I read many histories of Chinese in Tasmania that start by saying at the start of 1870, there were only 13 Chinese in Tasmania. Now, if there were only 13, it should be possible to find there names, right?
Turns out, what they actually mean is the census of 1870 lists 13 people born in China, which is slightly different. But by the time I realised that I was already committed to finding these early migrants.
Extract from Statistics of Tasmanian, 1870 (PDF)
The significance of 1870 is that was the year an enterprising business man brought over Chinese labourers to work in the goldfields. They disocovered the tin fields were more lucrative, and were soon followed by more. That’s another story, and more about it on the page about the temples.
I start making a list of the all the Chinese people in Tasmania prior to 1870. The two main sources of Chinese “migrants” were prisoners from Hong Kong & Mauritius, and a shipload of mechanics (carpenters), but others arrived for other reasons.
Alongside the list is a series of posts with any information I’ve been able to find. It is not an attempt to tell the story of any individual. I’ll leave that to other people! (If you’re written anything, I’d love to link to it.)
With variations in spelling and deliberate name changes, it’s hard to track people especially if they move about, so there might be some duplication, and I have certainly missed things. The sources themselves are often wrong too. So any extra information, corrections etc. are good. There are also the shipping records. People arrive who don’t seem to appear again. People depart who don’t seem to have arrived. Some are just passing through. So far, I’ve only included arrivals and departures when they connect to names found elsewhere. I’m sure there are some in there who stayed but I have yet to find another trace of.
But most importantly, this is an ongoing list. I keep finding more names so entries are still being added.