Jules Chevalier founded the
Archconfraternity of the Sacred Heart in 1864. In 1867 it opened its first school in
Chezal-Benoît in the
Centre region of France. Three missionaries from Barcelona founded the first overseas mission in 1882 near
Rabaul on the island of
New Britain in
Papua, where the order began a mission at
Yule Island in 1885. In 1885, a supply base for the Papua New Guinea mission was founded in Sydney, Australia and the Australian Province was established in 1905.
Bishop Gsell and other Australian MSCs such as ophthalmologist
Fr Frank Flynn were active in missionary work to
Aboriginal Australians. In the mid-twentieth century, the imposing
monastery at Kensington, New South Wales was the home of the anti-Communist organiser
Dr P.J. ('Paddy') Ryan and the popular Catholic controversialist
Dr Leslie Rumble, and published the long-running magazine of Catholic culture
Annals Australasia, edited for many decades by
Fr Paul Stenhouse MSC. The Congregation established provinces in the Netherlands (1894), the United States (1939), Spain (1946), Ireland (1952), Indonesia (1971) and the Dominican Republic (1986). ==Notable members==