National Health Scheme. The sisters opposed it. Apart from the fact that it would have been impossible to resolve financially, this would have negatively affected their original contractual obligation to manage the entire hospital. The author, Tonio Borg, is a lecturer in public law at the University of Malta, a former European commissioner, former deputy prime minister and cabinet minister. He is a born raconteur who can lead a listener or reader through complicated issues while retaining a fresh approach akin to a story. The need for properly qualified teachers led to the establishment of a training college for nursery nurses and teachers, which Margaret started in 1918. A new Rachel McMillan Training College was opened in Deptford by Queen Mary in 1930. The sisters help some women cope with AIDS, and others to raise their children, many of whom were conceived in rape. According to Sister Ester, “the connection with their children, surprisingly, is a significant part of the healing process, and not part of the trauma, as some tend to believe.”Rachel and Margaret McMillan were born respectively in 1859 and 1860 in New York State to Scottish parents. They moved to Scotland on the death of their father in 1865 and were educated in Inverness. Rachel then taught at a ladies’ college in Coventry but left to nurse her grandmother. Margaret, meanwhile, completed her education in continental Europe and embarked on a career as a governess. I remember considering whether usufruct really applied to the issue as the president of the court had suggested. I was then of the firm opinion that it did not apply. I felt that the contract was a sui generis obligation, not a usufruct. Reading this book, I now find solace that several more enlightened minds were also of that belief. They were founded three decades ago in southern Sudan, and named the Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary. But in a region dramatically affected by the South Sudanese civil war, they are usually known by the bright color of their habits. To most who know them, they are the "Blue Sisters."

Cyril Sladden was a patient at Blue Sisters Hospital, Sliema, Malta, from mid August to mid September 1915 after being wounded at Gallipoli. Ali said there are many schools in the vicinity, but he sent his son to this school up to grade three and later admitted him to an outside school. Around 150 children from the slums are now students at the school. They started their mission in 1911 when Emilia Zammit, wife of Henry Clapp, donated to the government of Malta a hospital that she had built at her own expense. The Blue Sisters was the popu­lar name of the Little Company of Mary, which was a congregation of Catholic nuns. They ran Malta’s first private hospital, the Zammit-Clapp Hospital in St Julian’s. Mr Justice Joseph Herrera delivered a landmark decision favouring the Blue Sisters. The judgment discussed the concept of reasonableness and the claim by public authorities of unfettered discretion in great depth.Internal violence has been endemic to Sudan since it gained independence from Great Britain in 1956. At around that time, the Muslim, Arab-influenced north of the country launched an Islamization campaign against the mostly Christian south, leading to decades of fighting. The author also had a small finger in the pie when, as a young lawyer, he was asked by Bonello to research a particular aspect of the test of reasonableness in English Common Law. He relates how he rushed to the university library to research the matter and recalls his excitement when he came across valid material that would help in the issue. In 1893, three Little Company of Mary sisters arrived in Chicago to begin their ministry in the United States, providing home-based hospice care. In 1930 Little Company of Mary Hospital was founded in Evergreen Park, Illinois. [8] [9] As of 2019, there were sisters working in California, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. Their healthcare ministries include hospitals, home care, hospice, extended care, and outreach programs. On the following day, the Blue Sisters were escorted in a police minibus to the airport. They were met there by several people who supported the Blue Sisters’ mission which they had carried out with much love for many years in Malta.

In the South Sudanese Diocese of Tombura Yambio, Bishop Edward Hiiboro Kussala has tasked them with providing permanent assistance to the many women, including young girls and teenagers, who have been raped, abused or abandoned amid the violent conflicts that have plagued the region for years. The sisters then moved to Lewisham and eventually to Deptford, where Rachel worked full-time at their first nursery. After her death in 1917, this was named the Rachel McMillan Nursery School. By 1927, the expanded nursery school accommodated 350 children and provided for large classes to be taught all year round in the open air under shelters, built around a garden. The Medical Officer of Health for the London County Council noted that year that the school’s records showed ‘conclusively the beneficial results of the regime there, associated as it is with good food, fresh air, cleanliness and medical treatment on diseased and debilitated babies’.When the sisters first arrived in Bangladesh to work in the slums, many Muslims thought that the sisters were trying to convert them to Christianity. Borg glides through the law with ease, cutting through brambles and explaining without unnecessary verbal excursions. The story is a sad one. I remember it well, but reading the book made me recall and understand better what had happened.