by Juanita Kwok McCrossins Mill Museum is located in Uralla, the closest town to the historic Rocky River goldfield. The Museum is housed in a three storey flour mill, built in 1870 for John McCrossin, son of Sam McCrossin, one of the earliest settlers on Anaiwan land. The flour mill was purchased by members of the Uralla Historical Society in 1979, painstakingly restored as a museum, gallery and function centre and opened to the public in 1982. McCrossin’s Mill Museum has a collection of Chinese artefacts recognised as being of national significance. Michael van Leeuwen first curated an exhibition titled “New Gold Mountain – Chinese at Rocky River” in 1982. Chinese artefacts from the Tingha joss house were purchased by the Society in 1983. The display was revamped in 2000 by Kent Mayo and Anne Hacker, and there has been ongoing commitment to collection, preservation, display and interpretation. In 2018, the Society published a booklet written by Dr Michael Williams which contextualises the New Gold...Read More
by Gill Oxley The stories of Tingha’s Chinese heritage and of the great tin boom from the 1870s to the early 1930s are encapsulated within Wing Hing Long Museum located at 10 Ruby Street Tingha. Situated on land purchased in 1881 by Ah Lin, a storekeeper from Inverell, the Wing Hing Long store was built by Chen Quin Jack in or about 1883. As a general store, it served the town of Tingha and the surrounding tin mining communities for more than a century. The business changed hands through a succession of Chinese Australian owners, from Ah Lin in the early 1880s until its acquisition by Guyra Shire Council in 1988 for community management as a store museum. In 1918 herbalist Jack Joe (J.J.) Lowe, became the fifth successive Chinese Australian owner of the property. J.J. Lowe owned and managed the store until 1939 when it was transferred to his eldest son, Edgar Lowe. In 1951 J.J. Lowe’s daughter, Mavis...Read More
by Gill Oxley Inverell Pioneer Village is located on the southern edge of Inverell at 64 Tingha Road within the Pioneer Village Heritage Conservation Area. Established in 1955, Inverell Pioneer Village aims to provide a window into early pioneering lifestyles and the district’s farming and mining histories. It comprises a collection of restored historic buildings from Inverell and district which have been relocated to the Pioneer Village to conserve them and to allow access to them by the community and visitors to the area. Among these, is the original homestead building, The Grove, built on Tiengha Run by the Darby family in 1840. We now know from New South Wales birth, death and marriage records that Chinese shepherds, and later Chinese tin miners, lived and worked at The Grove, sometimes with their European wives and their children. Within the diverse range of authentic local historic buildings that have been moved to the Pioneer Village is the former village hall from...Read More
by Gill Oxley Emmaville Mining Museum is located at 86 Moore Street Emmaville, some 40 kilometres north northwest of Glen Innes. The township of Emmaville was initially known as “Vegetable Creek” due to the large number of market gardens established on the creek flats to provide fresh food for the mining population of the area during the first tin boom. Many of the tin miners were Chinese, as were many of the market gardeners. The museum opened on June 26, 1999 and, although auspiced by Glen Innes Severn Council, is entirely volunteer managed and operated. It occupies the premises of the former Foley’s General Store, but was housed for a time in the premises of the Curnow family bakery which served the township for many decades until its closure in 1969. Today the museum houses not only a world class collection of beautiful local and international mineral specimens, but also showcases records, photographs and artefacts relating to the area’s rich...Read More
