Asian Studies Program

Chinese Australia

FADING LINKS TO CHINA

Ballarat's Chinese Gravestones and Associated Records 1854-1955

By Linda Brumley, Liu Bingquan and Zhao Xueru


 

Welcome to the Online Version of Fading Links to China

Contents

Fading Links to China: Ballarat's Chinese Gravestones and Associated Records 1854-1955 was originally published by the History Department, Melbourne University in 1992 as part of the Melbourne University History Research Series. It is reproduced here courtesy of the History Department of Melbourne University. It was developed from a series of databases containing medical, inquest and burial records of Ballarat's Chinese goldminers from the 19th century.

In locating inquest records, the authors were forced to search listings for the entire colony of Victoria, and thus ended up with a computerised database of all Victorian Chinese inquests from 1850 to 1890. Only the Ballarat district records were published in Fading Links' original form. With this online publication comes the opportunity to make available the full database.

The authors are delighted that Fading Links to China and its associated databases are now available for online use. Since Fading Links' initial publication there has been considerable interest and effort taken to restore Ballarat's Chinese cemeteries, but gravestones are eventually damaged and records sadly disappear. Fading Links makes some attempt to keep these records safe and useful in perpetuity.

We wish to thank the history department of the University of Melbourne, the Asian Studies Department of La Trobe University and specifically John Fitzgerald and Sophie Couchman for making this online publication possible.

Finally we encourage anyone using these records to take an inquest number and recover the full transcript from the Public Record Office. The material here is so rich that it calls out for further research.

And it turns history into people.

Linda Brumley, Lu Bingqun & Zhao Xueru


Digital reproduction made with the permission of the authors and of the History Department of the University of Melbourne 2001.

Original copyright Linda Brumley 1992. This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. Not to be reproduced without permission. All rights reserved. Originally published in 1992 by the History Department, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia 3052