At the height of An Gorta Mór (the Great Hunger) of 1845-1852, a scheme was devised by the then British Secretary to the Colonies, Earl Grey, to send Irish orphan girls to Australia. The aims: provide domestic servants for European settlers, potential wives for convicts to help populate the new colony, and to lessen numbers in Irish workhouses. Over 1848-1850, the scheme brought 4114 orphan girls, aged 14-19, to the Australian ports of Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide.