Family counts: glimpses of Chinese life in New England in the first half of the twentieth century

back in May 2009, I posted an introductory post, The Chinese in New England 1848-1853, on the story of the history and experience if the Chinese in New England. The following is an excerpt from Janis Wilton's Chinese Whispers from New South Wales looking at aspects of the life of the Chinese on the Northern Tablelands in the first half of the twentieth century. This is a photo of the Kwong Sing store in Glen Innes.

This excerpt is far more than I would normally publish, but I really wanted to preserve the material. Far too often recently, on-line stuff has just vanished.

The story:

The result of the (Immigration Restriction Act 1901) combined with the drying up of gold and tin deposits and with the intention of many Chinese immigrants that they should ultimately return home, witnessed a dramatic fall in their number in Australia. Despite the pressures, some Chinese continued to settle, bringing with them customs and networks which shaped their lifestyles and their ability to negotiate the hostile legislation and attitudes which frequently confronted them. They also put down roots, had families and made significant contributions to the economic development of Australian localities and regions.

The recounted experiences of a small group of Chinese-Australians who, from around the end of the nineteenth century, settled in a particular area in northern New South Wales, confirm the vital role of an oral and local history approach in evaluating the Chinese contribution, beyond that afforded by conventional sources.

The area of interest is a part of the northern tablelands of New South Wales and, in terms of the history of the Chinese in Australia, is defined by the discovery of gold in the 1850s and especially the discovery of tin in the 1870s and 1880s. These events saw an explosion in the number of Chinese in the district. According to the 1891 census, for example, the area contained one of the highest concentrations of Chinese (over 11 per cent of the recorded population in a particular district) in New South Wales at the time. Once the tin was mined, many of the Chinese moved to other areas or returned to China, and the 1901 Immigration Restriction Act discouraged new immigration and settlement. The number of Chinese-born in the district dropped from the 1891 figure of around 1,300 to 593 in 1901, 169 in 1921 and forty-seven in 1947. This decrease, however, did not mean a cessation of new arrivals. Many Chinese living in the district regarded the opportunities sufficiently rewarding for them to sponsor relatives and fellow villagers to migrate to Australia. The methods and networks involved emerge through the stories passed on about the immigration of fathers and uncles.

One such story relates to the efforts and acumen of Percy Young, the founder of an Australian branch of the Kwan clan. Percy was born in about 1865 in the village of Wing Ho, Shekki, Chungshan. When he was about twenty years old he emigrated to Australia where, through Chinese (most likely Chungshan) networks, he spent the next ten years working in a number of different Chinese stores, largely in rural New South Wales. He also spent some time in China, although he saw his future in Australia as he sought naturalisation in 1883. In the late 1890s the network led him to a Chinese store, Kwong Sing War, which had been established in Glen Innes, northern New South Wales, in 1889. By 1907 he had become a partner in the business and by 1912 was a major shareholder and manager of the store. Percy’s children were born in Australia and he sponsored his nephews, one by one, to come to Glen Innes to work in his shop. They then branched out and established their own stores, married and had families of their own.

This sponsorship, expansion and settlement all took place after the imposition of the Immigration Restriction Act of 1901. Percy Young, and other storekeepers in the northern tablelands, took advantage of exemption clauses in the Act to sponsor relatives, and to seek regularly and successfully to extend their stay in the country. The exemption clauses were a recognition by the legislators that, by the turn of the century, some Chinese had already settled in Australia, and that among those still in the country were a number who were providing a boost to the economy through owning and running profitable small businesses, especially shops. Storeowners were permitted to bring in Chinese-born assistants and family members provided they stayed for limited periods, and that the businesses in which they were employed had a minimum turnover and were engaged in a certain amount of export trade with Hong Kong or China. As Daisy Yee, Percy Young’s daughter, explained:

Dad brought out all the nephews one after the other. He had to take out a bond of £100 for each member, and he had to import/export a certain amount of goods for each member. I can remember apples. He brought the nephews out gradually. They had to be at least sixteen to come out.

Elaine Jang whose parents, John and Mary Hong, owned the Hop Sing store in the town of Tenterfield, recalled the networks and strategies used to make the legislation work for the benefit of relatives and fellow villagers in Australia and China. It was a network which they utilised until 1950:

I think ... my father knew the people in Sydney who had business [in assisting with immigration papers] and he’d write to them to give them names of people who could want somebody from China as an assistant of a shop. That way the law said you can be brought out to help ... That’s one of the ways he brought people out. There were other ways as well, but this was the main one.

The legislation requirement that a shop could only employ a certain number of Chinese-born assistants provided a stimulus for business expansion which went beyond concerns for profit. The more stores that were established, the more relatives could be sponsored to come to Australia. This was particularly apparent in the branches and businesses which stemmed from another of the Chinese stores on the northern tablelands. The Hong Yuen store in the town of Inverell had been established in 1899. By 1915 its manager and major shareholder was Harry Fay, an Australian-born Chinese who had spent a good part of his childhood and adolescence in his ancestral village of Dau Tau, Shekki, Chungshan. By the late 1930s, the Hong Yuen store had become the centre of a network of businesses which included three other small shops in Inverell itself, three Hong Yuen branch stores and two cash-and-carry shops in nearby towns.

These businesses, and the other twenty to thirty Chinese stores on the northern tablelands, were located in small communities. The largest town boasted a population of around 5,000. Consequently, the Chinese did stand out as different and were subjected to, at times, what could only be described as racist and discriminatory jibes and practices. Yet the businesses prospered. They provided a much-needed service offering the jumble of goods familiar to Australian country stores of the time, while, increasingly, assistants serving in the stores were local non-Chinese residents or Australian-born Chinese. Descriptions offered through oral history interviews evoke this past era of country stores. Beatrice Winmill who joined the staff of the Hong Yuen store in Inverell in about 1915 recalled the store’s layout and the goods offered:

The drapery section was a big long counter with everything on it, even shoes, all the men’s mercery (trousers and cardigans), haberdashery, dress materials. At the bottom [end] of the counter there was a showroom with corsets and dresses. And we had lots of hats then. You don’t have so many hats now. There were big shelves behind the counter for the stockings and things like that. The cash box was in the middle of the shop. And the counter on the other side was for all the groceries and veggies and fruit. We also had a bit of furniture – you went through a door to the furniture. And an ironmongery.

Ken Gett provided the following recollection of the inside of his parents’ store, Yow Sing and Company, which was opened in the old tin mining town of Emmaville in the early 1930s:

As a child I remember going into the store. It had two big doors and when you entered the first thing that you saw was all the products hanging off the ceiling. You know those country stores. We had bicycles and tubs hanging off the ceiling … We sold a tremendous range of things. We sold guns, we had things like horseshoes and horseshoe nails. We had a drapery, a haberdashery section, grocery section. We had a produce section – chaff, bran, all those things – kitchen ware.

Bessie Chiu, whose father, Ernest Sue Fong, also had a store in Emmaville particularly remembered a different atmosphere and different tasks compared to stores of the late twentieth century:

In the olden days you had a lot of people’s loyalty, people would speak to you. We used to have a couple of chairs and they’d come and have a talk. Now there’s nothing like that. In those days we used to weigh everything – sugar, dates, sultanas – everything was bulk.

What was clearly different were the activities and lifestyles of the Chinese storekeepers and their Chinese staff. Behind the scenes, storeowners worked through their network of associates which stretched through Sydney and Hong Kong to home villages in Chungshan to negotiate the immigration of family members, and to further their business interests. It was here that the cultural and social needs of Chinese employees were looked after. It was here that the mainly young men brought out from China contemplated the strangeness of their new environment and sought to put down foundations for some sort of life.

Recollections of the routines involved in working in the stores provide a sense of the specifically Chinese community and traditions which underpinned business and employment practices. Overseas and Australian-born, young Chinese men were provided with jobs, accommodation and food, and worked in an atmosphere permeated by paternalism and a Chinese work ethic. Ernest Sue Fong who joined the staff of the Hong Yuen store in Inverell in the early 1930s recalled his early years at the store:

I worked at Hong Yuen for 25 bob [shillings] and keep. I lived in the shack with about seven other Chinese boys from all over. Another five lived upstairs [above the shop].

Now the way it worked: at 7.30 in the morning the cook would ring the bell, and everyone would go down to the kitchen...and we’d have a Chinese breakfast with rice and Chinese food. Then into the shop until the shop opened and we’d cut up bacon, fill the shelves, jobs like that. At lunchtime, the bell would ring again and all the staff [Chinese and non-Chinese] would go for lunch. It would always be English meals... Then back to work.

At 6 pm supper was served. Chinese food this time... Some nights, say two or three a week, we’d go back to the store to, for example, bag up sugar, depending on what was needed. We’d work until 9 pm.

In the Kwong Sing store in Glen Innes, manager and owner Percy Young framed and hung on the wall some Chinese proverbs (in Chinese characters) demonstrating the values he honoured which he, presumably, exhorted his Chinese employees to follow. They included, for example: 

When men are born they all want to be wealthy, but you have to learn to be satisfied with what you have in your daily life.

If you are poor it is because you are lazy.

Work hard at your business and never complain of hardships.

Harvey Young evoked what took place out of sight of the customers of the Kwong Sing store in Glen Innes in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Among the boiling water used for melting honey, the sheds, the stables, and the loading bays for chaff, wheat, super phosphate and rock salt, he could remember:

... growing vegetables round the back of the shop. There was quite a bit of land there. Chooks and ducks. They used to kill those quite regularly.

Then there were the cooks. They used to make noodles out the back of the shop. Fresh noodles. And the old method then was on a table with a bamboo pole which was tied at one side and a person with one leg over it jumping up and down on this thing to make fresh noodles.

Harvey Young’s sisters, Valmai Au and Olma Gan, recalled the accommodation and facilities available for the Chinese cooks and other staff. They remembered specific employees and where they stayed:

There was George Woo and Jimmy Sheah … They were in the bedrooms upstairs, on the side facing Tattersalls Hotel. And I think the cook lived there too. Though not Kum Jew [one of the cooks] … he lived in a room close to the kitchen.

There was another cottage, separate cottage, at the back of the shop which has now been pulled down. The kitchen was there. … And then there was the dining room where the staff used to eat …

Leona Tong, another sister, also remembered the Kwong Sing cooks whose presence figured in her childhood: 

I can remember three or four different cooks in my time. When I was little there was big fat Long Go. He was bald and big like a giant. He ate a great bowl of rice. Then there was George Lay. He had long finger nails. I can remember him stirring the rice at night with a big stick.

The presence of Chinese cooks, staff, food, language and other cultural practices were a constant reminder of the roots and links which extended well beyond the relatively isolated Australian rural towns they serviced. These links were reinforced by regular visits to China by family members. Visiting relatives, pursuing business interests, returning to share material goods and wealth acquired while overseas, honouring ancestors, revering the ancestral village, providing children with a Chinese education, contemplating a permanent return to the home village: these were the motives behind such visits.

The experiences they entailed were not always the happy homecomings anticipated, however. After all, these Chinese had lived for some time in a foreign country and many of the children were born overseas. They had become strangers in their ancestral land. Recorded recollections capture a sense of this dislocation. Members of the Fay family from the Hong Yuen store in Inverell visited Hong Kong and China in the early 1930s. Joyce Sue Fong (nee Fay) recalled her visit to the family’s ancestral village:

Well [Dau Tau] was strange at first. All little Chinese children running around with no shoes on and just playclothes. And when we first went there, they all followed us and called us – you know, how we call people ‘Ching Chong Chinaman’ here.

They called us the opposite when we went over there. Because we looked different … We had English clothes on and they had Chinese clothes on, pants and that.

Joyce Sue Fong’s sister, Eileen Cum, added:

I can also remember the Chinese kids used to throw stones at us and call us ‘white girl’ – Ton Yang

Not all differences and experiences were seen as negative or disconcerting. There are recollections of a comfortable life and a feeling of being ‘at home’ which strengthened bonds to China or which at least emphasised that some differences were due to a wealth and cosmopolitanism unfamiliar to the lifestyles available in northern New South Wales. Eileen Cum, for example, was stunned by the vibrant nature of 1930s Shanghai:

It was like the Paris of the East. One part was American, one part was French. There were beautiful buildings and lovely things. Lots of American things. It was under the Nationalists then. There were also lots of friends who’d been in Australia and had gone back to China.

The pull of China remained. However, the Sino-Japanese War of the 1930s followed by the Second World War and then, in the late 1940s, the Communist revolution closed the door to China. Visits ceased. Emigration ceased. Chinese in Australia had little option but to view their new country as the site of their and their families’ immediate futures. The stores had provided a base. Then, as Australian-born children acquired Australian education, and careers, other occupations became possible. Many of the children and grandchildren moved to metropolitan centres like Sydney and Brisbane and away from the rural towns in northern New South Wales. Some pursued careers in business; others joined the ranks of the professions.

At the same time, the climate of tolerance in Australia was slowly undergoing a change. By the late 1950s, it was becoming clear that the attitudes and practices associated with the White Australia policy were becoming untenable. Over the next three decades the official climate moved from racism through assimilation to multiculturalism. Chinese-Australians born before the Second World War lived through these changes. In the eras of officially-sanctioned racism and assimilation they had learnt to remain silent about their Chinese heritages. In the era of multiculturalism they were encouraged to claim or perhaps reclaim those heritages. As May Lun and her daughter-in-law, Rosalie Lun, observed:

May Lun: In the old days, when we were quite small, people hated you because you were Chinese. They were not only not friendly, they really had a hate for you. I used to be frightened to walk home by myself in case they bashed me up … for nothing at all. …

Rosalie Lun: Years ago it wasn’t good to speak another language … outside. You just wouldn’t. But nowadays, tradition, culture, its changed and is becoming more broadminded, so you wish you had that second language.

Source: Janis Wilton, Chinese Whispers from New South Wales, History Today, Volume 47, Issue 11, 1997, http://www.historytoday.com/janis-wilton/chinese-whispers-new-south-wales, accessed on-line 16 February 2014

Further reading:

On the Kwong Sing store:

• Percy Young and Kwong Sing & Company 
• Early Days at Kwong Sing and Company

History revisited - tragedy at sea

The SS Fitzroy was a familiar sight in Coffs Harbour. Owned by the Sydney based shipping firm Langley Brothers, a smaller competitor of the large North Coast Steam Navigation Company, the ship ran a regular passenger and general cargo route between Sydney and Coffs and return.

The afternoon of Saturday 26 June 1921 threatened storms. The ship took on considerable cargo, as well as fourteen passengers.

The Fitzroy was not a big ship. Built at Old Kilpatrick in Scotland in 1914, it was 51.87 metres long, had a breadth of 9.33 metres and had a gross tonnage of 623. However, it was important to the people of Coffs as a key way of getting to Sydney, as well as goods in and out.

The afternoon of Saturday 26 June 1921 threatened storms. The sixteen passengers along with luggage had been loaded onto the ship via wicker ware baskets. This was not uncommon. As late as the 1930s, North Coast students returning home from the Armidale Teachers’ College had similar experiences.

The ship sailed under the command of Captain James Colvin. A Woolgoolga man, Colvin was an experienced mariner who had been shipwrecked several times on the sometimes dangerous North Coat run. He knew the territory, but in those pre-weather broadcast days, you had to make the best judgement you could.

As the ship steamed south on Saturday night, it was struck by what was variously described as a gale or a cyclone. The deck cargo shifted and the ship listed, flooding the engine room. Power lost, the crew tried to launch the two life boats but could not because of the list.

There was no panic as the crew tried to help the passengers. One of the sailors seeing a stewardess on deck, told her to get a life belt. “I can’t”, she replied. “I have to get blankets for the passengers.”.

On board, the Captain tried to steer the ship for shore to beach it. As the ship sank, he was seen still at his post trying to save the vessel.

Passenger Herbert Ramsay was sucked down with the ship, but manager to get to a lifeboat that had broken free. “Everybody remained cool to the last”, he said. Ramsay saw the second boat with eight people aboard, but it was never seen again.

Able seaman Jansen was thrown into the water. He grabbed the stewardess, but she was swept away in the swirling waters. Jansen survived by swimming 14 miles to shore.

In the end, three crew members and one passenger were saved. It had been a horrendous experience.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 5 February 2014. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014.

History revisited - University of Dance

Did you know that the University of New England made a significant, pioneering contribution to the development of dance in Australia? Did you know, too, that some of the luminaries of Australian ballet came to Armidale to teach?

I had known, but I hadn’t actually realised the importance of the contribution until I came to read dance educator Shirley McKechnie’s 1991 inaugural Dame Peggy van Praagh Memorial Address.

The University of New England summer schools were conceived in part as a way of fulfilling the University’s Northern outreach role, in part to utilise campus facilities left largely empty during the long summer vacation. By the mid sixties, they had become an institution in their own right.

Thinking about possible program ideas, Bernard James as Director of Continuing Education decided to include a ballet or dance component in the arts stream. The timing was perfect.

The 1950s and early 1960 had seen rapidly growing Australian interest in arts and cultural activities, including dance. In 1962, with the support of the Australian government, Peggy van Praagh became the founding artistic director of the Australian Ballet.

James approached van Praagh with his idea. She became enthusiastic and completely involved. Planning continued over 1966, with van Praagh directing every element of the evolving program.

The resulting school held in January 1967 was the first such event in Australian history. .It was a huge success, drawing one hundred people from across Australia with a few from New Zealand to a packed program featuring key figures from the Australian Ballet.

The next school held in 1970 was equally successful, as were those in 1974 and 1976.

Whereas the first schools focused on classical ballet, the next two in 1974 and 1976 were billed as choreographic and dance workshops, with Shirley McKechnie playing a lead role in association with van Praagh. By 1976, the last school, they had become an international institution, attracting tutors from Australia, London and New York.

It is hard now to visualise a world in which Armidale occupied a small niche on the international dance scene, equally hard to visualise the excitement generated by the Armidale summer schools. There creativity was fostered, there some of Australia’s most prominent artists made contributions, and there the talents of aspiring choreographers, dancers, writers and historians - some, such as Graeme Murphy, now with an international reputation - were nurtured.

What happened? Why was the 1976 school the last?

The world changed. A University of New England struggling with rising student numbers and limited resources, narrowed its focus, giving up elements of its role in the need to survive day-to-day. The importance of what had been achieved was simply not seen.

I am not being critical here. Only through the prism of history can we see the importance of what Bernard James achieved.

In 1974, the University of New England presented Peggy van Praagh with an Honorary Doctor of Letters. It was well deserved.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 29 January 2014. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for2014.

History revisited - the Irish try their luck

If you know a little bit of history, you can find many things on New England roads, hints or signals of our shared past.

Those driving south along Thunderbolt’s Way will find a modern bridge marked Bergen-op-Zoom Creek, Irish Town Bridge. What a strange conjunction, one might ask, Dutch and Irish? Indeed, a friend did!

A little before the bridge on the left hand side of the road are a few old buildings with a sign that tells at least part of the story. It’s not a big sign. You have to watch for it.

In many parts of New England, families with common connection settled near each other, creating small communities. At Kelly’s Plains, for example, a small community of German Catholics developed – Brandschieds, Posts and Eichorns. At Irish Town, as the name suggests, it was the Irish.

At the time Irish Town was established, many squatters still preferred to employ single men. They were cheaper. Abraham Nivison from Ohio Station took a different view. He preferred family men.

A devout Protestant, Abraham also surprised his fellow pastoralists by preferring Irish families. They were good workers, while their generally large families supplied a workforce at a time when labour was very scarce.

Some of those from Ohio and neighbouring Bergen-op-Zoom Station - shepherds, shearers and wheelwights - chose to live nearby each other on small allotments, creating the community that became known as Irish Town. From here, the men travelled for nearby work.

The blocks weren’t big. However, they allowed for vegetable gardens and fruit trees, perhaps a cow and another few animals, thus supplementing family income and adding variety to daily diet. There was also companionship and mutual support.

The Irish Town community was relatively short lived. By the 1870s, it was in clear decline as families were drawn away by other opportunities, including especially mining. Today, only Homeleigh remains, with the location of other houses marked just by trees.

Thomas and Bridget Blake occupied the land in the 1840s. The remaining buildings themselves date from the 1850s when Thomas and Bridget’s daughter Mary took up a block of 84 acres (34 hectares). The buildings survive because the Blake family and their descendents, the Betts family, lived here until the 1980s. They include the original one room Blake slab cottage and the original small dairy.

Action to preserve the site was taken by the Walcha and District Historical Society, with support from Walcha Shire Council. They arranged for an archaeological survey that showed the bond of shared cultural heritage motivating this Irish enclave. Now the site survives as a very rare example of the small selector’s home.

You can see the site from the road and it is worth stopping. However, Homeleigh is private property. If you would like to inspect properly, you will need to contact the Walcha and District Historical Society who can arrange a visit.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 15 January 2014. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014.

History revisited - disease in early New England

On 20 October 1874, Dr Samuel Spasshatt died of typhoid fever. He was still relatively young, in his early forties, and had been practicing in Armidale since 1863.

Spasshatt’s death left his wife Angelina in a difficult position. There was not a lot of money and she had four young daughters to support. To support the family, she decided to establish a school for girls. “I must do something and I am glad of it,” she confided to her brother. “If it were not for the children I should give up and die.”

Samuel and Angelina are part of the texture of Armidale’s history. Samuel was a pioneering doctor, while Angelina’s school contributed to the rise of Armidale as an educational centre. However, it was not this that caught my eye, but the reference to Samuel’s death from typhoid.

Today, deaths from cholera or typhoid are rare in Australia. As a consequence, we forget that they were once common killers

Back in the 1970s and early 1980s, a team of economic historians from the University of New England including Ron Neale and Graydon Henning undertook a major study of Hillgrove. The project looked at Hillgrove in a broader context, at the way that the study of a local mining community might inform the broader study of economic history.

The team called their second report Life and death in Hillgrove 1870-1914. Beneath the sometimes dry analysis, we can glimpse very human stories.

Hillgrove was often short of water. The mines had first claim on the water that was available. There were no sewerage or waste removal services.

Bracken Street, Hillgrove’s main street, ran along a ridge. On Bracken Street, filth and rubbish accumulated from homes and businesses. When it rained, the debris and filth were carried down the ridge and especially to Brereton Street, another main thoroughfare with its own waste, forming putrid pools.

This is not the mediaeval world of Europe with its noisome alley ways. This is New England in the last part of the nineteenth century. During dry periods when water was scarce, people gathered water where they could. Not surprisingly, water borne diseases were common, especially among the young.

In 1893 and 1894 there was a major outbreak of food and water borne diseases. Twenty one people died, nine from typhoid, two from dysentery, ten from infantile diarrhoea. In 1897/98 there was another serious outbreak, leading to eighteen deaths. This time, something was done. A Government funded water supply was created, then a municipality was formed.

Over the last twelve months I have written a number of columns about the history of community progress associations and local government. To my mind, the Hillgrove story is another example of their importance.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 8 January 2014. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014.

History revisited - problems with tribes

In my last column, I said that Norman Tindale (1974) concluded that the Anaiwan language group occupied the New England Tableland from Guyra and Ben Lomond south to Uralla and Moonbi Range; north to Tingha; at Bendemeer and Armidale. He listed a variety of different spellings of the name: Anaywan, Anewan, Nowan, Enni-won, Yenniwon, Ee-na-won, En-nee-win, Eneewin, Inuwan, Inuwon, Nee-inuwon, Enuin.

While I think that the small locality now known as Armidale was in Anaiwan language territory, there is a huge problem with Tindale’s work, one that bedevils us today. To Tindale, a “tribe” was an entity speaking a common language and occupying a clearly defined territory that could be mapped. In the way Tindale defined it, tribal and language boundaries were identical.

Tindale’s work has been incredibly influential, in part because it can be expressed in defined map terms. It has also been enshrined in things like land rights legislation demanding that Aboriginal people show specific defined connections with land capable of being mapped. It is also reflected in conflicts over things like welcome to country, since this has now become an ownership matter.

This is, in fact, another case of European ideas being imposed on and creating conflict within Aboriginal society.

In traditional Aboriginal life, customary ownership rested with the local group, each speaking its own dialect. Individuals had kin connections with other groups and therefore rights in other territories. Further, there were also customary rights that allowed people to travel or groups to come together. Land ownership was a cobweb of rights and responsibilities.

The Anaiwan language group or nation, to use modern terms, was not a defined entity, but the territory occupied by local groups who spoke a broadly common language and shared cultural links.

In my last column, I suggested that the Tablelands’ language groups were squeezed between powerful neighbours, making them and the territory they occupied the meeting place of multiple nations, the dividing line between the coastal and riverine traditions.

In the north, the Anaiwan language shows powerful Gumbaingirr influences, for Gumbaingirr speaking groups were neighbours, interconnected with the Anaiwan. As we move south, Dainggati influences appear. In the far south of the Tablelands, I suspect that we would find Birpai or Gadhang influences on the Anaiwan language. On the west along the length of the Tablelands, we would find Gamilaraay language connections.

There is a story to be told here, if only we can break from the obsession with who owned what at a point on the map. We can never know for certain, but we now know enough to start to start charting some of the dynamics of traditional Aboriginal life as it played out in the territory that we all now call home.

Note to readers: This post is a column that was scheduled to appear in the Armidale Express Extra on 18 December 2013. It was bumped because of the need to allow a reader a follow up response to my column History revisited - geography plays a role in language. I do not object to that, but am running the column here so that its is available.

You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013.

History revisited - geography plays a role in language

For some time, there has been a dispute about just which Aboriginal language group occupied that small patch of land now known as Armidale. I know that this has caused a degree of confusion among non-Aboriginal people who do not understand either the reasons for, or the significance of, the dispute. For that reason, I thought that I should provide you with some background material over the next few columns.

In this first column I want to start looking at the historical evidence, pointing to some of the dynamic elements involved. I write with caution and with great respect for all those involved. I fully accept that my views may be challenged on the basis of evidence.

To understand the dispute, we need to understand the geography of the Tablelands and surrounding areas and the relationship between that geography and traditional Aboriginal life. We also need to understand that Aboriginal language groups were not single entities, but combinations of local groups each speaking their own tongue that could vary greatly, while also displaying common features across space and time.

If you look at the geography of the Tablelands you can see to the east the coastal river valleys. These were occupied by large and powerful language groups whose territory followed watersheds, extending onto the Tablelands. These groups were not united, but displayed differences between those in the lower and upper valleys. Some modern Aborigines call this the salt water, fresh water divide. It was the upper valley Aborigines who were most closely linked to the Tablelands.

To the west, the geographic barriers between the river valleys are smaller. This allowed one powerful language group, the Kamilaroi or Gamillaraay. to spread so that their territory broadly stretched along the length of the Tablelands.

In geographic terms, the Tablelands stretches north-south, but is much narrower west-east. Further, it was a poorer area in ecological terms than either the coast or western slopes and plains. This made for smaller populations whose territories were relatively narrow in east-west terms, but elongated in north-south terms.

Squeezed between their powerful neighbours, the Tablelands’ language areas were the meeting place of multiple nations, the dividing line between the coastal and riverine traditions. This did not always make for an easy life, with the patterns of interaction including marriage varying greatly from place to place depending on just who the neighbours were.

Writing much later, Norman Tindale (1974) recorded the location of the Anaiwan language group in this mix as occupying the New England tableland from Guyra and Ben Lomond south to Uralla and Moonbi Range; north to Tingha; at Bendemeer and Armidale. He listed a variety of different spellings of the name: Anaywan, Anewan, Nowan, Enni-won, Yenniwon, Ee-na-won, En-nee-win, Eneewin, Inuwan, Inuwon, Nee-inuwon, Enuin

The evidence I have seen broadly supports this conclusion, placing Armidale squarely in Anaiwan territory. I believe that to be true. However, and as you might expect from the geography, the on-ground position was a little more mixed than that.

In my next column, I will look in more detail at the distribution of the Anaiwan language and the relations with other groups.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 11 December 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013.

History revisited - bringing to light the advent of electricity

Continuing the story of Armidale’s electricity supply, the tepid response by ratepayers at the October 1920 Council poll on the establishment of an Armidale electricity scheme left Armidale Council in something of a quandary. The enthusiasts still wished to proceed, but how to do it?

By November, a Council committee was investigating the possibility of supplying Armidale from a hydro-electric scheme. The possible use of hydro-electricity to meet electricity needs and to support Northern industrial development was much under discussion at the time.

The chief protagonist was Earle Page, a South Grafton doctor who had just become member for Cowper in the Australian Parliament for the newly formed Country Party. Page was a passionate advocate for Northern development, as well as a key leader in the campaign for self government for Northern New South Wales,

In March 1917, Page had toured hydro-electric projects in Canada and the United States. In 1918, he became mayor of South Grafton. In that role he initiated the Nymboida hydro-electric scheme, as well as pursuing his broader vision of the electrification of Northern New South Wales and Southern Queensland.

Armidale’s electricity protagonists were interested, but cautious. The Nymboida project was still just a project. It would be September 1923 before Page, now Commonwealth Treasurer and Acting Prime Minister, laid the foundation stone, November 1924 before the power was turned on. Then, too, there was the case of Hillgrove.

The mines at Hillgrove required a heavy investment in power to light the mines, carry men and ore up the sheer gorge sides and to operate the processing machinery. The steam engines used consumed large quantities of water and timber. The residents of Hillgrove complained about constant problems in getting access to water supplies monopolised by the mining companies.

Hydro power was seen as the answer. Work began in 1893 on a plant on the Gara River. When the lights of Hillgrove were turned on in late February 1895, Hillgrove became the first town in Australia to be lit by hydro power. There were immediate problems with the small dam size, the wood flumes carrying the water to the power plant and with drought. In the end, the venture would fail, but it showed what was possible, as well as the costs and risks.

By August 1921 when Council had decided that it was all just too hard, salvation came in the form of H A Marshall, a Sydney electrical engineer. At this point, I have very little information on Mr Marshall. That’s a pity, for he is quite an important figure in Armidale’s history.

Mr Marshall was clearly something of an entrepreneur, for on August 12 1921 he presented a proposal to Council construct a generating plant if Council would provide a franchise for electricity supply. This was accepted, and the City of Armidale Electric Supply Company Ltd was formed.

Twelve months later to the day, the new plant built at a cost of £14,000 opened. Armidale was lit.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 4 December 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013.

History revisited - city joins the revolution as the world lights up

Armidale, Saturday 12 August 1922. Watched by the crowd gathered inside the works, Mrs Marshall cut the blue ribbon holding a bottle of champagne above the great six ton fly wheel as the 100 horsepower Ruston Hornby suction gas engine began operation. As the band played, the 110 customers of the City of Armidale Electric Supply Company Ltd received their first electricity. 

Almost 34 years earlier, on Friday 9 November 1888, a similar ceremony had been held in Tamworth as that town of 3,000 people turned on its arc and incandescent street lighting, becoming the first town in Australia to be lit by electricity.

It was just ten years since US inventor Thomas Edison had developed the first commercially viable replacement for gas lighting and heating, seven years since the first streets had been lit by electric light in the Surrey town of Godalming.

Despite Tamworth’s early adoption, electricity generation and supply spread quite slowly. By 1906, there were only 46 electric light and power stations throughout Australia with an aggregate capacity of 23,000 kW. Of these, eighteen were operated by municipal or local authorities.

There were practical reasons for this slow spread. Power and lighting was seen as a municipal function. As happened in the City of Sydney, councils who had invested in gas lighting could be reluctant to invest further in or even allow a new and competing lighting supply, Ratepayers, too, were often opposed to any actions that might increase their rates. There were legal difficulties as well, for councils (and private interests, too) did not have the explicit power to act. Individual legislation was required.

There was initial interest in Armidale in electric supply. In 1889, electricity was much mentioned at the public meeting held in Armidale to consider the purchase by Council of the Armidale Gas Works established three years earlier. However, this was a matter for the enthusiasts, and Council decided to proceed with the purchase. Thereafter, interest lapsed.

By the spring of 1920, the establishment of a local electricity scheme was again a matter for debate, this time driven by enthusiastic aldermen. Ratepayer interest can best be described as tepid. After a poorly attended public meeting in October 1920, a subsequent Council poll was just as poorly supported. Scarcely 20 per cent of ratepayers bothered to vote, with 86 in favour of electricity, 53 against.

This tepid response left Council in something of a quandary. The enthusiasts still wished to proceed, but how to do it? Then, just when Council had decided that an electricity scheme was beyond its resources, salvation came unexpectedly.

I will continue this story in my next column.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 27 November 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013.

Writing history - organising material 1: record

This series of posts is especially addressed to those who write "big" history, although I hope that they will be useful to others. What do I mean by "big" history? Simply those whose topic(s) cover a wide span\ in space or time, who have to organise a volume of material that sometimes seems beyond them,

They are also addressed to those who, like me, write in multiple formats where you tailor your work to that format and then find that the material you have written is not useful in another and especially more formal format. For example, I write a weekly history column for the Armidale Express, Those columns are directly relevant to one major project, my history of the broader New England over the last 50,000 years.

This is where my present frustration with myself comes in. The columns are only 500 words, yet each year, I write the equivalent of a large honours thesis measured by word length, an MA every two years. Because the columns are for popular consumption, I do not give references, they are compilations and interpretations. But then when I come to use them in later writing, I have a problem: where do I find the sources? Now I have to waste time replicating my work to find the original references.

The lesson? Record your sources even if they are not included in the material you publish. It sounds simple and dumb, but its true!