Brotherhood of St. Laurence

The Brotherhood of St. Laurence is a nongovernmental organization that works to alleviate and prevent poverty. The brotherhood, as it is commonly known, is based in Fitzroy in inner-city Melbourne, Australia. It employs around 600 [Page 142]staff and has over 1,000 volunteers. As an organization, the brotherhood is characterized by a long-standing commitment to research, service delivery, and advocacy.

The Brotherhood of St. Laurence was named after the patron saint of the poor. It was established in Newcastle, New South Wales, in 1930 by an Anglican priest, Father Gerard Tucker, who wanted to form a religious order to assist the poor. The order was modelled on the Anglo-Catholic Bush Brotherhoods that had formed elsewhere in Australia and allowed men to make a fixed-term rather than a ...