​I am  currently having a brief sojourn in Alice Springs and realised that whenever I come to the NT I become lost in stories of the past.  For context I was born in Alice and spent my early childhood here but we moved to Darwin where we lived until I was fifteen.   As with all stories of the past, you pull on a thread and realise that the ball of yarn is  so much bigger than you thought. 

 Yesterday I took the dog for a walk to the local IGA and found an array of bags of salty plums.     This plummeted me back into  a beloved childhood ritual of buying salty plums from Sue Wah Chin in Darwin, a place steeped in nostalgia. This led me to look into who Sue Wah Chin was and before long I was unravelling a big ball of curiosity wool into the origins of the fascinating Chinese population in Darwin.  They were incredibly hard working, resilient and   managed to thrive in very hostile conditions, both   in the environment and the European population.
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A very brief background to the  arrival of the Chinese people in Darwin
In the 1870s the South Australian Government, (which also governed the Northern Territory). recruited Chinese people to work on the goldfields and later the building of the railway from Palmerston (later renamed Darwin) to Pine Creek.   Government sponsored agents in Singapore, Hong Kong and Guangdong province in China to organised indentured contracts to bring labour out.     In 1874 an initial group of  186  Chinese labourers arrived from Singapor but  the numbers swelled over the following years and in 1878 alone 900 Chinese arrived from Hong Kong.  By 1888 there were  7,000 Chinese living in the Northern Territory compared to 1500 Europeans.

The majority of the Chinese who settled in Darwin occupied an area around Cavanagh/Bennett/Smith Streets, known as Chinatown.  It was a thriving hub for about forty years with herbalists, cafes, general stores and boarding houses.    

While Chinatown was not without it's problems, attitudes to the Chinese population varied were largely   racist and disparaging  of   their culture, lifestyle and community. Its really horrifying to read the  ugly words written at that time. As in the  article below.

Chinatown was under immense pressure from the early 1900s but the full demise came with World War 2 and the bombing of Darwin by the Japanese, followed by looting and  vandalism by  military and local officials.  Many Chinese were evacuated and relocated in Southern cities.   The final death knell came with the Land Acquisition Act of 1945 in which   21 hectares of Chinese-owned land in the city center was acquired,  preventing the re-establishment  any Chinese community on that site.  However the community did recover and now makes about 6% of modern Darwin's population.

Amazingly one row of  five shops, built in 1888, survivied all of the upheaval  over the decades and still stands today.  This brings us to  Sue Wah Chin , her salty plums and her  drapery shop which inhabited  one of these stores.  

The stores, known as the StoneHouses, were built by  Kwong Sue  Duk who was also known as Sun Mow Loong (his business name).  His story is interesting but I won't delve too  deeply here.  There is a lot of available information about him.     Below are two photos of  him and his family and a   small notation I found making fun of his  large family.  I believe he actually had 24 children in total from four wives.  He was a very successful entrepeneur;  owning five mining leases, several Chinese herbalist  practices and many rental properties.  He was also an opium merchant.   The tenancy at the far left of the building was fortified to protect the opium held there at Kwong Sue Duk's distribution centre. 

The beautiful building was known as the  old stonehouses and is a single storey building divided into five commercial premises. Each shopfront has an identical pattern of openings with a central door and a window each side. The building is an important representation of a time in the development of the Northern Territory that saw the establishment and expansion of the Chinese population as a significant component of the Darwin community. It has close associations with the well-known Chin family, who owned the building from 1921 until 2008. It became known as the Sue Wah Chin Building.  Following Cyclone Tracy, the badly damaged hipped roofs were replaced with a flat roof. 

I loved going into Sue Wah Chins.  It was cool and dimly lit  and a refuge from the  glaring heat outside.   My mother would buy my father's professional outfits there and yes Men in Darwin in the late 60s and 70s wore tight shorts, polyester shirts and long socks.  Oh and groovy ties.  Hilarious!   Sue Wah Chin Menswear sold all  the items to complete the professional look.  The walls were lined with wooden shelves that held stacks of  clothing in cellophane bags.   There was a long wooden counter and on that counter were  big glass jars with salty plums; white, red and brown ; football plums and sweet plums.   My favourite were the white plums.

So who was Sue Wah Chin?  She was born in Guaongdong province in China on 21st July 1900.  Her father was a business man and Sue Wah was supported to finish school and train as a teacher.  Following her education she entered into an arranged marriage with  Chin Ack Sam in China in 1920.   Chin Ack Sam was the third son of a wealthy Darwin tailor, Chin Toy.   Sue Wah became a seamstress supporting the  family business.    In 1949 after surviving a shipwreck en reute to China,  WW2 and the evacuation to Adelaide during the  bombing of Darwin she  established a Chinese restaurant in one of the old stone houses and soon after she  built her  menswear business.  Sue also had a family of eleven children.   What a woman!

Becoming a solicitor in the 1950s.  

University wasn't part of our vernacular growing up.   There was no university in Darwin where we lived and no mention by my parents of  such a place.  It was only when we moved to Sydney and I commenced year 10 that it came up.  I'd hear girls at school referring to  plans for various degrees at university.   It took me a while to get what university meant.

As a young woman   in my early twenties, I frequented Victoria Park swimming pool with my young daughter.  The old buildings of Sydney University  abutted the pool.  They were imposing  and unfriendly and reminded me of the Darwin Cathedral where we'd attend Mass on Sundays.   I didn' t imagine a place for me there.    Although  university was free at the time, it seemed beyond my reach.

Three out of six children in my  family did  wind up at university and obtain degrees but it was a circuitous route.  Certainly for me.  In my thirties, after eight years,   I  finally got a BA Soc .  A couple of years later I went on and did an MSW as well as accumulating various diplomas and other certificates along the way.  Perhaps trying to  prove something to myself, and my parents. My father specifically.

Over more recent  years I have wondered about the university  question . No one I knew in Darwin went  onto university so  it wasn't on our radar.  Mum was a very intelligent woman but any aspirations were frustrated by caring for six kids and thwarted by mental illness. Dad was  a   Queens Counsel  (and Solicitor General for a time).  Did he not want us to succeed at academia?   He certainly never played any part in our schooling  and in our family there was only room for one brilliant alpha male.    All that aside I eventually realised that Dad in fact never went to University and I believe there was some shame about that.  

In the 1950s and 60s, becoming a lawyer in Australia without a university degree was possible through the articles of clerkship system,  an apprenticeship model. Aspiring lawyers worked as articled clerks in private firms while studying for legal practitioners' board exams, allowing them to gain practical training alongside their studies.

Following  is  a detailed first person  account of my father's legal   journey.  Reading it again I am struck by his humour, and his determination to keep purueing  the law.   (Later on he did tell me he had really wanted to be a journalist.)

"My father talked me into starting a career in law.  I became articled to the Dairy Farmers’ solicitor and bound to him as an articled law clerk for 5 years.  I have heard it said that it might have been better for me to have sought a university degree, although 5 years assisting solicitors was clearly educative.  Some said the system was designed to give solicitors a source of cheap labour.  Whether or not that was the design, it does seem to have been the result.
 
I signed up in 1952, being paid a weekly wage of thirty shillings which, in due course leaped to two pounds.  My academic object was to obtain a diploma from the Solicitors’ Admission Board which would then entitle me to admission as a solicitor.  The Board then did very little to assist aspiring law clerks.  There were no lectures or tutorials  (At least none to which I was invited).  One advantage in the system was you could sit for examinations an indefinite number of times, which was just as well for me because it took me 8 years instead of the usual 5.  The activities of the Solicitors’ Admission Board seemed to be largely distributing university lecture notes and providing a small rather arid man in a black Alpaca jacket who told me from time to time why I had failed.  Of necessity, one had to find a tutor who had more than a passing knowledge of law.
 
But I did make some friends at the bar in those years, which enured to my advantage in later years.  My memory is a bit fuzzy around the edges but as I recall life as an articled clerk I was permanently overdrawn in the petty cash and drank quite a deal of beer.  So did a few others.  A well-known Sydney solicitor fixed a notice to the front of the Supreme Court in King Street, stating something like this:

          “wanted, articled law clerk
           ability to pass licensed premises an advantage”

Licensed premises were many, and less elegant than the present abode of investment bankers and stock brokers.  Gone are the Australia, the Metropole, the Carlton, the Surry and Claude Fays (Hornsby), to name a few.
 
In about 1953 I moved to Muswellbrook where I received a liveable weekly wage of twenty pounds from a local solicitor; my articles followed. Unfortunately it was not a successful union and after four months we parted with mutual relief.
 
My articles and I then went to Katoomba to a more convivial firm.  I had to work harder, having married and produced a son.  Eventually I managed to pass the necessary examinations.  My technique in absorbing the material necessary for a pass was to buy Dexedrine by the handful, over the pharmacy counter.  I then moved into the flat of another hopeful, 48 hours before the exam, and stayed awake.  We went through as many past exam results as we could find.  In the end it worked.  Dexedrine is now available only on prescription; it is something of a miracle that article clerks survived the rigours of the Solicitors’ Admission Board examinations.  I do not advise the use of Dexedrine. 

PEARD

The surname Peard   is primarily of English origin, likely developing as a variant of  Peart  with a voiced final "-d". Peart can come from a nickname meaning 'lively' or 'bold', or a habitational name from the city of Perth.  Some sources suggest it could also be a locational name, stemming from the Old English word "pere" for pear tree, and given to individuals who lived near pear orchards. 


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​BUTLER

English and Norman origin: 
The name comes from the Old French butuiller
 (or Norman French butuiller), which evolved from
the Latin buticula for "bottle"
Occupational:
It originally identified someone who was in charge of the wine
​cellar or was a chief servant in a medieval household. 
Social status: 
Over time, the title came to denote a position of
high responsibility, and the surname was adopted by
those who held or were descended from the
​position, regardless of their specific duties.

MORRIS

The Morris surname origin is varied, but is mostly believed to originate in the British Isles (where it is the 32nd most common name in England and Wales and has been found in the border between these countries as early as the Norman Conquest of 1066). Morris is thought to most often be a patronymic name, referring to the personal name 'Maurice' in England and Scotland, or 'Meurig' in Wales. The surname Morris can also sometimes be derived from someone who lived on the moors. In English-speaking countries it can also be seen as an anglicisation of the German name 'Moritz'.
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​PENFOLD

The name's core meaning relates to an enclosure or pen for livestock, a
common feature in medieval communities.
It is an English surname with early records appearing in Sussex and
Oxfordshire around the 13th century.

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​As an aside,  original outside taps can often help to indicate the year a house was built, particularly in NSW.  They were usually inscribed with the year they were manufactured  and  approved by the Metropolitan Water Sewerage & Drainage Board (MWSB). The side or the curved part of the tap is usually where you can find the stamped year.

​Do you want to know more about your house?  There is a plethora of  material available and local councils are a wonderful resource.  Trove is a wonderful place to start.  I have found so many fabulous tid bits about houses my ancestors have lived in.  It can really bring the house and its inhabitants to life.  Typing the address into Trove is a good starting point.  Also a good facebook group to join, 'Our old house'.

Here are some links:

https://trove.nla.gov.au/

www.library.gov.au/learn/adults/lifelong-learning/how-trace-history-your-house

www.facebook.com/groups/1706748102970911/posts/3401609216818116/

TENTERFIELD
Was originally  inhabited by the     Jukumbal* people, (also known as Yukumbal), as well as the Bundjalung and Kamilaroi people.    Tenterfield was known as Moombilleen, often noted as meaning 'place of wild honey.'  However  there is also reference to the word Moom meaning death and billeen meaning small creek, which could have referred to the existing creek, dry in Summer and flowing in Winter. 

*I want to acknowledge the  dark history of brutality, massacre and the decimation of culture of the traditional owners of the  region.  As is the history of most Australian towns and regions.  I will write more about this in the future and  will endeavour to bring   a  truth telling light to the history  of all the  places my ancestors settled. 

The first premier of NSW , Sir Stewart Alexander Donaldson,  (along with Sir Robert Ramsay Mackenzie), established a property  in Tenterfield  running around 18,000 sheep on 100,1000 acres.  He named the property, Tenterfield Park'  after his aunt's property in Scotland.   

A tenterfield refers to a Scottish practice of using a field to  hang sheep fleece to stretch and dry on    tenters; frames with hooks.  ​

​PARRAMATTA
Parramatta's name comes from the Dharug word Burramatta or Baramada, which is commonly translated as "place where the eels lie down" or "head of waters". This name reflects the area's significance as a meeting and gathering place for the traditional Burramattagal clan of the  Dharug people who relied on the rich food sources from the Parramatta River, particularly eels.







​LISMORE
Many  pastoral stations were established and licensed in the  were granted     in the early 1840s in the lower reaches of the Richmond River.   In 1843  an attempt was made by Captain Dumaresq to establish a station with 23,000 sheep   on the Northern arm of the Richmond.   The subtropical climate was  problematic for grazing and the property was sold to William and Jane Wilxon in 1845.  They named it Lismore,   after a small island in Loch Linnhe in the Scottish highlands.  In 1855 a surveyor  was ordered to determine a suitable site for a township at the confluence of the Wilson and Richmond Rivers. The site chosen  was Wilson’s homestead paddock and this site was proclaimed the Town of Lismore in the Government Gazette on 1 May 1856.

The  traditional owners of Lismore are the  Widjabul/Wia-bal people, who are part of the larger Bundjalung nation. The Bundjalung nation's traditional lands stretch from the Clarence River in the south to the Logan River in Queensland.      The Widjabul/Wia-bal are the specific group of the Bundjalung nation reported to have inhabited the Lismore region.