Asian Studies Program

Chinese Australia

Ballarat Hospital: Chinese Admissions 1858-1888

This database has been compiled by searching of registers of Ballarat Hospital Admissions stored at Ballarat Health Services.

In each case individuals with 'Chinese' names were listed. There is a possible source of error using this method, as a Chinese known as John Young would not be incorporated unless the word' Chinese' appeared beside his name in the register.

The Ballarat Hospital information listed is admission date, register number, name, age, address in Ballarat, birthplace, occupation, marital status (S refers to single, M refers to married), religion, discharge date (where applicable), date of death (where applicable) and the years the patient had been in the colony. Also in the register is the name of the recommending person to the hospital - often the Chinese protector, one of the Chinese missionaries of the time, a mining company or a friend.

Abbreviations for religion:
Conf: Confucian
Budd: Buddhist
Wesl: Wesleyan
C.E. : Church of England
R.C. : Roman Catholic

It is interesting to note that the first hospital admission was in September 1856 and there were four hundred and two admissions before the first Chinese admission in May 1858, and the next Chinese admission did not take place until November of that year. For the years to the end of 1858 there were 262 Chinese burials in the Ballarat Old Cemetery alone, and considering there were many outlying cemeteries, this must have represented a massive number of Chinese desperately needing unobtainable medical treatment. The Chinese community must have been very much on its own as far as medical assistance went.

Unfortunately the digital version of the Ballarat Benevolent Asylum records, originally published in Fading Links to China, no longer exists.