No further “Visitations of God”: Classifying Chinese deaths in colonial Queensland using the Nosological Index

Death registered at Warwick, Queensland in 1864 for Onghe (1864/C0744). Cause of death given as “Visitation of God” by a coroner.

By the mid-1880s, the Queensland Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages was becoming increasingly frustrated by non-medical, vague and fanciful causes of death submitted by the district registrars. Although this may have been expected when the death was notified by a general member of the public, a number of these causes were submitted by coroners and even medical practitioners. In addition, reporting inconsistency between registration districts made it difficult to compile meaningful mortality statistics.¹ In response, the Nosological Index or Guide to the Classification and Tabulation of the various Causes of Death was introduced in 1887 which cross-referenced common terminology with medical nomenclature. It was distributed to all district and hospital registrars for implementation.²

Nosological Index or Guide to the Classification and Tabulation of Causes of Death [QSA ITM847252 87/8208]

The cause of 950 Chinese deaths between 1857 and 1900 was assembled from death registrations, cemetery records and coroners’ reports in the compilation the Queensland Chinese Death Index. By reclassifying these causes with the Nosological Index, it is possible to compile mortality tables for geographical areas, occupations and specific time periods.

The 43-page Nosological Index grouped causes of death into eight broad categories.

Class	Top-level Description
I	Zymotic (contagious) diseases
II	Parasitic diseases
III	Dietetic diseases
IV	Constitutional diseases
V	Developmental diseases
VI	Local  diseases
VII	Violence /  accident /  negligence
VIII	Ill-defined and not specified causes

Contrary to the macabre reportage in the contemporary newspapers, the Chinese were far more likely to die falling off horses than by being eaten by crocodiles. Shepherds had the highest number of mishaps with horses, while market gardeners died more frequently of snake bite. They were more likely to be murdered by their countryman than by any other group.³ Death by opium whether by an accidental or deliberate overdose or by chronic use was constant over the period but never exceeded 3% of registered deaths. The Registrar General also directed that if a cause of death could be either accidental or suicidal, the local registrar was to make further enquiries to ascertain the circumstances of the death and accordingly classify them. Suicide in the Queensland colonial Chinese population was discussed in a previous post, The Grim Reality.

Cause	Nosology  Code	Number (%)
Drowning	VII.01.09 – Accidental	25  (2.6)
	VII.03.04 – Suicidal	3    (0.3)
Opium overdose	VII.01.07 – Accidental	20  (2.1)
	VII.03.03  – Suicidal	4    (0.4)
Suicide	VII.03.06 – Hanging / strangulation	24  (2.5)
	VII.03.02 – Stabs / cuts / wounds	8    (0.8)
Murdered	VII.02.01a – by Whites	9    (0.9)
	VII.02.01b – by Coloureds (including Chinese – 9)	12  (1.2)
	VII.02.01c – by Aboriginals	4    (0.4)

Cause of death 1857 – 1900. Violence / accident / negligence sub-categories.

Death by disease was more prevalent for the period up to 1900. After then, death by age-related causes and senility takes precedence. Tuberculosis claimed its victims at the average age of 44 years. The five deaths attributed to the bubonic plague all occurred in 1900.

Class	Nosology  Code	Number (%)
Constitutional	IV.01.06 – Phthisis / Tuberculosis	66 (6.9)
Zymotic	I.01.13 – Fever (not defined)	47 (4.7)
Ill-defined	VIII.01.02 – Debility	24 (2.5)
Zymotic	I.02.03 – Dysentery	18 (1.9)
Zymotic	I.01.06a – Typhoid	17 (1.7)
Local	VI.03.01  – Heart disease	16 (1.6)
Zymotic	I.01.15 – Leprosy	6   (0.6)
Zymotic	I.01.06a – Bubonic plague	5   (0.5)

Cause of death 1857 – 1900. Disease sub-categories.

According to the Nosological Index, a Visitation of God was a term that should be avoided when a more definite one could be given.⁴ When the cause of death could not be specified, it was classified as VIII.1.12.

References
1. QSA ITM847252 1887/8208. A copy of the Nosological Index is incorporated in this batch of Colonial Secretary’s Office letters.
2. Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton) 11 June 1887:6
3. Queenslander 5 December 1885:889
4. Nosological Index (1887) 4

Using witnesses to uncover further Chinese linkages

Louie See, merchant of Townsville, was the informant for a number of local deaths. (NAA Item ID 9582899)

When undertaking family history, the subject of the enquiry usually has parents, siblings and children to help identify them. This is particularly important when dealing with people with the same or similar name. However, when researching the Chinese in Queensland, by far of the majority of the deceased were single men. But were they completely without relatives and friends in the colony?

In the documentation generated by a death, the names of the witnesses are an often overlooked source of genealogical data in family and diaspora history. Followers of this blog have been introduced to a variety of these sources. On a Queensland death certificate, in addition to the deceased, Chinese names may populate a number of fields such as the place of death e.g. a Chinese operated boarding house; the person who notified the local registrar of the death, and the witnesses to the burial. Locally married Chinese should also have the names of the spouse and any surviving children.

On hospital admission records, the biographical information collected on admission is used when in notifying the death if the patient died in hospital. This information can be sparse, if the patient was in no fit state to provide the information themselves. Always take note of the name of the subscriber ticket holder by whom the patient was admitted.[1]

Coroners’ inquests rely on the evidence of witnesses to help determine the cause of death. These witnesses are often the other Chinese who lived or worked with the deceased. A number of inquests in an area will give a pool of names.[2]

Who paid for the funeral? The information contained in undertakers records is another source of relationships for the Chinese who died in more urbanised settings.[3]

In compiling the Queensland Chinese Death Index (QCDI),[4] I collected the witnesses from the above sources to create a sample of 300 deaths. Each death may have had multiple witnesses and these relationships have emerged.

Relationship of witness to the deceased	Number of instances
Brother	25
Cousin	24
Parent / Child	15
Uncle / Nephew	7
Other relative	8
Friend / Workmate	51
Accommodation house keeper	12
Other (interpreter / hospital ticket holder / funeral arranger etc.)	24
Not stated	223

Witness relationship to the deceased found on a sample of 300 Chinese deaths in Queensland (1857-1955)

By sorting the witness column in the QCDI, I found three cousins living in Rockhampton in the 1920s. Thomas Wong of Gladstone Street, was the informant for the deaths of his cousins Wong Way Hong[5] and Wong Loy.[6] Wong Way Hong was a 63 year old gardener who died at the Rockhampton Hospital on 25 April 1922 after a cart accident. He had recently returned from Canton where had married Sue See. Wong Loy was a 50 year old storekeeper who died of asthma on 2 March 1926.

A witness can have different roles over time, e.g. relative and friend. For example Louie See, merchant of Flinders Street, Townsville, was the informant of the death of his friend Kee Joy in May 1911.[7] He next appears in the sample as a cousin registering the death of Hop Sun Sam in November 1922.[8] Louie See makes another appearance registering the death of Way Hock in April 1925.[9] However, on this occasion the relationship is not stated.

Five months after returning from seven-year absence in China,[10] Louie See died on 12 July 1934 at 314 Flinders Street, Townsville.[11] On this occasion, the informant of the death was his brother Louie Tim So of the same address. As the informant was an immediate member of the family, comparatively rare for the Chinese in Queensland, details of parentage, birth place, his wife and six children in China have been provided.

If a person was a witness on multiple occasions it is possible to see if they changed of their address. Jimmy Say Hing was living in Targo Street, Bundaberg when he was the informant on the death of his friend, gardener, John Ah Duck in October 1919.[12] Seven years later, Jimmy Say Hing is living at Gracemere, just north of Rockhampton. His cousin Wah Chong, a fruiterer, had succumbed to pneumonia at the Rockhampton Hospital in September 1926.[13]

The deceased did not live in isolation. They were part of a network of friends, relations, workmates and businesses. By recording the witnesses to a cluster of events at a location at a particular point of time will grow the number of names connected to the person you are researching. Maybe they are the ones who left behind records and photographs of events which your target person may have participated in. A research goal should be to make writing about the Chinese experience less generic, more personalised and connected to a place.

Having said that, also examine the relationship of the witness to the deceased. As mentioned, biographical data collected solely by hospital staff is sparse at best, inaccurate at worse. Ages were usually guesses, rounded off to the nearest five or ten years. We are fortunate that Jimmy Say Hing was able to be the informant in addition to the hospital dispenser Mr Mackinnon on the death of his cousin, otherwise their relationship may not have been revealed.

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[1] See previous blog post cemetrees.wordpress.com/2022/06/09/died-in-a-hospital-far-from-home/

[2] For an example of the use of coroners inquests see cemetrees.wordpress.com/2022/05/14/the-grim-reality-a-lonely-chinese-suicide-in-the-bush/

[3] Please see cemetrees.wordpress.com/2022/05/07/paying-the-undertakers-bills-the-role-of-brisbanes-chinese-merchants/

[4] For an introduction to the QCDI see cemetrees.wordpress.com/2022/04/05/naming-the-dead-introducing-a-resource-for-researching-chinese-in-colonial-queensland/

[5] Queensland Death Certificate 1922/C1968 Wong Way Hong Charlie a 63 year old gardener died at the Rockhampton Hospital on 25 April 1922 after a cart accident. He had recently returned from Canton where had married.

[6] Queensland Death Certificate Wong Loy 1926/C0988

[7] Queensland Death Certificate Kee Joy 1911/C4580

[8] Queensland Death Certificate Hop Sun Sam 1922/C4436

[9] Queensland Death Way Hock 1925/C2696

[10] Louie See Certificate Exempting from Dictation Test. (NAA Item ID 9582899)

[11] Queensland Death Certificate See Louie 1934/C3528

[12] Queensland Death Certificate John Ah Duck 1919/C5020

[13] Queensland Death Certificate Wah Chong 1926/C3542

Finding pre-Separation Queensland Chinese deaths

Ipswich around the time of Separation already had a Chinese population. (SLQ 89246)

This post will be of particular interest to those researching the Chinese from Amoy who arrived in the late 1840s and 1850s.

After the colony of New South Wales introduced compulsory civil registration of deaths on 1 March 1856, three Chinese deaths were recorded in April that year in the region which was to become Queensland.  Were these the first such deaths registered?

It appears that they were. Prior to the civil registration of deaths, the registration of burials were made by Christian ministers of religion. These were given the designation of BBU and the registration year of 1854, regardless of the year of the burial. Of the 561 burials registered between April 1829 and March 1856, not one was that for a Chinese name. As it is unlikely that the Chinese in this era were Christian, they would have been buried with ritual provided by their countrymen or none at all, hence the non-registration of the burial.[1]

Yet it is known that there were Chinese deaths in the Moreton Bay Region prior to March 1856. For example, Angee was executed at the Brisbane Gaol in Queen Street on 6 January 1852.[2] His burial was not registered as was the norm for executions in the pre-civil registration period.[3] It is exceptionally challenging to find Chinese deaths prior to 1856. Newspaper reports of the period are scant with the deceased rarely named. A typical report is that of the unnamed Chinese man who died of apoplexy in a Darling Downs wool shed in 1850.[4]

Burial grounds operating prior to Separation should have been keeping burial registers. However, the survival rate for these is negligible. For example, the earliest surviving burial register for the Ipswich General Cemetery dates from July 1868,[5] despite burials occurring from the 1840s.

The earliest death registration I have found is that of Sain (1856/C208) who died of venereal disease at Little Ipswich on 22 April 1856. His burial place was given as Ipswich, which is presumably the Ipswich General Cemetery, but this is not able to be confirmed due to the non-survival of the burial register.

The first Chinese death registered in Brisbane was that of Keang (1856/B18) on 25 April 1856. He died of debility at the Brisbane Gaol. No burial place was recorded on the death certificate. Two days later at Drayton, 25-year-old labourer Loe died of apoplexy (1856/C607). A native of Amoy, Loe had been in the colony of New South Wales for three years. This is a difficulty with pre-Separation death certificates as it cannot be determined if the deceased arrived directly to Moreton Bay or came via a southern port. Post-1859 death certificates state the number of years in New South Wales and the number of years in Queensland.

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[1] For a description of these rituals see cemetrees.wordpress.com/2022/05/27/the-defunct-celestial-newspaper-reports-of-chinese-funerals/

[2] Moreton Bay Courier 6 January 1852:1 

[3] Of the nine executions between 1830 and 1855, none of the burials were registered. Four were Indigenous, four British or Irish and one Chinese.

[4] Moreton Bay Courier 4 November 1850:1

[5] QSA ITM ID 1238589 Ipswich General Cemetery 20 July 1868 to 31 Dec 1889. Available online.

Died in a hospital far from home

Brisbane Hospital, Herston, ca.1883. A. Lomer. SLQ APO-040-0001-0001

Cannot find the burial place of an ancestor? Maybe they died in a hospital far from home. Many seriously ill patients left their regional home towns for further treatment or surgery in Brisbane. Unfortunately, some did not survive the experience and were buried in the cemetery contracted to accept burials from the hospital.

In fact, so many patients died in the Brisbane Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration district, that the Registrar General felt compelled to observe periodically that Brisbane was not necessarily that unhealthy a place; it just had a preponderance of medical facilities and patients who waited until their cases were hopeless before seeking hospital admission.[1]

In the Register of Deaths at the Brisbane Hospital 1899-1913[2], fifty Chinese deaths were recorded. Some have travelled quite some distance to seek treatment at the Brisbane Hospital. For example, Sam Foo, late of Tambo, travelled over 850km in order to be admitted on 9 September 1901. He died on 6 October of hydrothorax aged about 40 and was buried at Toowong Cemetery.[3]

A distance travelled of 200 kilometres was more usual. Hock Lay journeyed from Dalby to Brisbane for treatment for chronic nephritis. He died the day after he was admitted on 9 November 1911 aged “about 50” and was buried the next day at Toowong Cemetery. This is where the knowledge of the fact that the overwhelming majority of the deceased were buried on the day they died or the day after, is important. In the Brisbane Hospital register he is named as Hock Lay. His death was registered as Hook Lay.[4] However in the Toowong Cemetery Burial Register, he is named as Lay Hog.[5]

Coming to Brisbane from an equivalent distance was thirty year old Stanthorpe resident Kum Choy. He was suffering from carcinoma of the pleura (lung membrane) with a secondary carcinoma of the liver. After being hospitalised for ten weeks, he died on 18 May 1907 and was buried in Portion 19 at Toowong Cemetery.[6]

A number of digitised hospital admission records are available online from the Queensland State Archives, but these, on the whole, have not been indexed yet. However, they are worth browsing as admission registers contain a great deal more information about the patient than the hospital death registers, such as place of birth, age, occupation, marital status etc.

In the case of 38 year old labourer Ah Sing, the registrar at the Cooktown Hospital, did not know the name of the ship he had arrived on, or the names of his parents, but he was able to fill in that Ah Sing was born in Canton, had been in the Colony for ten years and was single. Ah Sing was admitted on a hospital subscriber’s ticket belonging to Kin Hee to the Chinese Ward on 26 October 1889 and died of diarrhoea four days later.[7]

The Chinese were generous subscribers to their local hospitals which allowed for free treatment for either themselves, or a nominee. Subscriber lists can be found in the annual report for each hospital and comprise another under-utilised family history resource. A blog post for another time.

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[1] Queenslander 15 July 1876:27)

[2] Queensland State Archives ITM2887

[3] Queensland Death Registration 1901/B1726

[4] Queensland Death Registration 1911/B14937 Hook Lay

[5] Brisbane General Cemetery Burial Register 10 Vovember1911. Portion 19 Section 1 Grave 2.

[6] Brisbane General Cemetery Burial Register 18 May 1907. Portion 19 Section 3.

[7] Cooktown Hospital Admission Register 9 September 1889 to 10 February 1890 QSA ITM7355. Digital record DR70004.

The “defunct Celestial” – newspaper reports of Chinese funerals

Clermont, Central Queensland circa 1877. Location of a sizable Chinese population. (SLQ negative no. 33191)

The Chinese who rushed to the “New Gold Mountain” came from wide variety of occupational categories and social classes, and their burials reflected the same degree of diversity as those of the non-Chinese community. They ranged from pauper burials in crude coffins in bush graves to lavish affairs costing several hundred pounds. The funerals themselves ranged from being virtually indistinguishable from their British equivalents to as close to possible as local conditions allowed to the ritual which would have been performed in China.

Whatever the rite, the novelty of Chinese funeral processions and burial rituals occupied many hundred column inches in the colonies’ newspapers from the mid-1850s and peaking in the mid-1870s. The deceased was often referred to as the “defunct Celestial” or a “son of the Flowery Land”. The dense, descriptive material is a neglected ethnographic resource. I have collected 65 000 words worth of newspaper descriptions of Chinese burials from all the Australian colonies and territories, New Zealand and Canada. They are remarkably similar over the latter half of the 19th century in their description of the stages of the funerary ritual including:

• Preparation of the corpse
• Placement of the corpse and grave goods in the coffin
• Preparation of the food and drink required for the funeral
• Transportation of the corpse, mourners and victuals to the cemetery
• Casting of pieces of paper en route to the cemetery
• Wearing of mourning emblems by the cortège
• Rituals at the grave-side
• Distribution of food, sweets and money to the mourners

This report from Clermont, Central Queensland in 1869 is typical of the genre. Gold was discovered there in 1861, and together with the later discovery of copper, Clermont attracted a sizeable Chinese population.

There has been a death in Clermont this week, says the Peak Downs Telegram of August 20 1869, of a Celestial, at the stores of Win On. The breath had scarcely left the body when the corpse was removed to an outbuilding and the body laid with the feet to the East, dressed in the best of Chinese new clothing, complete and ready for the great journey. The hair plait was coiled on a raised cushion level with the head, around which was arranged a number of red wax tapers. Eatables there were in profusion such as Chinese plums and nuts. Every now and then pieces of burning paper were thrown in and about the building by friends of the deceased, who, nevertheless, took care not to touch him. While the coffin was being made, and the grave dug, the cook was making great preparations—killing and cooking poultry, roasting pork, etc.; indeed, sufficient was prepared for a feast of no very ordinary character. After placing the body in a coffin, the deceased’s blankets, three pairs boots, a bag of clothing, opium, pipe, knife, needles, cotton in fact, all his effects with him then followed another shower of burning papers, while the assemblage bowed their heads to the ground; something after the fashion of the fire-worshippers of the East. [1]

Ten years later in the ritual had barely changed and neither had the reporting.

A Chinese funeral, though no novelty, is seen by but few; hence a short description of the rites and ceremonies observed on Wednesday afternoon last, at the interment of a Chinamen in the Clermont cemetery, may not be uninteresting. The coffin was brought out and placed on supports a few feet from the ground; and besides the body, it contained, if we are correctly informed, a number of articles, supposed to be required by the wayfaring spirit on the journey to Paradise; among these wore a new suit of clothes, to make the traveller look respectable; and a blanket, in case he should have to camp out; tapers, to light him through the gloom; food, to sustain him on the way; and money where with to pay toll at the farther end. We can vouch for the following, which took place in public, and maybe called the outer form of the Chinese burial service. On an old box, a few feet from the foot of the coffin, lay a fine fat pig, dressed, and ready for roasting, its snout, pointing towards the body of the deceased. On the ground, between the coffin and the pig, were ranged five cups containing tea, and brandy, a tea-kettle, nearly a bottleful of cognac, and two or three basins, on a tray, filled with cooked meat, bread, &c. At the foot of the coffin wax-like tapers burned and flickered. The son of the deceased replenished the lights, poured brandy into the cups, and set fire to some paper ornamented with Chinese characters. After a while he emptied the contents of the cups on the ground, and the first part of the ceremony ended with the expiry of the last taper. The coffin was then put into a cart and taken to the cemetery, followed by other carts, one of which contained the pig, tea kettle, brandy, and other viands. At the grave a few tapers were lighted, and a Chinese document bearing several seals-possibly the deceased’s passport to Paradise was burned, after which a few packages of crackers were fired off, to keep away the Evil One. The spirit, thus equipped and guarded, was supposed then to start on its long journey. Be that as it may, the pig and its accompaniments, which had been left at the gate of the cemetery; were driven back to town. The articles in the coffin were intended, symbolically, for the departed, while the viands outside, having been offered as an oblation to Joss; were meant for the survivors. The funeral was attended by a large number of Chinese, showing that the deceased was of some note. (Peak Downs Telegram)[2]

The deceased is named in neither of these funerary descriptions. If the burial register for the Clermont Cemetery was readily available, I would scan it for any Chinese burials for around the dates quoted in the newspaper to try and give each of the “defunct Celestials” a name.

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[1] Warwick Examiner and Times 11 September 1869 p.4

[2] The Week (Brisbane) 8 March 1879 p.29

The Grim Reality – A lonely Chinese suicide in the bush

The reverse of a New South Wales Miner’s Right found on the body of an unknown Chinese man in February 1870. (QSA Item 348625 -138)

In compiling the Queensland Chinese Death Index[1] I found the cause of death of 316 Chinese through combination of coroners’ inquests, cemetery and undertakers’ records and some death certificates. For the period 1857 to 1900, at least 31 deaths were from suicide. 

Of the deaths deemed as suicide in the coroners’ inquests hanging was a prevalent cause of death, followed by ingesting poisonous substances including strychnine and opium. This result mirrors the results found by Valerie Lovejoy in her study of Chinese deaths on the Victorian goldfields.[2]

In the post-gold rush period it was intimated in the inquests that the deceased had become too decrepit to carry on their respective occupations and had chosen to end their lives at a time of their own choosing. Suicide did not carry the same stigma in the Chinese community as it did amongst those of the Christian faith, nor did it preclude the carrying out of their ritual funerary practices or the repatriation of their bones to China.[3]

In May 1870, Eric Sutherland Ross, a grazier residing at Dyngie, Central Queensland deposed at the coroner’s inquest into the deaths of shepherds,  brothers Ah King (aged 47) and Ah Chong (aged 34) that ‘it is not uncommon for Chinamen for very trivial causes to commit suicide and hanging is very often the mode they adopt’.[4] The pair had fastened a single raw-hide leather strap around their necks and jumped off a bunk. As they were barely suspended, death was by slow strangulation instead of instantaneous breaking of the vertebrae of the neck. Their countrymen were sent for, coffins made and they were buried near the site of their deaths.

Three months earlier the body of an unidentified Chinese male had been discovered suspended by saddle straps at the base of a leaning tree, ten-miles west of Molangul. According to the witness who found the body, a very worn and tattered expired New South Wales Miner’s Right for an Alien was found in his pocket but the name could not be read. The reverse side, with fluid Chinese writing, was not translated. The unfortunate miner went to his bush grave without his name.[5]  Both the miner’s right and the paper scrap were preserved in the coroner’s report. However the microfilm copy at the Queensland State Archives is very dark and difficult to discern. However, I am posting the image in the hope that someone can decipher the writing.

What else is known about the deceased? From the statement provided by boiling works owner, Thomas Robertson, who found the body, the deceased was well dressed but had only a sixpence and a penny in his pocket as well as a knife, tobacco and matches. The papers were folded in a small clasp purse. The deceased had jet black hair worn in a 20-inch plait.

As with the brothers Ah King and Ah Chong, death would have been slow, painful and required a deal of determination. While insanity was suggested as a possible motivator in the case of Ah King, it will never be known what drove the unknown miner to take the action he did.

Postscript: Thank you to everyone who offered translations. The consensus is that the name is Ah See with the date of 2nd month 5th day. The next step is to try and access the original miner’s right to see if a clearer digital image can be obtained.

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[1] See blog entry https://cemetrees.wordpress.com/2022/04/05/naming-the-dead-introducing-a-resource-for-researching-chinese-in-colonial-queensland/

[2] Valerie Lovejoy ‘Chinese in Late Nineteenth-Century Bendigo: Their local and translocal lives in ‘this strangers’ country’, Australian Historical Studies 42 no. 1 (2011), 57. Eleven hanged or strangled themselves, five took an opium overdose, two cut their throats, two drowned themselves and one method was not stated. Inquest deposition files, PROV, VPRS 24/P1.

[3] Sydney Morning Herald 29 August 1865:8.

[4] QSA Item 348625 no 108 of 1870 Inquest into Ah King and Ah Chong. E. S. Ross also contributed a detailed account of the events leading up to the double suicide to the editor of the Brisbane Courier which was reprinted by newspapers in three other colonies. Brisbane Courier 9 June 1870:2. These deaths were not registered by the Queensland Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages.

[5] QSA Item 348625 no 138 of 1870 Inquest into an unknown Chinese male.

Paying the undertakers’ bills – the role of Brisbane’s Chinese merchants

Way Hop’s warning to all. Queenslander 4 December 1880 p.732

If a Chinese person died where there was an undertaker in operation, the funeral organiser utilised their services in the same manner as the rest of the population. In fact, if it wasn’t for the distinctive names, a Chinese funeral can be indistinguishable in undertakers’ records from any other funeral of the same socio-economic class.

Undertakers’ records have survived for Brisbane since the mid-1870s. Although the coverage is not complete, a large enough sample has survived to make some observations about the consumption of funerary services by Brisbane’s Chinese community. Nineteen accounts dating from 1877 to 1887 from one operation were examined for this blog.

The records of William Walsh, the firm taken over by John and Kate Mary Smith in 1884, are available at the Genealogical Society of Queensland on microfilm.[1] Fortunately K. M. Smith was a far more detailed than W. Walsh when it came to writing up the accounts. She recorded the age, address of the deceased as well as the cause of death in many instances.  For example, in January 1887, 28-year-old Foy Hang drowned while rescuing a pig.[2]

A range of budgets are represented from the most basic paupers’ funerals with a plain coffin on a cart to lavish affairs with glass-sided hearses with plumes and mourning coaches. In all cases, a person was responsible for the payment of the account. In most cases in this sample, Way Hop, storekeeper of Albert Street, paid the account but occasionally, a friend put the cash down. Very few of the deceased had relatives to make the arrangements.

Deceased	Age	Funeral departed from	Date	Cost	Account paid by
Ah Fat	50		8 Jun 1877	£7/10/-	Way Hop, Grocer, Albert Street
Ah Pouie	34	Montague Road, South Brisbane	3 Aug 1877	£7/10/-	Way Hop or Ping Kee, Albert Street
Ah Chow	68	Bowen Bridge Road	2 Jun 1878	£8/-/-	Way Hop, Albert Street
Loong Sang	31		20 Mar 1879	£15/-/-	Way Hop, Albert Street
Way Foon	47		17 Oct 1879	£10/10/-	Charles Chen Toy, Gotha Street, Fortitude Valley AND Curator of Intestate Estates (balance)
Ching Ah Choie	40	Kelvin Grove Road near Enoggera Creek	24 Mar 1880	£9/10/-	Way Hop, Albert Street
Ah Pack	36	Kelvin Grove Road near Bancrofts	3 Dec 1880	£8/10/-	Way Hop, Albert Street
Ki Chee	49	Waterworks Road near bridge	28 Aug 1881	£9/-/-	Way Hop, Albert Street
Tung Chow	39	Elizabeth Street	1 Mar 1883	£9/10/-	Way Hop (paid same day)
Ah Sow	44	Corner Melbourne and Boundary Streets, South Brisbane	10 Dec 1883	£9/10/-	Mr Way Hop
Ah Chong	45	Corner of Albert and Elizabeth Streets	7 May 1884	£9/10/-	Way Hop & Co.
Ah Tong	24	From a mile off the Waterworks Road, past the bridge	30 May 1884	£10/-/-	Way Hop (paid same day)
Yen Qoy	28	From Hospital	24 Jan 1885	£9/10/-	Way Hop, Albert Street
Yung Pan	43	From next to Exchange Hotel, Albert Street	18 Mar 1885	£9/10/-	James Wing, Chinese friend, keeper of an eating house in Albert Street, opposite the Gympie Hotel, to put cash down
Ah Sang	40	From near Newmarket Hotel, Enoggera	25 Mar 1885	£10/-/-	Wai Sang Loong, Storekeeper, George Street
Ah Quong	20	From Way Hop’s Store, Albert Street	10 Aug 1885	£10/10/-	Way Hop & Co. Father’s name Teo Chin working for Way Hop as clerk
Ah Gow	27	From Hospital	12 Aug 1886	£9/10/-	Way Sum Lung, Storekeeper, George Street, to pay cash
Foy Hang	28	From Waterworks Road	23 Jan 1887	£11/11/-	Way Hop, Grocer, Albert Street AND Yin Wau
Ah Name	48	From Ferry Street, West End	26 Aug 1887	£5/15/-	Ah You, brother, to pay cash

Chinese entries extracted from the records of William Walsh and K. M. Smith 1877-1887. Microfilm held at Genealogical Society of Queensland.

So who was Way Hop?  He also went by the name of Henry Ah Too.[3] Born in Hong Kong around 1831, he arrived in New South Wales about 1865 before moving to Queensland. He was a foundation trustee of the Temple of the Holy Triad, Breakfast Creek and performed rituals at the opening in January 1886.[4] Around 1888, he met widow Sarah Robertson and together they had three children.  As he was naturalised in 1894,[5] Henry Ah Too can be found in the 1903 electoral roll as a storekeeper in Maryland Street, Stanthorpe.[6]  He died in Stanthorpe in July 1915 and was buried in the town’s cemetery.[7]

Way Hop first appeared in the Brisbane newspapers in January 1873 when he imported 25 cases, 2 bags of rice, 3 baskets and 4 bags.[8] This was only the start of a spate of imported goods arriving every second day or so. Six packages of crackers arrived the following week.[9] These would have been put to a number of purposes including funerals.[10]   

After Way Hop left for Stanthorpe, other Brisbane merchants took over the role of being responsible for payment of undertakers’ accounts. For example in January, 1901, Sin Chow, aged 55, died of a strangulated hernia. The £7/10/- account was paid for by Fat Kee & Co. in Albert Street.[11] Fat Kee took over the established business of Yuen Kin Kee & Co. Albert Street, in August 1886.[12]

This research is still in progress, with the next stage is to sample more undertakers’ records to see how long the practice of accounts being paid by local store keepers continued, and was it the norm in other towns.

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[1] K. M. Smith is still in business. For a brief history https://thecommunityleader.com.au/in-the-community/local-history/the-k-m-smith-story-who-was-kate-mary-farrell/ [accessed 4 May 2022] and https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/kate-mary-smith-her-life-and-legacy/id456564326?i=1000411455673 [accessed 4 May 2022]

[2] K.M. Smith Undertaker, accounts 23 January 1887. Microfilm. Genealogical Society of Queensland.

[3] Telegraph 31 January 1916:6

[4] Queenslander 30 January 1886:186

[5] QSA Item no 882275

[6] Commonwealth of Australia, State of Queensland, Division of Darling Downs, Polling Place of Stanthorpe. No. 1 of 1903.

[7] Queensland Death Certificate 1915/ C3652 Henry Ah Too. Certificate sighted.

[8] Brisbane Courier 18 January 1873:2

[9] Brisbane Courier 24 January 1873:4

[10] See Warwick Argus and Tenterfield Chronicle 28 September 1876:2 for a contemporary funeral description.

[11] K.M. Smith Undertaker, accounts 25 January 1901. Microfilm. Genealogical Society of Queensland.

[12]  Brisbane Courier 10 Aug 1886:8

Not at rest – Chinese burials at Toowong Cemetery

Allocation of portions at Brisbane General Cemetery as at February 1883. Microform copy held at the Genealogical Society of Queensland.

When the Brisbane General Cemetery at Toowong opened to all classes of burials on 5 July 1875, portions were allocated to religious denominations and other purposes.[1] The table illustrated above was glued inside the cover of the 1883 volume of the records of undertaking firm K.M. Smith.

The Church of England, Catholic and Hebrew (Jewish) portions are self-explanatory. The General portions are unconsecrated and were used by primarily protestant denominations such as Presbyterians, Methodists, Congregationalist, Baptists, Lutherans and so on. These are the non-conformist denominations described in cemetery literature from England. The Public ground was for the burial of those with no financial resources who were neither Church of England nor Catholic. The Brisbane Hospital had a burial contact with the cemetery Trustees and used Portion 2. Burials from the Brisbane Gaol were consigned to Portion 15.

Initially the Chinese were allocated portion 2. A section of portion 2 was split off and renamed 2A by April 1880. However, this allocation was moved to Portion 8 on 7 May 1884. This change was noted in the burial entry of Ah Chong in the records of K. M. Smith illustrated below. Ah Chong was the first interment in Portion 8 Section 23 Grave 1 (8-23-1). The funeral left the corner of Albert and Elizabeth Streets in Brisbane City at 11 am. Common with most other Chinese funerals of the period, Way Hop & Co. were responsible for the payment of the undertaker’s account. Ah Chong was exhumed and repatriated to China on 8 December 1890.[2]

Entry for Ah Chong in the register of K. M. Smith noting that he was the first burial in Portion 8. Microform copy held at the Genealogical Society of Queensland.

Exhumation of the Chinese was commonplace at Toowong Cemetery but unusually, not all were for the purpose of repatriation to China. Any Chinese burials remaining in Portions 2 and 2A after the changeover to Portion 8 were exhumed and re-interred in that portion by 1 November 1887.

Then on 8 December 1890, the Chinese were reallocated to Portion 19 which was located at the then back boundary of the Cemetery. Again internal exhumations occurred, with some burials being moved for the second time. Such was the fate of Ah Sing.[3] He was first buried in 2A-11-23 on 30 December 1882, then moved to grave 8-23-28 on 7 August 1886, again moved to portion 19 section 1 on 8 December 1890 before being exhumed for a third time for repatriation to China.

The first repatriations to China from Toowong Cemetery occurred on 5 September 1881 when nine bodies were exhumed.  As it was just over six years after the opening of the Cemetery to all burials, only two had been buried for five years. Some had been buried for less than two years. A further three were repatriated on 11 June 1884. From then, repatriations occurred on a semi-biennial basis until the mid-1930s. One of the last was that of 67 year-old Yee Hoon who died on 14 April 1931 and was repatriated on 12 April 1938. World War Two interrupted the practice and it was not resumed.  Those who now lie in Portion 19 are unlikely to have their rest interrupted.

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[1] Brisbane Courier 29 June 1875:1

[2] Brisbane General Cemetery Burial Register entry F788 Ah Chong

[3] Brisbane General Cemetery Burial Register entry E329 Ah Sing

Locating the Dead – reconstructing burial registers from death registrations

Cleared scrub around the bed of the Cape River with views to Mount Davenport. (R. Daintree, 1868) SLQ Negative number: 63419

Queensland had numerous transient towns usually associated with mining or railway construction. Many disappeared completely leaving only a few traces of infrastructure and a cemetery of mostly unmarked graves. In most cases, the burial register has also disappeared along with the population.

In Queensland, it is possible, to a certain extent, to reconstruct the burial registers of cemeteries in a particular registration district as well as identifying the location of burials outside of gazetted cemeteries. The methodology outlined below has been developed for jurisdictions with decentralised registration districts with a centralised annual consolidation of district registrations. However, there are ideas which may assist you with your own burial register reconstruction project. I have worked on a number of such projects but for the purpose of this blog post, I will examine the gold mining district of Cape River and its associated settlement of Capeville in North Queensland.

The Cape River goldfield was gazetted by Richard Daintree on 12 June 1867 and by the end of the year there was an estimated 1000 residents including about 100 Chinese.[1] William Richard Onslow Hill was appointed as registrar to the newly established district of Cape River in 1868. He was succeeded by the overly-named William Skelton Ewbank Melbourne Charters in 1872.[2]

The first thing you need to do is to find some anchor points, i.e. people known to have died in the registration area. If there are any surviving headstones, the monumental inscriptions are a good place to start. Look up these deaths to find the registration number.

Also look for deaths in the births, deaths and marriages columns in the newspapers on Trove from the National Library of Australia.[3] Using the advanced search page, enter the place you are searching for and select family notices. This will be far from a complete search as dozens of goldfield newspapers have not survived to the present time and/or have not been digitised. Also, very few people had a funeral notice as these newspapers generally were published weekly and most of the deceased were buried on the day they died or the day after. A death notice was more common or an in memoriam notice which started to appear from the late-1860s. However, the deaths of the majority of people were not routinely advertised until well into the 20^th century.

Start an excel spreadsheet and arrange the death registrations in numerical order.  In Queensland, these are the annual consolidated number. The next step is to find the local registration number. This may require the expenditure of real money on death certificates as these have both the local and consolidated registration numbers but there are ways to minimise this expense.

Go to your nearest public library and see if there is on-site access to Ancestry.com. Navigate through the search options to Public Member Trees. Enter the name of the place you are looking for in the death field. There is no need to know the name of the deceased. In the case of Cape River, 25 separate family trees were identified including the Ah Gee and Ah Pan families. Locate and add the death registrations for these deaths to your spreadsheet. Many Ancestry members upload death certificates into the Gallery section of their family tree. Check for these to see if there is a district registration number.  If so, this becomes your anchor entry. Add a new column to your spreadsheet adjacent to the registration number for the local number and rows on either side of the anchor entry.

Do not worry about the death dates being in exact order. Family and friends had a few weeks to register the death without penalty. In rural areas, most deaths were registered in writing. Deaths were allocated registration numbers in order of receipt by the local registrar.

Let’s work through this example.

William Ah Pang died aged 10 months of convulsions on 13 October 1868 and was buried at the then Cape River Burial Ground, indicating that the cemetery was yet to be formally gazetted. William’s cumulative death registration number is 1868/C0105. Significantly, on his death certificate, his local registration number was 6, meaning that his was the sixth death registered in the new district of Cape River. By searching backward by number from 1868/C0105, it is possible to reconstruct the first five entries in the death registry giving this result.

Annual Cumulative	Local Registration	Last name	First name(s)	Date Died
1868/C0100	1	Matthews	Sarah Ann	1868-07-19
1868/C0101	2	Murphy	James	1868-07-30
1868/C0102	3	Gormon	Richard	1868-08-04
1868/C0103	4	Ah Fung	Joseph	1868-08-30
1868/C0104	5	Trebble	Mary	1868-08-28
1868/C0105	6	Ah Pang	William	1868-10-13

Not all of these of these people would have necessarily been buried in the Cape River burial ground. The only way to determine this is to purchase the death certificates, but at least now, the names of the deceased are known. As there were usually five registrations to the page, with the purchase of the certificate of Sarah Ann Matthews, the details of everyone up to and including Mary Trebble will be known. Similarly, the purchase of William Ah Pang’s certificate gives the details of the next five deaths.

As the population growth prior to the 1870s was not yet exponential, I decided to purchase the certificate of 1869/C0104 Ah Chuck in the hope that his low 100 number would also be in the Cape River registration district. It was. His local registration number was 18. So working forward and backward from 1869/C0104, I was able to identify another 28 people who died in the same registration district for that year, including eleven Chinese.

The above methodology will not be complete as people who died before the Cape River district was established would have been registered in Townsville. These would be a small number. Stillborn babies were not registered at all. However, it will go a long way towards identifying those buried at a particular site with hopefully, one day,  a collective named plaque erected in their memory.

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[1] Hooper, C.  (2011) Angor to Zillmanton: stories of North Queensland’s deserted towns. Townsville pp8-11

[2] Queensland Government Gazette

[3] For more detail on searching newspapers on Trove see https://trove.nla.gov.au/help/searching/advanced-search/newspapers-and-gazettes-advanced-search

Detailing the Dead – Combining the Queensland Chinese Death Index with burial records

South Rockhampton Cemetery (1992) Heritage branch staff – State of Queensland: Queensland Heritage Register: CC BY 3.0

In my previous post, I detailed how I constructed the Queensland Chinese Death Index (QCDI) by using the Queensland Government Family history research service.[1] This time I will show the value of sorting death registrations geographically to facilitate matching with cemetery burial records.

One of the most common problems for descendants of Chinese in Queensland is finding the death and/or burial of their ancestor. Often all the descendants know is a name like Ah Sam and the date and place of birth of the last child of a couple. If a marriage was registered and the certificate obtained, it may be possible to work out the year of birth. There are at least 260 men named Ah Sam in the Queensland Chinese Death Index. By working forward from the date of birth of the last child, a number of these deaths can be eliminated from the enquiry.

The next step is to start searching in cemeteries in the same registration district as the last birth. Prior to 1915, district registrars collated an annual return of burials which was sent to Brisbane and consolidated into an annual index. Queensland death certificates have two numbers; the local registration number which is the sequential number from the commencement of a particular registration district and the annual number which is allocated centrally and is the number which appears on the online index. By sorting the QCDI by registration number instead of by name, all the death registrations in a particular registration district will clump together.

For example, the Cape River Gold fields (a tributary of the Burdekin River) were established in 1867.[2] A local Registrar of Births, Death and Marriages was appointed in 1868. In the following year eleven Chinese deaths were registered including that of thirty-year old Ah Chuck who was the eighteenth death registered in the new registration district in February 1869.

Cemetery burial registers should at least include the age of the deceased. Some like South Rockhampton Cemetery, included the occupation and cause of death. I added this data to corresponding death registrations in the QCDI. This additional data, especially age, will help distinguish between deceased of the same name and assist researchers decide who is most likely to be their ancestor and order the death certificate. This methodology should improve the odds in ordering the correct death certificate.

Some cemetery registers will indicate that the deceased was Chinese. Without this notation in the Cooktown Cemetery burial register index, it would have been impossible to link 28-year-old labourer Henry Apps with the death registration of Hinny Appo. Both the death and burial occurred on 15 January 1889 which would have been the usual practice at the height of a North Queensland summer. The death registration number for Hinny Appo is within the sequence of the other burials at the Cooktown Cemetery in January 1889.

The unfamiliarity of Chinese names and the ‘thumbnail dipped in tar’ hand writing quality of both local registrars and cemetery sextons has led to mistranscription by indexers. A death was registered as Ah Yuck (1879/C304) and buried as Ah Tuck at the Cooktown Cemetery on 5 January 1879. These two entries for the same person would not be too far apart in a consolidated index to pick up by eye. However, Fong and Tong would appear pages or even volumes apart. The death of Fong Too (1868/C0898) was registered on 13 March 1868. The registration number placed the death in the Rockhampton Registration District. A burial of a Tong Too was found for the next day at the South Rockhampton Cemetery.

Traditionally family history records have been indexed by surname with a lesser emphasis on geographical location and date. In the case of Chinese family history, the name can be highly variable with the family name and given names often transposed or a nick name used. Names such as Ah Sam (often written with the character for the number 3) will not help family historians trace their family back to China. The actual name of Mary Watson’s servant Ah Sam, who perished with her in the Lizard Island incident in October 1881, was Chow Gee Kut. Ah Sam was his “Cooktown name.”[3]

I suggest that great emphasises be placed on geographical location and date over name to identify the dead.

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[1] Queensland Government Family history research service. http://www.familyhistory.bdm.qld.gov.au/

[2] Brisbane Courier 6 August 1867:3

[3] Morning Bulletin 24 March 1882:2