In 1842, Vicar Apostolic Monsignor Carew of Calcutta was keenly aware of the increasing number of British and European children made fatherless by disease or battle. He saw the need for congregations of Nuns and Brothers to care for and teach these poor children who were termed 'war orphans'. His immediate choice was the Loreto Sisters and the Irish Christian Brothers. The founding of the school was done about forty years earlier, by a Waterford businessman, "Edmund Rice" , who had just lost his wife. However, while the Irish nuns arrived in India in 1844 and took up residence at Middleton Row, the Christian Brothers were unable to spare any Brothers for the Indian Mission. As an alternative, the Brothers offered to train men who would form the nucleus of the new Congregation in India. Accordingly, in September, 1847, two young men, "Br. Francis Fitzpatrick" and his cousin, "Br. Alphonsus Tolan", having completed their short spell of training in Ireland, began their long and wearisome voyage around the Cape of Good Hope to Calcutta, arriving on 15 February 1848. They immediately set up the new community of the Calcutta Brothers in the Cathedral compound, Murghihata. Br. Francis took charge of the orphanage at Murghihata while Br. Alphonsus travelled each day to look after the Boys' Free School in Bow Bazar. The little Congregation grew slowly but received a setback when both, Vicar Apostolic Carew and Br. Francis committed non-living in 1855.