History Revisited - rumblings create new volcano stories

"Perhaps the most mysterious thing .... is that the explosions and shakings all appear to proceed from,,,,"

This is another one of those mysterious New England stories. Some, like the Emmaville black panther that sent thrills up our spines when we were kids, are highly unlikely. Others I just don’t know. This is one such story.

Georges Mount lies to the east of Bundarra in the Basin Nature Reserve.

On Saturday 19 January 1907, a Uralla Times headline read “Are our Volcanoes Extinct?”, a headline intended to send delicious shivers up its readers’ spines.

“It is popularly supposed”, the paper began, “that, whereas in the dim, hoary past, Australia was the centre of a vast volcanic activity, all have long since become perfectly extinct.” Not so, says the paper: ”the best regulated theories are apt at times to be set astray, especially those theories appertaining to natural phenomena; so that, after all , we must not be too cock-sure as to the utter absence of volcanoes”

The paper goes on. ”On the contrary there is a stretch of wild precipitous country on the western edge of the high Guyra Tableland which ever and anon gives indisputable evidence that something is wrong with the works below -- something which tends to the theory that the ancient Guyra - Bundarra Volcanic System formerly one of the most active in Australia , is not entirely dead.”

So much of our tourism material is just so boring. The Uralla Times was under no such strictures. It had a readership to thrill.

“The neighbouring country from whence the subterranean explosions periodically proceed,” the paper explains “is known as the Basin. This “is a wild gorge through which flow from the high lands beyond large Creeks George’s and Laura. In places these creeks are separated only by a narrow wall of rock , so that one can stand on the “razorback” and throw stones into either stream. Limestone caves and dark crevices in the rocks abound in the locality , some of them evidently having been utilised for years as a marsupial cemetery , judging by the big accumulation of bones.”

Look at the language. Do you want to visit?

Perhaps the most mysterious thing, the paper reports, is that the explosions and shakings all appear to proceed from a hill at the head of the basin, what we call George’s Mount.

Are these stories true? I don’t know. But like all good stories, there is an Aboriginal legend to go with it.

According to the Bundarra web site, a big old blackfella, the head of a powerful mob, started to fight with a huge kangaroo. Neither could conquer, so they rested and then started again.

The rumbling is the angry voice of the blackfella and the thumping and shaking of the surrounding countryside is caused by the kangaroo beating his massive tail on the ground.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 26 June 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 - Hillgrove proves to be more than a mine

Hillgrove was one of our favourite places to visit as kids.

Far more of the mine machinery survived then, and there was still an old caretaker living on the site attempting to look after it, although I don’t think that he had been paid for a number of years.
We used to lie on the grass and look up at the tall chimney. The moving clouds made it look as though it was about to fall, something that was a bit scary although we knew that we were safe. However, despite our frequent visits, we actually knew very little about the place.


Hillgrove’s rise began in 1877 when lodes of antimony were found were in the Baker’s Creek gorge, several kilometres south-west of the present village.

By 1881, the site was being worked by John Bracken, Peter Daly and James Elliot who, noticing specks of gold, decided to concentrate on that rather than the antimony. Bracken called the mine Eleanora in honour of his wife.

The Eleanora mine was never very profitable because the sulphide in the antimony made the extraction of the gold costly and it was soon eclipsed by a far more profitable venture.

George Smith, a shareholder in the Eleanora mine, was in the habit of searching nearby country In March 1887 he found a rich outcrop of gold near the bottom of the gorge. After three week’s investigation, Smith pegged out his claim.

Initially, Smith’s claims for his new mine were treated with scepticism. However, he formed a small partnership to pay the purchase of equipment, leading to the recovery within a short while of gold valued at £2,500. News of the success brought 1,500 people to the field in 1888, the same number the following year. Smith sold out his claim to the newly forming Baker’s Creek Goldmining Company. By the time the mine closed in 1921, Baker’s Creek had yielded 269,848 ounces, about seven-and-a-half tonnes of gold!

As had happened earlier on the Upper Clarence gold fields, Smith’s success generated a speculative frenzy. Ridiculous prices were demanded for shares in unproven claims, but a number of the new mines were successful. In 1896, the Hillgrove goldfield produced no less than 28,501 ounces, the highest return in the colony for that year.

From that point the field declined in the face of high costs and diminishing yields as the mining companies sank shafts deeper into the gorge. At the Baker’s Creek mine, the shaft eventually reached 1,700 feet.
The closure of the Baker’s Creek mine in 1921 was not quite the end of that story. In 1937, the mine was reopened by the New Baker’s Creek Company, only to close a few years later, with the company finally wound up in 1954. The old caretaker we met must have been the last surviving employee.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 19 June 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
The photo by Gordon Smith shows the concrete flume, part of the hydro electric power station supplying Hillgrove, the hydro power station in Australia. 

History Revisited - New England gold fields lost to time

"the old and new Rockies, have become stories hidden within the New England landscape"

There are many stories hidden deep within the New England landscape. In some cases markers remain, an iron pot or cherry tree. In other cases every sign has vanished even from memory itself.

The Chinese who went to the Californian diggings called America the gold mountain. When gold was discovered in Australia it was called the new gold mountain. America became the old gold mountain. This story is well known. Few New Englanders know that there is a local equivalent.

By 1856, the Rocky River gold fields had become a substantial settlement with stores, bakers, butchers, boarding houses, blacksmiths, tailors, barbers and lolly pop makers. Drays waited in the main street for the next load.

The Express’s own correspondent reported that he saw many miners wash two ounces of gold before breakfast. That’s worth a fair bit at today’s gold prices!

Twelve months later, business was down. “This place was like a town at one time”, wrote the Express correspondent, “now it is more like a country village.” Meantime, word was coming through of another field to the north in the rugged headwaters of the Clarence.

“Timbarra flows sweetly through gold-bearing hills” wrote John Taite in 1863. The Timbarra in question rises at Glen Elgin and then winds its way through rugged country some seventy miles before joining the Clarence at Tabulam.

Gold first appears to have been discovered on the Timbarra in 1853. By 1857, many of the diggers from Rocky River had moved to Glen Elgin and then to other newly discovered field beyond. They called the Timbarra Rocky River too because of its rocks. So now people spoke of the old and new Rockies.

The old Rocky River clung to the hope of new discoveries, but drift continued. By 1859 when elections were held for the newly created Northern Gold Fields electorate, the diggers on the Upper Clarence fields outnumbered those at Rocky River four to one.

Today, few signs remain of the activity that once took place along the new Rocky River, destroyed by bushfires, floods and regeneration of the bush. The mail runs, the gold escorts that took the gold first to Armidale and then to Grafton from the Upper Clarence fields, the political fights over gold field representation are fading memories.

The Upper Clarence gold fields, the old and new Rockies, have become stories hidden within the New England landscape.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 12 June 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 - legacy still stands strong

In December 1904, the still new century was marked by the opening of one of Armidale’s iconic buildings, the new emporium of J R Richardson & Co.

Older Armidale residents will remember the old Richardson’s. It was indeed an emporium. There was that machine in the men’s shoe department, now banned with greater knowledge of X rays, where you could stick your foot and see the bones. It was meant to help measure shoe fit, but I was more fascinated by the bones!

Then there was the subscription library. Subscription libraries? What on earth are they? Well, before the extension of the public library, many country department stores had small lending libraries where you could borrow popular books in return for a small fee.

At the time I am talking about, the Richardson’s library must have been on its last legs, but it was still there.

As kids, we didn’t buy a lot at Richardson’s ourselves. Other stores were more to our style with the limited pocket money we had. There were Penny’s and Coles with their cheaper displays including toys and sweets, or the various Greek cafes with their drinks. But we were marched into Richardson’s for things like shoes or school clothes.

A native of Fifeshire in Scotland, John Richardson was born in 1810, son of Presbyterian minister John Richardson and his wife Grace. At 16, he was apprenticed to a linen draper in Kirkcaldy and then worked in London before setting sail for Sydney, arriving in April 1837.

In 1842, John Richardson established an importing and ships chandlery business in Brisbane. If you look at the front of the Richardson’s Building you will see this date. He was obviously a shrewd businessman, because he quickly built a considerable business empire. He also became a member of the NSW parliament.

As a parliamentarian he was something of a radical, opposing William Charles Wentworth’s bunyip constitution, while supporting John Dunmore Lang’s campaign for the separation of what is now Queensland from NSW.

Lang had a vision of Australia as a great federated nation made up of many states. After working for self-government for Victoria and then Queensland, Lang campaigned for the separation of Northern NSW, beginning a new state tradition that continues to this day.

After suffering heavy business losses, John Richardson decided to relocate to Armidale, buying John Moore’s Armidale Store in 1872. This stood on the present site of the Richardson’s building, the first of three Richardson buildings on the site.

Richardson had expected Moore to withdraw from retailing. In 1879, Moore re-entered retailing, opening a new store just across the road from Richardson’s. John Richardson was not pleased. Later, the family firm would buy the building, making it their furniture department.

John Richardson died in December 1888, leaving an estate valued at almost £30,000. His firm survived. Five generations of the Richardson family would work in the store before its final sale.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 5 June 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 - lonely end for pioneer who named Armidale

Sunday 21 December 1851. They had been riding from Euston to Melbourne so that he could take ship for Sydney on leave. He slipped away from his two travelling companions. They found his body the next day, kneeling at the foot of a big gum tree.

Reporting his death, the Sydney Morning Herald said he was on his way to Melbourne for the benefit of his health. He was forty eight years of age, twenty five of which were spent in the services of the Colonial Government. He had been suffering, the paper said, from exhaustion, the effects of the climate and the arduous duties of a too extensive district.

There was a little more too it than that. He was a sensitive man, conscious of his small stature and  deformity, of his failure to find love and the full success he craved. An aspiring poet whose poems were often published in the Sydney papers, he had described his feelings some years earlier in a short epigram entitle On a heart Locket. “tis glittering – aye as gold without”, he had written, “But hollow all within.’

Most recently, the man had been under stress and unhappy, drinking far too much. This had led to moves to have him suspended from duty in the August, but he had been persuaded to take leave instead.

Today, children play in the park named after him in the city that he named. They play hide and seek or other games, running past the memorial stone, while their parents unpack picnics or prepare BBQ’s. It’s a long way from that distant Victorian gum tree against which his life ended.

When we think of George James Macdonald, many call him McDonald, we think of the Park and his place in the naming of Armidale. We do not think of him a person.

He was a neat man whose sensibilities demanded order and a degree of comfort. In March 1843, a party travelled up from the Macleay River to attend the Armidale races. Writing later, one of the party (Mrs Annie Baxter) expressed surprise at the Commissioner’s hut. While small and badly finished, it was well and tastefully furnished. The Commissioner, Mrs Baxter suggested, was clearly a man of taste.

By then, Macdonald was a disappointed man.

In 1841, Sophia Docker had agreed to marry him. The wedding was arranged, the dresses made, while Macdonald had given orders for a new cottage to be built for his bride. Then the lady changed her mind, deciding to marry Captain Edward Darvall. “Our Commissioner was reported to be going to be married” wrote John Everett to his brother in England, “but the Lady has unfortunately changed her mind, I suppose frightened at the hump on his back.”

Macdonald and Darvall fought a duel, each firing two shots without injury. The Darvalls went to India to join his regiment, while Macdonald attempted to console himself, finally unsuccessfully, with poetry and his official duties.

 Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 29 May 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 - the destruction of language and how it can really survive

"The strength of any language is determined by its use in daily life"

This last column in my New England Aboriginal language series looks at the process of language destruction and partial revival.

The initial spread of European settlement in New England was quite slow. It took thirty six years for the edge of settlement to reach the Upper Hunter. However, the impact of colonisation spread well beyond the frontier.

The Aborigines had no natural resistance to the diseases that came with the Europeans. The smallpox epidemic of 1789-90 that began in Sydney spread across the North.

Then there was a smaller small pox outbreak in 1828, while other diseases such as venereal disease also spread beyond the frontier.

There is some dispute about the precise scale of impact, but what is clear is that entire groups were wiped out. In the face of catastrophe, previously separate groups were forced together in order to survive. The process of language destruction had begun.

Aboriginal society was given little time to regroup. From 1824, European settlement exploded, driven by the potential returns on wool, a high value product that could support high transport costs. Within thirty years, all of New England had been at least thinly settled.

In the face of progressive white settlement, Aborigines withdrew from some parts of traditional territory to other less settled areas. Aborigines from different groups came to work together in things such as pastoral work.

These processes merged languages. Then later relocations of Aborigines by the Aboriginal Protection Board created in 1888 forced people together from different language groups, so that English became a common language. Further, the use of Aboriginal languages was effectively discouraged as time passed.

The strength of any language is determined by its use in daily life. New England’s Aboriginal languages progressively retreated to vestigial use among older people. The languages seemed dead, although more had survived than most non-Aboriginals realised.

Interest revived in the 1950s and 1960s as part of a renewed interest in Australia’s Aboriginal peoples. Researchers began to pour over word lists, searching for previous records, recording current speakers.

From the second half of the 1980s, Aboriginal people moved to take control of their own languages. In 1986 the Muurbay Aboriginal Language and Culture cooperative was formed to revive and hand down the Gumbaynngir language. Similar revival moves took place in Kamilaroi lands and in the Lower Hunter with Awabakal.

The Roman Catholic Church played an important role in supporting language revival efforts. Steve Morelli, for example, worked with Gumbaynngir elders to run the first Gumnaynngir language course, while John Giacon played an active role in Gamilaraay-Yuwaalaray revival.

Their endeavours were supported by and drew from researchers in certain universities and especially the University of New England and Australian National University. The work of people like Bill Hoddinott, Peter Austin, Amnada Lissarough and Margaret Sharpe are examples.

These endeavours were not without controversy. Why bother, said some? Some Aboriginal people objected on the grounds that the languages were theirs, should not be shared. Other Aboriginal people objected that the new revived languages weren’t real, that they were wrong, not true.

To my mind, these criticisms are invalid. Modern Greek is not the same as Classical Greek, for example. The Aboriginal languages are part of our shared Australian past. Their revival adds to the rich texture of life that we all share.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 22 May 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

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History revisited - geography contributes to language diversity

Last week I spoke of the way that Aboriginal society centred on family groups with their own way of speaking, of the way that that these local languages could be grouped in various ways from the local though dialects into broader language groups.

I mentioned, too, the confusion this could create in the minds of observers.

This point helps interpret the map of New England Aboriginal languages drawn from the 1994 Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia, to understand why there is dispute among Aboriginal groups, that boundaries were not precise lines on a map.

In general terms, language boundaries were linked in to river catchments because the boundaries between catchments often created a natural divide. Thus the Moonbi Range marked a clear divide between the Gamilaraay speakers of the Western Slopes and Plains and the Anaiwan or Nganjaywana speakers of the Southern Tablelands.

Why two names for the Anaiwan? There were many, but Anaiwan was the most commonly accepted spelling, But then linguist Terry Crowley coined the name Nganjaywana (ng+anaywana+a) as a more accurate language description. So we can think of Anaiwan as the people, Nganjaywana as the language.

The linkage between catchments and language was not exact. Major geographic regions were also important, since areas with similar environments were more likely to have commonalities in life and culture. This is true of New England.

On the west, Kamilaroi (Gamilaraay) was the largest language group by area. It merged with Wiradjuri to the south, Bigambul to the north. These languages occupied the river valleys flowing west from the Great Dividing Range. Expansion was facilitated by geography.

There is a dense distribution of languages along the coast and adjoining ranges. North-south, most language groups are directly related to catchments. One partial exception is the Clarence, the big river. Its size made it the divide between two very different language groups, Gumbainggir and Bandjalung. A third Gumbainggir related language, Yaygirr, occupied the areas around the mouth of the Clarence.

East-west, languages shade inland, with coastal and linked upper river languages. For example, Bainbaa, the language spoken in the headwaters of the Nymboida River, appears to be a version of Gumbainggir.

The two Tablelands’ language groups shown, Nganjaywana and Ngrarabal, are longer north-south than east-west, squeezed between Gamilaraay and multiple coastal languages; both show some general similarities to the coastal languages.

Nganjaywana is especially interesting, because the north- south shifts in dialect mirror to some degree the shifts in the coastal languages. Northern Anaiwan contains Gumbainggir elements, while southern Anaiwan displays Dianggati (Macleay Valley) influences.

Nganjaywana’s geographic position among so many language groups explains something that often puzzles people, the number of different Aboriginal groups in Armidale that have some historic connection to the Tablelands.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 15 May 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

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History revisited - family's role in a language

My last column introduced you to Australia’s 250 or so Aboriginal languages and more  than 700 dialects. There I noted that all the languages spoken across the broader New England could be classified as Pama-Nyungan, the dominant language grouping over much of Australia.

In this column, I want to start digging down, focusing on the languages spoken across the broader New England. To do this, I need to tell you a little about Aboriginal life in New England before the disruptions that came with the First Fleet.

The family was the basic Aboriginal social unit. The family group might be quite small - 10 or less - but could also be a larger group or band of up to 50 or more people linked by kinship. In turn, the bands were linked to other groups in a variety of sometimes complex ways through kinship, language, ceremonies and cooperative activities.

Each family group occupied a defined territory or run.

In desert areas, family groups might be small and the runs large, in some cases up to 25,000 square kilometres. In more fertile areas, the bands could be much larger and the territories smaller. In some fertile places such as the North Coast, there were effectively villages occupied for more extended periods by some groups.

Each band had its own language and its own way of speaking. Groups could understand the language spoken by those around - the Aborigines were multilingual - but language differences increased with distance as interaction diminished.

This created a language hierarchy in which local languages with common features formed dialects and the dialects in turn formed broader language groups.

This is actually no different from the position in Europe, before the rise of the nation state and the process of language standardisation.

If we now look at the broader New England, on the west, the Gamilaraay (Kamilaroi) language group occupied a vast sweep of territory from the Upper Hunter through the western slopes and plains into what is now Queensland and had at least five major dialects or up to seven if the related languages of Yuwaalaraay and Yuwaaliyaay are included.

To the east, the Bundjalung language group occupied the Northern Rivers north from the Clarence extending into Queensland.

In geographic terms, the Gamilaraay territory was larger, but the richness of Bundjalung territory made it the largest language group in New England measured by population. There may have been as many as twenty separate Bundjalung dialects!

The Anaiwan or Nganyaywana Aboriginal peoples from the southern areas of the New England Tablelands appear to have been relatively homogeneous and limited in number. Even here, there were several dialects with language differences shading from north to south.

You can see why the early recorders of Aboriginal language might have struggled to understand the pattern! You can also see why there might be so many inconsistencies in our records.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 8 May 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

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History revisited - traditional speech revived

In April, the NSW Government released Ochre, a new framework for Aboriginal policy in NSW. This accepted a recommendation from the Ministerial Taskforce on Aboriginal Affairs that Aboriginal Language and Culture Nests should be trialled initially in one location each for five Aboriginal language groups: Gamilaraay; Gumbaynggirr; Bundjalung; Paarkintji/Barkindji; and Wiradjuri. Three of the five language groups and both the coastal languages are centered in the broader New England. All three Northern language groups have modern relevance to Armidale.

Beneath this simple recommendation lies a remarkable story of loss and now partial recovery. That recovery would not have been possible without the work of scholars especially from the University of New England but also the ANU, nor would it have been possible without the dedication of a relatively small number of Aboriginal elders across the broader New England who fought to revive their language.

I thought that I might explore a little of that story over my next few columns. It’s too complicated to explain in just five hundred words. In this column, I want to introduce you to Aboriginal languages.

In 1788 there were perhaps 250 Aboriginal language groups in Australia incorporating perhaps 700 dialects. The precise distinction between language and dialect can be a difficult one and has become a very real issue among some Aboriginal people who object to their language being classified as a dialect of another. From my perspective, the question of the relationship between languages and between languages and dialects should be seen as a technical one.

In considering languages, we need to make a clear distinction between language and political or territorial boundaries. The broad language groups often covered substantial geographic areas. There were a variety of shifting territorial and political boundaries within each language group. Just speaking the same or a related language did not make for everlasting friendship!

Within this language diversity, all the New England language groups belong to what has come to be called Pama-Nyungan, the dominant language grouping over much of Australia. For a long time, one New England language, Anaiwan, found on the southern New England Tablelands, was seen as distinct, not related to other Aboriginal languages. It took the pioneering work of linguist Terry Crowley to show that Anaiwan was in fact related to adjoining languages.

All the Pama-Nyungan languages have relatively free word order, allowing all possible ordering of subject, verb, object. Verbs and nouns have markers added to indicate who does what to whom, when and how. New words are formed by adding other meaningful segments.

This can make for very long words, really sentences in themselves. The combination of this with the free word order makes for great variety. In my next column, I will tell you about the New England languages themselves. In the meantime, if you would like to listen to a New England language, follow this link - http://www.yuwaalaraay.org/stories.html.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 1 May 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

The other columns in this series are:

• History revisited - family's role in a language
• History revisited - geography contributes to language diversity
• History revisited - the destruction of language and how it can really survive

History revisited - the untold story of our Chinese community

In August, 1983, a new display opened at McCrossin’s Mill, Uralla. It was a rather special display on New England’s Chinese heritage.

Growing up, I knew a little of New England’s Chinese heritage. I knew that the Chinese had been here, but beyond a few gravestones in the Other Denominations’ section of the Armidale cemetery and store names in other New England towns. Beyond that, I knew nothing of our Chinese connection. It was all very vague,

I knew from novels that many Chinese had been attracted to the Californian gold fields and had gone on to do things like help build railways. I did not know that California had been called the Gold Mountain, that after the discovery of gold in Australia California became the Old Gold Mountain, Australia the New Gold Mountain.

The first Chinese did not come for gold. They came because NSW had a labour shortage with the ending of transportation, and the regular trade routes between China and England via NSW provided an easy entry route.

In September 1849, at least two Chinese workers entered into the service of J Pike of Pikedale run in what is now the Queensland Granite Belt. In May 1850, M H Marsh employed ten Chinese workers from Amoy, all of whom arrived on one ship, the Cadet. By the end of 1852, Chinese workers were widely if thinly dispersed across New England.

Life could be dangerous for our early Chinese. In May 1852, the Phoenix sank on its way to the Clarence River with 12 Chinese on board. A thirteenth was found wandering the beach with the Aborigines. He was reportedly quite mad, although no-one knew how he had got there.

The discovery of gold in New England brought thousands of Chinese to the New England gold fields from Nundle North. As the gold petered out at Rocky River, the Chinese moved to the tin fields on the Western Slopes and beyond into Queensland. The Chinese influence lingered, especially in Tingha, but for most of us, this early period had become a distant memory.

In September 1982, Kent Mayo and Ron Alexander from the Uralla Historical Society were shown dust coated, water damaged, Chinese artifacts that had come from Tingha piled in a galvanised iron shed. Recognising their significance, they arranged to purchase them for the Society.

Other artifacts were collected across New England

The resulting display that opened in August 1983 provided a remarkable insight into a forgotten part of New England’s life.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 24 April 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