JCA, Issue 1, May 2005, O'Neil, 'Chinese workers and merchants in the Northern Territory, 1880-1920'

While investigating my family history I was surprised by the variety of businesses and occupations that my great-grandfather Lee Hang Gong [1] and his children had been associated with in Darwin. [2] These occupations ranged far beyond those stereotypical jobs generally thought of as ‘Chinese’ occupations. Those initial discoveries prompted a larger survey of Chinese occupations and business activities in the Top End [3] of the Northern Territory where the bulk of the non-indigenous population, both Chinese and European, lived between 1880 and 1920.

In additional to actual occupations, the relationships between Europeans in the Top End and the Chinese community demonstrated a wide mixture of attitudes, both friendly and hostile. Joint ventures between members of both communities were not uncommon and webs of business interests linked both Chinese and European. I do not wish to stress this aspect unduly, for predominantly each community dealt with its own members, but there is much beyond the usual stereotypes.

Little Asia

As early as July 1872 a note from Bloomfield Douglas, the Government Resident in Darwin, mentions that five Chinese people are employed, one as a messenger, one as office keeper, another as a hospital attendant and two as domestic servants. [4] However the first large group of Chinese, numbering 187, landed in Darwin on 5 August 1874. They were contracted in Singapore to work for two years under the general control of the Government but their day to day employers included private individuals, the Overland Telegraph Company, the government itself and several mining operations. This arrival added 25 per cent to the population of this northern outpost and stamped Darwin as a town with a distinctly Asian orientation. [5] Indonesia, Hong Kong, Singapore and the Philippines were all closer in sailing time than the major Australian cities and in 1881, 35 per cent of all goods imported came from Asian ports. [6]

By 1888, visitors strolling around Darwin would have seen a tropical port where 85 per cent of the population was Chinese, ships traded with Asian ports and Chinese merchants advertised heavily in the local newspaper. [7] For more than 32 years between 1878 and 1910, the Europeans were a minority in the Top End. By far the largest national group was the Chinese but there were also Malays, Japanese, and Philippinos. During the period 1880 to 1900 the Chinese proportion of the non-indigenous population was never less than 75 per cent. [8]

Chinese cowboys

A perusal of Chinese death certificates around the turn of the 19^th century shows occupations that included fencing worker, cowboy, and horse minder. [9] Tasks that often called for willingness to face risks to both person and property. In early 1893, for instance, despite many warnings, Harry Sue Lee set out from Borroloola on the south western side of the Gulf of Carpenteria to drive a mob of 200 cattle to Pine Creek, a distance of 600 kilometres. The country was wild, rough and dangerous and he was expected to suffer large losses but after several months, Harry Sue Lee arrived in Pine Creek (where he had a butcher’s shop) with the mob intact. [10]

The efforts and skills of these Chinese workers were not unappreciated. Alfred Giles of Spring Vale Station near Katherine employed many Chinese pastoral workers in a variety of tasks: fencing, cooking, building yards, stripping bark, sawing timber and saddlery. He appreciated their skills and work ethic. When an overseer named Ewart got into a dispute with four Chinese jackeroos, Giles sent a telegram to his manager ‘Keep Chinamen sack Ewart’. [11]

Railwaymen

In 1886, the Miller Brothers won the contract to construct the Darwin to Pine Creek railway with the work to be completed within five years. As its peak there were more than 4000 Chinese workmen employed on this project. The conditions were harsh and the hours long: from 6.00am to 6.00pm, with a two-hour break in the middle of the day. [12] Men such as Moo Yet For, [13] Yu Wong [14] and Jimmy Ah Yu [15] quarried the stone, cut through the hills, built the bridges and laid the track. Jimmy Ah Yu told his children that during the work the Miller Brothers attempted to cut wages by 30 per cent. The workers responded by cutting their shovels by 30 per cent. The dispute was settled without any reduction in wages. [16]

On 15 June 1889 the last length of railway track was laid in Pine Creek, two years before the required completion date, a magnificent achievement by the Chinese railway men. Following the completion of the construction phase the Chinese connection with the railway diminished, although in 1893 the railway had 70 Chinese line gangers on its books and several boiler and machinery attendants. [17] In 1901 Herbert Doral Lee (one of the sons of Lee Hang Gong) was employed as an engine driver. [18]

Women at work

The small numbers of women in the Chinese community and their role away from the public gaze has resulted in few examples of the kinds of occupations they engaged in. They were a vital part of family businesses, whether these were bakeries, market gardens, stores or laundries. Myrtle Houng On recalled driving an old truck to collect goods from a bond store in Katherine when she was 13 years old, the local policeman ‘turning a blind eye’ to her lack of a driver’s licence. [19] Shu Ack Chan also worked in her families’ store, sweeping the floor, cleaning and running messages. [20]

Hung Yuen, [21] Selina Hassan [22] and Jane Tye [23] were well known Chinese midwives who assisted at the birth of many people living in Darwin today. Jane Tye (the daughter of Lee Hang Gong) was the best known of the Chinese midwives. In 1988 a small book dealing with Northern Territory births was published called Rain or Shine She Walks Everywhere which was the phrase commonly used to describe her devotion. The picture that her patients recalled was of a small woman with an umbrella and an old kerosene hurricane lantern arriving in the dark to help with a birth. Her reputation was that she had never lost a mother or child in childbirth. [24]

In 1882, there were a number of Chinese women employed as washerwomen in Darwin, [25] while in later years Lee Toy Kim (Granny Lum Loy) exported mangoes to Western Australia. [26] Because of the numerical imbalance between men and women many prostitutes operated in Darwin. In 1888 there were seven Chinese brothels, occupied by 34 prostitutes, but a number of these may have been Japanese. The Government Resident J. G. Knight was surprisingly positive in comments to an Adelaide journalist:

When W. J. Snowden and a South Australian parliamentary party sailed to Darwin on board the S.S.Menmuir in 1882, many of the seamen were Chinese. [28] The S.S.Adelaide had eight Chinese crew when in 1888 it worked the coast laying buoys and beacons in the McArthur and Roper rivers. [29] In Darwin, Sun Kwong Shing operated a cutter to Hang Gong’s wharf to service the Wheel of Fortune and other tin mines on the west arm of Darwin harbour [30] and the occupation of ferryman often appears in Chinese death certificates. [31]

Doctors’ Gully provided the site for a ship building yard where, in 1888, Ah Young built a 20 metre junk and various sized sampans for use in the harbour and on the coast. [32] And in the 1897 cyclone, one junk and three sampans were reported lost. [33] When sailing regattas were held, a vigorously contested sampan race was often part of the program and boats crewed by Chinese oarsmen did well in rowing events. [34]

Chin Toy preserved pearl meat and beche-de-mer and exported it to Hong Kong [35] while Ah Cheong [36] concentrated his efforts on producing salted fish for the Hong Kong and Melbourne markets. Initially operating at Doctors’ Gully, the open grass covered drying sheds were later moved to the other side of the harbour. [37] Although pearl diving is usually associated with the Japanese, Eric Rolls notes that at least one Chinese person, Ah Pong was engaged in that business. [38]

On 25 June 1890 a notice was published in the Northern Territory Times advising the public that Sun Hang had sold his fish shop, two boats and equipment to Chin Hung Tuck Tong. [39] Fresh prawns were also caught and sold. [40] Alfred Searcy observed that ‘when the prawns were spawning, the Chinese with a very fine net would catch hundred weights of the young ones not larger than mosquitoes’. [41] These were salted and fermented in the sun to make the pungent prawn sauce ‘hum har’, which is still made and sold in Darwin today.

The diggers from China [42]

The traditional image of a Chinese miner is of an alluvial miner searching stream beds for gold. While there were many alluvial gold miners (for this demanded little capital) they represented only part of the picture in the Northern Territory. The Chinese engaged in all aspects of mining and for all minerals.

Gold was always an attraction in the Northern Territory and there were many rich finds. The Northern Territory Times in 1890 reported a yield of 50 ounces from a bucket of ore at one of Hang Gong’s mines at Brock’s Creek [43] and in 1892 a 20 pound gold bearing stone which ‘bristles with gold’ was extracted from Hang Gong and Yam Yan’s Woolwonga claim and exhibited in their Darwin store. [44]

Joint ventures between Chinese and European miners were not unusual. In 1875 Ping Que worked in partnership with Lambert Smith and in 1882 with W.G. Griffiths and Adam Johns. [45] Chin Ah Din worked with John Hughes and A.E. Jolly at Woolwonga [46] while Kwong Wing Hee offered W.H. Corbold an interest in a silver lead mine. Corbold (who later made his fortune as a founder of Mount Isa Mines) declined but noted that the claim was successful. [47]

In addition to gold, the Copperfield mine near Pine Creek was a deep mine with good plant and underground lighting which exported copper ore to Port Kembla. The owners were Castles and Mee Wah. [48] Substantial tin deposits were discovered inland and also on the coast in the Northern Territory. The ‘Wheel of Fortune’ mine on the western arm of Darwin harbour was owned by four of the sons of Lee Hang Gong and in 1904 yielded a huge return of nearly one million dollars in today’s money. In that year they had employed an experienced European manager who increased production by 40 per cent. In order to provide water to wash the ore the Lee brothers constructed a substantial dam 70 metres long by nine metres wide together with an extensive water race. They also built a wharf on West Arm to facilitate the movement of stores and cargo inwards and tin concentrates outwards. [49]

In terms of numbers the Chinese dominated the Northern Territory mining industry in the 1880 to 1920 period. In 1887 the Union Reefs gold field was exclusively Chinese and by 1910 Chinese interests owned or controlled all of the gold mines of any value in the Northern Territory. [50] They also crushed the ore and by the end of 1892 Chinese merchants owned or controlled 16 out of the 19 crushers in the Top End. The table below summarises the break-up of the mining population between 1881 and 1921. [51]

The majority of the Chinese miners may well have had the less skilled jobs initially but they learned quickly. At the Zapopan copper mine the manager’s diary noted 15 kinds of work being performed by his Chinese workers, including repairs to the crusher and metal turning. [52] Lum Loy was an expert mining engineer who regularly dismantled and reassembled all kinds of equipment and whose ingenuity astonished that hard task master John Lewis. [53]

The Chinese and Europeans worked on the mineral fields with relatively few outbreaks of racial animosity. Eric Rolls quotes a source as saying they could work together ‘as mates’. [54] When the Chinese established a race course at Brook’s Creek in 1899 the whole town was invited. The program included a race ‘for horses owned and ridden by Europeans’ a pointed dig at the opposite situation when Europeans held their race meetings. [55]

Buildings and builders

Too often Darwin’s Chinatown is pictured as a run down slum, but many of its buildings were substantial. In his 1883 report, the Government Resident noted that the Chinese ‘stores are of a superior class’. [56] The handsome group of five attached shops in yellow stone, now owned by the Sue Wah Chin family, was built by Kwong Sue Duk in 1888. [57] A little later Yuen Yet Hing erected two storey premises in Cavenagh Street to join similar buildings owned by Lee Hang Gong and Chin Yam Yan. [58] Brown’s Mart built in 1878, was the oldest Chinese built building in the town. [59] Later the same year, Chinese stone masons worked on Government House. [60]

Chinese builders worked for their own community, the government and the Europeans. The Northern Territory Times of 1888 includes Chinese advertisements for carpenters, painters, frame and box makers and cabinet makers. [61] Chinese quarrymen extracted the stone for Kwong Sue Duk’s ‘Stone Houses’. [62] While the timber getters and sawyers who cut the termite resistant white cypress pine from Indian Island, Yam Creek and the Coburg Peninsula between 1879 and 1903 were predominantly Chinese. [63] Local bricks were manufactured in 1879 by Ah Suey, some of which were purchased by the government and others privately. [64] A few years later Lee Hang Gong and Chin Yam Yan also fired an experimental kiln of bricks which impressed the editor of the local newspaper [65] and which were sold at half the price of imported items. [66]

Government contracts were won for many building jobs. Hang Gong and Yam Yan succeeded in their tender to build the mining wardens’ quarters at Burrundie. [67] Yuen Yet Hing constructed concrete culverts in Cavenagh Street, carried out fencing and removed garbage for the town council. There was often criticism when Chinese won such contracts. [68] In 1902, George Gee Tye a naturalised citizen, succeeded in obtaining a contract to supply 1800 bushels of lime. He was immediately attacked by a local councillor and his blunt response appears in a letter to the Editor of the Northern Territory Times on 4 July 1902:

Government work

From the late 1870’s Chinese miners were provided with relief work in the dry season to prevent them starving. Mining needed water for washing the crushed ore and water was not available in the dry season from May to November. Successful miners would return to China but those who were not so fortunate gravitated to Darwin where they worked in return for rations and sometimes a little cash. They drained swamps, cut firewood, widened roads, screened shells to make lime, cleared land, dug trenches, cut Cyprus Pine and maintained roads. [69]

The South Australian Government did not favour the employment of Chinese but was forced to do so out of necessity. We saw that from 1874 Chinese workers were employed as messengers, hospital attendants, railway gangers and waterside workers. There were occasional efforts to replace Chinese with Europeans in government jobs. On one occasion at least, resulting in the Northern Territory Times grumbling that it was unacceptable to ‘dismiss a reliable, and serviceable Chinese in order to make an opening for a worthless European’. [70]

Some people had more responsible positions than those mentioned above. Arthur Hang Gong was appointed a mounted policeman on two occasions between 1884 and 1887 [71] and held the position of bailiff for the Local Court of Palmerston in 1886. [72] Arthur Hang Gong had worked as an official interpreter when only 17, a position a number of Chinese people were employed by the government to do, including Soo Yoke [73] and Cham Yok Sing. [74]

The Chinese were successful in winning various contracts for building and general contracting work until 1911. After that time, with the Northern Territory now federally administered, few contracts were given to Chinese people and the Commonwealth Government applied a policy of economic starvation. [75] Also in 1911 the Darwin Amalgamated Workers’ Association (which was affiliated with the Australian Workers’ Union) was formed. It would not accept Chinese members and because the Commonwealth Government had a policy of union preference, no government jobs were now available to Chinese. In 1911, Chinese cooks and waterside workers were sacked. [76] By 1912, only six Chinese were in government employment, four at the hospital and two on the railway. [77]

The hand over of the Northern Territory to the Commonwealth was the commencement of a much tougher anti-Chinese policy by government. 1911 was also the first year since 1879 that Europeans outnumbered the Chinese, a trend that was to continue. [78]

The Territory in bloom

For the last 30 years of the nineteenth century Chinese market gardens grew 75 per cent of Australia’s vegetables. [79] These market gardeners were often accused of forcing Europeans out of the industry but George Smith, a Sydney alderman and market gardener, denied this in evidence given in 1892 to the New South Wales Royal Commission into the Chinese. In his experience the Europeans sold their gardens to take advantage of high prices offered for good land. [80]

Alfred Searcy for many years the Sub-Collector of Customs in Darwin published an article in 1890 describing one Chinese garden in ecstatic terms:

The Darwin community was grateful for all the fresh vegetables now available. [82] Northern Territory peanuts yielded good quality oil and Darwin pineapples were exceedingly sweet [83] while mangoes were exported to Western Australia by Lee Toy Kim. [84]

Rice was also successfully grown at Union Reef on 10 acres with a yield of three tons per acre. [85] The land was levelled and water channels dug to provide the necessary flooding. [86] See Kee believes that these ‘Chinese Rice Gardens’ are those on Esmerelda Station, which is now owned by descendants of Lee Hang Gong’s youngest son. [87] The Chinese merchants however discouraged local rice production which cut into their sales of imported rice. [88]

Most forms of agriculture were attempted, including cotton but this was not particularly successful. Nor was tobacco, grown experimentally by John Allen (Lee Lin) in 1884. [89] Pigs and poultry provided food for festivals and everyday consumption and farmers, including Yuen Yet Hing, produced them for the Chinese and European communities. [90]

Retail, professional and service

The list of Chinese occupations recorded in the Northern Territory between 1880 and 1920 is set out in the Appendix below and illustrates the wide range of work skills practised, predominantly in the retail, professional and service areas. The town’s food was produced and sold by Chinese, who were also the tailors, barbers, house servants, boot makers, washermen and women, jewellers and metal workers of Darwin.

Kwong Sue Duk [91] and Yee Hang Pew [92] were well known herbalists but the name of the doctor who also practiced in the Northern Territory and was naturalised in South Australia, is not given by Tim Jones. [93] He may have been a herbalist with an honorary title, just as Kwong Sue Duk was often referred to as ‘Doctor’. The details of a naturalised artist, also mentioned by Jones, must await further research. [94]

Joe Wong Yuen was an ‘honourable, good humoured and extremely reliable’ printer who was employed by the Northern Territory Times for many years. The report of his death said that ‘his place will be hard to fill’ and indeed it was. The next edition of the newspaper was late! [95] Photographs that appeared in the Australian Mining Standard of 12 April 1900 were the work of Ah Mann who operated a studio at The Howley near Pine Creek. [96] Ah Cheong also had a photographic studio in Bennett Street Darwin in 1918. [97]

The big Chinese general stores such as Hang Gong and Yam Yan, Sun Mow Loong, Yet Loong and Co. and Fang Cheong Loong sold every manner of retail goods - clothes, bicycles, hardware, saddlery, household goods, drapery and fancy goods. The merchants often produced the retail goods they sold, with Hang Gong and Yam Yan manufacturing aerated waters in 1890 [98] while Soey Sing Cheong and Co. seemed to have been principally a manufacturer rather than a retailer when he advertised in 1888. [99] Finally some were even moneylenders, to both the Chinese and European business communities. Chin Toy financed Ruben Cooper to set up a sawmill at Millingimbi for example. [100]

Religion was another area not avoided by Chinese people as an occupation. The Methodist Church sent Brother Loie Foy, a catechist, to Darwin to service the Chinese community for example, and in 1896 the Rev. J. Tear Tack was appointed as the resident Minister. [101]

Cooperation, competition and conflict

The South Australian Government encouraged Asian immigration to the Northern Territory because it believed there was no other way to develop its frontier territory. It has been noted that the first group of Chinese workers to arrive in 1874 was officially organised and supervised, moreover the government was happy with the results. In 1877, when more workers were due to reach Darwin, the Government resident wrote to his Minister in Adelaide, ‘if the new arrivals of Chinese behave as well as the former ones they will prove useful colonists’. [102]

William Sowden accompanied the South Australian Minister on an official visit to the Northern Territory in 1882 when anti-Chinese sentiment was rife in other states. He reported that the stories were ‘gross libels’ and protested ‘against the utterly false portraits which have been painted’. [103]

Although government officials had good relations with the Chinese, European traders and storekeepers saw a threat to their livelihoods and in 1880, 1881 and 1886 sought unsuccessfully to have a poll tax imposed. In 1884, the European business community petitioned for the exclusion of Chinese miners from gold fields discovered by Europeans for three years. They also sought to prevent the employment of Chinese labour on government works and the granting of government contracts to Chinese tenders. These requests were rejected for economic reasons, although in 1886 Chinese were excluded from leases on European discovered gold fields for two years. [105] Restrictions on Chinese immigration were only imposed in 1888 because of pressure from the eastern states and as late as 1891 a group of Europeans in Darwin petitioned to remove these restrictions. [106]

The Chinese were as careful as possible to be on good terms with government authorities in Darwin but would speak out if required. In December 1882 a local magistrate prevented V.L. Solomon from appearing for Chinese defendants and in the absence of a legal practitioner they ‘have not lately been treated in their opinion, with the spirit of justice which is supposed to characterise British Government’. [107] The Chinese merchants provided a banquet when Minister Parsons visited in 1882 and took the opportunity to lobby for land as inducement to permanent settlement. Interestingly, they also requested the right to vote and the Minister was able to reply that naturalisation was available. [108] This seems to have struck a responsive chord and several merchants were naturalised in 1882, including Lee Hang Gong who had previously been naturalised in Victoria in 1871. [109]

During the 1880’s, Chinese merchants were targeting European consumers. The first Chinese advertisement appears in the Northern Territory Times on 11 June 1881 [110] but by 1888 almost half of the advertising is by Chinese stores. [111] We have seen the efforts by some members at least of the European business community to persuade the South Australian parliament to impose restrictions in the face of this ‘threat’.

Although Europeans were anti-Chinese in a commercial sense there seems to have been little virulent racism. V.L. Solomon provides a good example, he employed Chinese in his mining ventures, [112] defended them in court proceedings and in 1888 was in favour of their entry into the Northern Territory. [113] By the end of that decade, however, he had become a vocal opponent of Chinese entry in order to protect his economic and political interests. He was disarmingly frank when speaking on the Immigration Restriction Bill in the Commonwealth Parliament, speaking not of inferior races or vices, but rather that he feared the Chinese virtues of industry, perseverance, frugality and the ability to out-compete Europeans. [114]

Chinese and European miners in the Top End often worked in partnership as mentioned earlier and bought and sold machinery and mining leases from each other. The Chinese worked for themselves, other Chinese and Europeans. Only occasionally did Europeans work for a Chinese miner, as in the Wheel of Fortune tin mine. Certainly, there were no violent clashes between the two races as occurred in the south. [115]

Ping Que was perhaps the biggest of the Chinese merchant-miners and was closely involved in the European community. We have noted his several joint ventures with European partners but he was also appointed by the government to the Mining Board and the Port Darwin Camp Progress Association. In 1880, he was authorised to accept donations to the Irish Famine Relief Fund. His obituary in the Northern Territory Times was in glowing terms:

The Chinese merchants and miners often involved themselves in the general community. Hang Gong and Sun Mow Loong planted trees in Cavenagh Street, [117] banquets for important visitors were given, a fire pump imported from Hong Kong was available to non-Chinese, the Chinese supported the Miners’ Hospital at Yam Creek [118] and Chinese contributed to the fund for the survivors of the sinking of the coastal ship Gothenburg. [119]

Conclusion

From 1880 and 1920 the Chinese of the Northern Territory seem to have been quite involved with the community, perhaps to a greater degree that in southern parts of the country. At this stage, I can only speculate on the reasons for this. Sheer weight of numbers is a likely factor. The Chinese presence in early times also had the support of the government and some parts of the community. Isolation, especially on the mining fields, may have forced Europeans and Chinese to abandon stereotypes and look at the actual characteristics of their companions and neighbours with whom they were dealing every day.

However, there have also been studies suggesting that the Top End experience of community involvement and diversity of Chinese occupations has been mirrored in other places. The gold fields of southern New South Wales demonstrate some of these characteristics, [120] as do certain examples in Victoria. [121] Research that makes regional comparisons are needed to explore Chinese occupational diversity and concentration as well as variations in racism and co-operation. Such comparatives could determine the extent of occupational diversity, periods when concentration occurred, the role of social and political factors, including interaction with the European community and the variations in demographics of the Chinese population across the various regions of Australia.

Appendix – Chinese Occupations [122]

Notes

[1] In respect of names I have accepted the name most commonly used in the literature which may be a mixture of Chinese and English terms and often results in a Chinese given name being used as the family name or surname. Thus the children of my great-grandfather mostly have the surname of Hang Gong rather than the original surname of Lee.

[2] The town of Palmerston on Port Darwin was established in 1869 by South Australia. The Commonwealth assumed responsibility for the Northern Territory in 1911 and renamed the town Darwin. To avoid confusion the name Darwin will be used for all references to the town, especially as the new satellite town of Palmerston has now been established south of Darwin.

[3] The colloquial term the ‘Top End’ indicates the area north of Mataranka. It includes the towns of Katherine, Pine Creek (and the surrounding settlements), Borroloola, Southport (now deserted) and Darwin.

[4] Inwards correspondence to the Minister controlling the Northern Territory 304/1872 quoted in Timothy. G. Jones, The Chinese in the Northern Territory, revised edition, Northern Territory University Press, Darwin 1997, p.1

[7] Jenny Rich, 'Port Darwin Mercantile and Agency Company and other Palmerston Business in 1888', in Val Dixon (ed.), Looking Back: The Northern Territory in 1888, Historical Society of the Northern Territory, Darwin 1988, pp.11-16 and see also Jones, pp.59-60.

[8] P.F. Donovan, A Land Full of Possibilities, University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia, 1981, p.173.

[9] Shui Kwong Lo, The Forerunners (family stories 1878-1980), NT Archives Lo NTRS 1079/48/3/3 quoted by Diana Giese in Beyond Chinatown, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 1995, p.17.

[13] D. Carment & H.J. Wilson (eds), Northern Territory Dictionary of Biography, Volume 3, Northern Territory University Press, Darwin, 1996, p.230.

[15] D. Carment and B. James (eds), Northern Territory Dictionary of Biography, Volume 2, Northern Territory University Press, Darwin, 1992, pp.5-6.

[24] I. Moran and J. Hanckel, Rain or Shine She Walks Everywhere, Childbirth Education Association Darwin, Northern Territory, 1988, pp.3-10.

[26] D. Carment, R. Maynard & A. Powell (eds), Northern Territory Dictionary of Biography, Volume 1, Northern Territory University Press, Darwin, 1990, p.181.

[33] Nina Cameron, 'The Wind that Blew O’er Darwin: The Cyclone of 1897', Journal of Northern Territory History, 1996, p.58.

[34] Melinda Hammond, 'Against the Wind - The Tradition of Regatta Day in the Northern Territory until 1911', Journal of Northern Territory History, 1988, p.46.

[80] New South Wales Royal Commission, Report of Royal Commission on alleged Chinese gambling and immorality and charges of bribery against members of the police force, 1892, p.28.

[87] Charles See Kee, Chinese Contribution to Early Darwin, Northern Territory Library Service, Darwin, 1987, p.3.

[101] Arch Grant, Palmerston to Darwin: 75 Years Service on the Frontier, Frontier Publishing, Dee Why, NSW 1990.

[102] Inward correspondence to the Minister controlling the Northern Territory, 532/1877, quoted in Jones, The Chinese in the Northern Territory, p.12.

[104] Alfred Searcy, In Australia’s Tropics, Kegan Paul, London, 1907, quoted in Jones, The Chinese in the Northern Territory, p.43.

[107] Inward correspondence to the Minister controlling the Northern Territory, 28/1883, quoted in Jones, The Chinese in the Northern Territory, p.38.

[109] National Archives of Australia hold copies of both naturalisation certificates and applications, although in Victoria the name shown is Lee Hong Gong.

[114] Commonwealth Hansard 1910, p.5239 quoted in Jones, The Chinese in the Northern Territory, p.79.

[120] Lindsay Smith, The Chinese of Kiandra, New South Wales, an unpublished report to the heritage Office of the NSW Department of Urban Development and Planning, October 1997, and Barry McGowan, Historic Mining Sites of the Shoalhaven and South West Slopes Districts of New South Wales, an unpublished report prepared for the NSW Department of Urban Development and Planning and the Australian Heritage Commission, 1995. Both reports are quoted in Barry McGowan, “The Chinese on the Gold Fields: A Case study in Stereotypes and Historical Neglect” in Patrick Bertola and Karen Miller (eds), Proceedings of the Australian Mining History Association Conferences 1997-2000, AMHA, Crawley WA, 2001, pp.68, 69.

[121] Alby Adams, The Chinese Ingredient, Toongabbie, 1997, quoted in Barry McGowan, The Chinese on the Gold Fields: A Case study in Stereotypes and Historical Neglect, p.68.

[122] Compiled by the author based on numerous texts cited above.

About the author

Allan O'Neil practised law in Darwin before moving to Canberra where he gained his Master's degree in law and continued to work as a solicitor. He is researching the Chinese in the Northern Territory including the lives of pioneers Sarah and Lee Hang Gong and their Anglo-Chinese descendants, of whom he is one. He has presented a number of papers on these topics and will have an article published in the Journal of Northern Territory History, Issue No.16, 2005.

Discussion

Email your response, question or comment using the link above. Be sure to include your full name and contact details. Your email will be read by the JCA editorial committee and after editing may be published below. Further information about this process is available on the Discussion page.

I found this article documenting the wide range of occupations undertaken by the Chinese in the Northern Territory very informative. I wonder whether the range of occupations undertaken by Chinese in the Northern Territory is reflected in other parts of Australia where Chinese Australians were a smaller proportion of the total population. I am currently researching a PhD exploring photographs of Chinese Australians. Ah Mann and Ah Cheong, the two photographers you mention, are two of only four Chinese Australian photographers I have been able to locate.

I am interested in seeing photos and stories of Ah Cheong and Ah Mann and anything about the Chinese workers in Darwin. I am trying to do a family tree for my three daughters. I only know a little about my grandfather who came out from Hong Kong. He was one of the first Chinese to export barramundi to Asia. My mother's name was Margaret Cheong, she was also called Ming Ket or Ming Take which was her father's name.

Norma Newman may be interested to know that Tim Jones has just published a third revised edition of The Chinese in the Northern Territory and Glenice Yee will be self-publishing Through Chinese Eyes: The Chinese Experience in the Northern Territory 1874-2004 in April this year. Copies are available via Glenice Yee, PO Box 2365, Parap, NT 0804.

Chinese workers and merchants in the Northern Territory, 1880 to 1920: A survey of Chinese workers' occupations and Chinese merchant's business interests and their relations with the European business community and government

Allan M O’Neil

Introduction