By Juanita Kwok 20 October 2025 Part of frieze – Carved scene with three sheep – at McCrossin’s Mill. Photo by Juanita Kwok Historians generally date the arrival of the Yee Hing in Australia to the gold rushes which began in Australia in 1851. There is some evidence, however, that an earlier, affiliated society, the Sheathed Sword Society may have been brought to NSW by Chinese indentured labourers prior to the gold rushes. The earliest Chinese people to come to Australia in large numbers were contract labourers who were brought to work in New South Wales from the port of Amoy in Fujian, the province where the secret society known as the Hung League or Yee Hing originated. Amoy was one of the treaty ports opened up for trade by the British after the First Opium War (1839-1842) and the port in which British agents such as Tait & Co. established the labour trade.   Under this trade, men voluntarily...Read More