The Chinese Community in Maryborough, Victoria: Water Rates 1887 – 1936

Access to water is important to the development of any settlement. The Goldfields Reservoir, operational from 1862 onwards, ameliorated Maryborough’s supply problems. The Council handed over responsibility for this utility to a newly established Waterworks Trust in 1882 (Osborn & DuBourg, 1985, p. 284). The records of that organisation provide limited but valuable information about the town’s inhabitants and their social environment. The Water Rates allow one to track changes from after the goldrush on through Federation, the First World War and the Depression. Some of the records include the name and address of property occupants, the property owner, the value of the property and the rate fee. The valuation is written in pounds. The land use and style of building may also be found. Names may indicate the ancestry of the people listed. The Chinese formed a significantly different ethnic group. Information about individuals amongst them is generally not easy to find.

Miners from China in the Maryborough Mining District numbered 4,600 by 1855, resident in two
encampments (ibid, p. 56). By the 1881 census 167 remained (ibid, p. 264). Censuses, newspaper reports and other records can help track the population decline. However, for this purpose the Water Rates are not a completely reliable indicator of numbers. Over a fourteen-year period 1887 – 1900 sampled by the author, around six names per year on average were duplicated or triplicated. The “Ah Young” who owned a house in Darling Street may or may not have been the same “Ah Young” who owned a house in the Chinese Camp. Without further determining information about the person, identification is not certain.

Names are problematic for people tracing their Chinese heritage. Spelling could be inconsistent as was the order of family and given names. Which names were provided to the authorities is another hurdle in identifying individuals. They may have been recorded using only their given name with their family name unrecorded or vice versa. Some people had multiple components to their name. Furthermore, over their lifetime some people had more than one name. People of Chinese ethnicity living in Victoria in the nineteenth century were almost all not able to read, write or speak English. Because Chinese is a tonal language it is not possible to accurately romanise it in order to write it in the English language. The letters chosen to transcribe the sound of a name may have varied depending on the government representative who recorded the information. Hence care needs to be taken in studying any historical records which list the Chinese.

One of the difficulties in exploring the social history of the Chinese via the Water Rates is that ethnicity cannot always be determined by a name alone. I have excluded names such as “James Long” or “Thomas Lee” which may or may not have been Chinese. When there is a prefix of “Ah” or a name sequence that is unlikely to be European, such as “Kee Young”, I have recorded individuals as being Chinese. Where it appears possible that non-Chinese women have taken on their partner’s Chinese name I have included them also.

Of the 1000 properties rated in 1887, 55 were occupied by Chinese. Despite their small numbers the Chinese maintained a very visible presence in the town. The Chinese Camp as described in the Water Rates was right in the centre of Maryborough, close to the main water pipe installed in 1879 (ibid, p. 240). Situated between Christian Street and Tuaggra Street it had existed since at least 1864 and possibly earlier. The Camp is called “China Town” in the Water Rates. In most years no more than one non-Chinese occupant was rated. That person was usually a woman. The Camp still had residents in 1928. It was not until 1931 that the site was cleared and reserved for public recreation (Osborn 1995, p. 325).

In relation to population decline, the 55 Chinese occupied properties rated in Maryborough in 1887 had fallen to 46 by 1900, (excluding gardens). The number of rated properties in China Town had fallen from 44 in 1887 to 30 in 1900. While interpretation of the Water Rates records appears to indicate a trend for China Town occupants to have taken over ownership of properties vacated by other residents of the Camp this cannot be confirmed because of the name issues mentioned above.

The Water Rates indicate social trends such as the increase in the number of Chinese living amongst the non-Chinese outside China Town and the businesses they established inside and outside the Chinese Camp. From 1896 the rates first recorded the names of property owners and the construction material of buildings. Ninety per cent of the Chinese owned their own places. Where properties were rented out to Chinese, the rates show the owners were more likely to be non-Chinese.

The stability of the Chinese population during this period is noteworthy. For many, Maryborough was their home. Their market gardens, situated outside China Town, were essential to the town’s inhabitants. Three properties rated as market gardens in 1889 had grown to eight by 1900. The market gardeners had a good reputation in the community as evidenced in newspaper reports and anecdotes. Access to fresh fruit and vegetables would have been more difficult without them. It appears, but cannot be confirmed, that land used for market gardens was twice mentioned in the Water Rates. If “Wah Sing”, for example, paid water rates for a house and garden in Park Road, he also paid an additional rate for running a market garden. Presumably this was because of increased water usage. Research into the proceedings of the Waterworks Trust as regularly reported in newspapers would clarify this.

In summary, increased access to primary sources through their publication online and on paper is helping to fill in the gaps in our knowledge about the contribution of nineteenth century Chinese Australians to the communities they lived in. Not all the Chinese returned to their homeland and their descendants are testimony to this.

Bibliography
Flett, J., Maryborough Victoria: Goldfields History, Poppet Head Press, Glen Waverley, 1975.
Osborn, B., Against the Odds: Maryborough 1905 – 1961, Central Goldfields Shire Council, Maryborough, 1995.
Osborn, B. and T. DuBourg, Maryborough: A Social History 1854 -1904, Dominion Press, Maryborough, 1985

Read less