The Two Centuries of Chinese Heritage Project at UWA takes a biographical approach by weaving snippets from historical sources to uncover stories about Chinese people who came to Western Australia.
This series of articles profiles surprising stories being discovered and recorded as part of the project.
by Lucy Hair
N.B. This article contains historical language that would not be used today.
The majority of Chinese people who came to Western Australia in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were men who worked as contractors for defined periods (typically for three years). These sojourners usually returned to China and their families after their contracts ended. Without a family network here in Western Australia, what happened when problems arose and help, or intervention, was required?
As part of the Two Centuries of Chinese Heritage in Western Australia project we are discovering stories of Chinese people who ended up in gaol, the poor house or the asylum because of employment contracts turning sour and/or changes in the individual’s medical condition.
As Chinese people were temporary workers, the colonial government often indicated they did not wish to pay costs associated with the upkeep of individuals in these government-run facilities.
Research from our Digital Portal shows at least nine Chinese patients at Fremantle Lunatic Asylum were returned to Singapore then transferred to the Straits Settlements Asylum. All nine of these men died within two or three years from beri-beri (thiamine deficiency), cholera, dysentery or a combination of all three.
Dr Henry Barnett, superintendent of Fremantle Lunatic Asylum, wrote in his 1887 annual report: “I would respectfully urge that some measures should be taken to lessen the number of foreigners, principally Malays and Chinamen, who are brought to this colony in an unsound state of mind and remain a heavy charge on our population.”
A forthright man with a penchant for underlining many words in his correspondence, Barnett made similar claims in other annual reports.
Over-crowding was a constant feature of Barnett’s tenure, particularly in the 1890s when the gold boom caused the state’s population to swell exponentially. The Government took several years to investigate a new asylum site and originally looked at Whitby Falls in Jarrahdale. It was the preferred site for several years before a different site was selected and a new hospital was built. Claremont Hospital for the Insane (now Graylands Hospital) opened in 1903.
In January 1897, the Government purchased 1,003 acres from Mr William Patterson in Jarrahdale. Whitby Falls had several cottages, farm buildings and an excellent orchard and orangery in bearing. Around a dozen of the most tractable patients from Fremantle were transferred to the new Whitby Falls asylum (Fremantle annexe) in May 1897.
Chinese people represented less than one per cent of Western Australia’s population when Whitby Falls opened. It is therefore surprising that records from our Digital Portal indicate that at least seven of the first dozen or so patients at Whitby Falls were Chinese. As the hospital was meant to be self-supporting, patients were expected to undertake farming and gardening work. One of the Chinese patients was a shepherd and another a labourer. Market gardening and labouring were typical industries for Chinese people at the time, so it is likely that the other patients had similar work backgrounds.
Within two years of Whitby Falls asylum opening, a visitor noted: “Vegetables of every kind are here in abundance, and the garden is admirably kept.”
Clearly the garden reflected a large Chinese patient population with considerable skills and experience of this type of work.
Interested readers are encouraged to explore the UWA research database and other aspects of the project at: www.chinesewa.net/.
As research material is being added constantly, the project team would love to hear from anyone with information about early Chinese migrants.
