Journal of Chinese Australia, Issue 1, May 2005

The Stretton Chinese banner

Kate Bagnall

In 1913, the Wah On Society of Darwin presented a memorial banner to Darwin's Sub-Collector of Customs, WG Stretton on the occasion of his retirement. Stretton was retiring after more than forty years of service with state and Commonwealth governments, and the banner was to be a token of the esteem, respect and admiration of the Chinese community for the way he had conducted his duties.

Figure 1. The front left-hand side of the Chinese banner. The large Chinese characters mean 'comfort the people' and the smaller characters are the names of the banner's donors.
[courtesy of the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory]

The silk banner, measuring more than four metres long, is embroidered on one side and hand-painted with a nature scene with birds on the other. A long tasselled fringe hangs from its lower edge. Large Chinese characters worked in heavy gilt thread form the centrepiece of the embroidered design. The characters (Mandarin: baoguo anmin; Cantonese: bougwok onmahn) mean 'protect the country, comfort the people'. Around them are richly coloured flowers and inscriptions in both English and Chinese.

Figure 2. The front of the banner is richly embroidered in gold thread with Chinese characters, birds, flowers and auspicious symbols.
[courtesy of the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory]

Stretton apparently disliked the English wording on the banner and asked his daughters to unpick it. The outline of the embroidery remains visible, however. It reads:

PORT DARWIN
CHINESE COMMUNITY
HEALTH WEALTH AND HAPPINESS
To W.G. Stretton Esquire S.M. Sub Collector of Customs and Harbour Master Port Darwin, Northern Territory

 

A token of esteem, respect and admiration from the Chinese Community of the Northern Territory

 

HE SERVED HIS KING AND COUNTRY WELL
MAY GOOD FORTUNE ATTEND HIM THROUGHOUT HIS LIFE

 

Wing Wah Loong
Chin Kim Kee
Sun Hing Kee
Cheong Wo
Lee Tong
Man Fong Lau
Chin Yam Yan
Fung Cheong Loong
Yot Sing
Lee Duck
Wing Cheong Sing
Wing Cheong Tong
Yet Loong
Pang Kwee

Unlike the English wording, the Chinese inscription remains intact. It gives the names of the Chinese donors in characters, as well as Stretton's name and position.

Figure 3. Detail of the hand-painted back of the banner
[courtesy of the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory]

William George Stretton's early career included working as a mounted policeman, a storekeeper and miner before he joined the Customs Department in 1887. He also acted as a Special Magistrate and Chief Warden of the Goldfields before his appointment as Sub-Collector of Customs in Darwin in 1896. Stretton was to be compulsorily retired from service on 1 February 1912 at the age of sixty-five, but his term of service was extended until the end of February 1913. Shortly after, he was appointed as Chief Protector of Aborigines for the Northern Territory. He was also made a Special Magistrate in 1914, a post he carried out until his unexpected death in 1919.

As Sub-Collector of Customs, after 1901 Stretton was responsible for administering the Immigration Restriction Act, the law by which the Commonwealth government controlled the movement of Chinese people, amongst others, in and out of the country. Stretton had close dealings with the Chinese in the Northern Territory because of this, and it was acknowledged that he carried out these duties with a fair and even hand. In his letter to Stretton on presentation of the banner, president of the Wah On Society, Ah Chong wrote:

The Chinese recognize that you have dealt with them under very difficult circumstances with much judgment and tact and they feel they would be ungrateful if they permitted you to sever your connection with your old Department without expressing to some small extent their thanks for your just dealings with them.

Stretton's retirement came not long after the Commonwealth government took over the administration of the Northern Territory from South Australia in 1911. The first few years of Commonwealth control demonstrated that those in Canberra saw little role for the Chinese in the Territory's future. Economic and labour restrictions, such as the exclusion of Chinese from any government employment, meant that many Chinese chose to leave the Territory. Others remained and faced an increasingly grim life as their opportunity for paid work disappeared, just as the mining industry before it had done. Perhaps the gratitude of Ah Chong and his fellow Darwin residents towards Stretton was tinged with sadness and a realisation that they might face a very different situation after the appointment of his successor.

Following Stretton's death, the banner went to live with one of his sons, Alfred Victor Stretton, who was Superintendent of the Northern Territory Police. The banner was proudly displayed by AV Stretton in the family home on Darwin's Esplanade until his retirement to Brisbane in 1948. The banner was gifted to the National Archives of Australia in Darwin by WG Stretton's grandson in 1980.

References

National Archives of Australia: E1244, Chinese Banner.

National Archives of Australia: E1352, Correspondence relating to Chinese Banner.

Glenys Dimond, Sweet & Sour: Experiences of Chinese Families in the Northern Territory, Museum & Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT), Darwin, 1996, p.26.

Timothy G Jones, The Chinese in the Northern Territory, revised edition, Northern Territory University (NTU) Press, Darwin, 1997, chapter 5.

VT O'Brien, 'Stretton, Alfred Victor (1890-1963)', in David Carment and Helen J Wilson (eds), Northern Territory Dictionary of Biography, vol. 3, NTU Press, Casuarina NT, 1996, pp.305-306.

Helen J Wilson, 'Stretton, William George (1847-1919)' in David Carment and Barbara James (eds), Northern Territory Dictionary of Biography, vol. 2, NTU Press, Casuarina NT, 2000, pp.208-209.

About the author

Kate Bagnall is a young historian completing her PhD in the Department of History at Sydney University. Her thesis is a discussion of the lives of Chinese men, white women and their children in colonial Australia. She has both studied and worked in southern China, and has a particular interest in the history and culture of Taishan county. She currently works at the National Archives of Australia.

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