Lambing Flat Riots and Chinese Petitions

The Lambing Flat riots were a series of riots between 1860 and 1861, in which European miners violently drove Chinese miners and storekeepers from the Burrangong gold field. Lambing Flat, renamed Young in May 1861, was a part of this field, as was Sawpit Gully and Back Creek. The Chinese miners campaigned the New South Wales government for compensation for losses sustained in the riots. Two petitions — one addressed to the Governor and another to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly — have survived in two files in the Museums of History New South Wales State Archive Collection. The Lambing Flat petitions provide an account of the Lambing Flat riots from the perspective of the Chinese people who were driven from the fields and a list of some of their names, written in English and in Chinese. Museums of History New South Wales — State Archive Collection have kindly granted permission for petitions from the correspondence to be reproduced on this website.

The Our Chinese Past team sincerely hopes sharing the petitions might assist family history researchers seeking to establish if their ancestor was at Lambing Flat.

Su San Ling Doh’s petition – Lambing Flat Riot Chinese petition

The first of the Lambing Flat Chinese petitions, dated 12 March 1861, was hand-written in English by Su San Ling Doh. He did not write his name in Chinese on the petition. The petition states in part:

On the 22^nd day of December 1860 I went to Lambing Flat I went to the Commissioner and asked him if Chinamen would be allowed to dig on those diggings and he said “yes”, I had a miner’s right from the snowy river and accordingly I comenced [sic] work on the 25^th January … The Europeans posted notices on the diggings stating on the 27^th if the Chinamen would not clear out by that date they would drive them away. I asked the Europeans for three days to remove my goods bought at Walkers store in Braidwood and partly not paid for: which they would not grant me I then asked for one day and was refused On the 27 I was drove off with the rest of my countrymen I asked a policeman to look after my goods. Early on the 28 I went onto the diggings again I found about 20 or 30 Europeans and one woman by my tent my goods all gone and my tent burning. My goods amounted in value to 300 (Three Hundred Pounds sterling) …^[1]

NRS-7933-5-3671_64-1666LambingFlat -64-65 Download

Museums of History New South Wales – State Archives Collection: Department of Lands; NRS 7933, Letters received [Department of Lands and Public Works/Department of Lands I]. NRS-7933 [5/3671] NRS-7933-1-[5/3671]-5/3671-64/1666 is the Lambing Flat portion of this file. NSW State Archives – NRS-7933-1-[5/3671]-5/3671-64/1666

Su San Ling Doh wrote that his brother, interpreter Simon San Ling, and Simon’s wife and children, remained on the diggings, where they were ‘totally unprovided for’. Su San Ling Doh pointed out clearly that he had a licence to be on the field, and expected but did not receive the protection of the law.^[2]

Su San Ling Doh’s petition to the Governor was presented to the Legislative Assembly by Henry Parkes on 14 March 1861.^[3] His petition, and the petitions of others resulted in the appointment in May 1861 of Boorowa magistrate, William Campbell, as Special Commissioner to consider the compensation claims. Despite requests that the Commission be conducted in Bathurst or Sydney, claimants had to return to Lambing Flat to submit their claims in person. Before the claimants could meet with Campbell, the largest of the Lambing Flat riots took place when Chinese were violently driven from the diggings at Sawpit Gully and Back Creek on 30 June 1861.

Simon San Ling – Lambing Flat Riot Chinese petition

Su San Ling Doh’s brother, Simon San Ling, was with his wife and three children at Back Creek on 30 June 1861. A petition written by Simon San Ling, presented to the Legislative Assembly on 3 September 1861 and published in the Sydney Morning Herald, on 4 September 1861, gives his first-hand account of the riot. It reads in part:

… about thirteen or fourteen hundred persons assembled … with firearms and other weapons … without provocation … drove your petitioner, his wife and family with violence from their tent, and destroyed the same and other property with fire. That in making an attempt to escape your petitioner was pursued by two of the persons aforesaid on horseback and by several of the persons aforesaid on foot, by whom, or by some of whom, your petitioner was beaten with sticks, knocked down and wounded in his person …^[4]

Simon San Ling wrote that he had no queue (braided plait) to cut off, but he was robbed of banknotes and nuggets, his losses totalling £100. He stated that the police did nothing to prevent or intervene in the riots:

…no endeavours to the knowledge of your petitioner were made by the police or by any of the authorities on the spot to or in the neighbourhood to prevent the outrages aforesaid or to apprehend any of the parties concerned therein …

‘Aggressions on Chinese’ Report

On 20 May 1862 William Campbell delivered his official report, ‘Aggressions on Chinese’.^[5] The report dealt firstly with three claims relating to the riots in January and February 1861, amounting in total to £6339. Campbell questioned Su San Ling Doh’s claim, and concluded that under all the circumstances it was very doubtful if the claimant sustained any loss on the occasion referred to, ‘but if he did, it could not have exceeded the value of his tent.’ Campbell dismissed all three claims relating to the early riots.

Campbell separately assessed the list of claims lodged by Chinese claimants for compensation for losses sustained at Sawpit Gully and Back Creek on 30 June 1861. In total, 1568 individuals claimed losses totalling £40,623/9/8 sterling, ‘being £20,083 for gold and notes, £4917 for opium; £2129 for store-goods; £13,492 for tents, clothing, goods’. Of the 1568 individual claimants, Campbell recognised only 706 as genuine.

Campbell approved compensation to a value of £4240/-/8, making deduction for depreciation. Thus, barely ten percent of the total £40,623/9/8 sterling amount claimed was awarded. A separate list (List A), of the names of 318 of the 706 approved claimants (some represented a party of which not all members were named), the particulars of approved claims, and the amount agreed to be compensated, was appended to the Report. The names are English transliterations of Chinese names and there are no Chinese characters accompanying them.

Payment of compensation awarded

Long delays ensued before any compensation was paid. On 7 August 1862, the 1862-3 Budget, which listed the sum of £4,240 in compensation to Chinese for losses sustained by them during the Burrangong riots, was presented to the Legislative Assembly.^[6] Due to the absence of claimants and lengthy correspondence over the best method of identifying those who had been awarded compensation, it was over a year later before a schedule of approved claimants was published in the Government Gazette. Claimants were advised to attend in person at Young and to identify themselves for compensation, from the week beginning 21 September 1863.^[7]

Those who made the journey to receive payment in September 1863 were disappointed. Campbell arrived at Young on the planned date to assist Commissioner Clark to identify the claimants and pay compensation money, but the requested translations failed to arrive and Campbell left to attend the inquest of a bushranger killed near Boorowa. The claimants were informed that they could not be paid and that another date would be fixed for payment.^[8] The Government Gazette published a notice from the Department of Lands, dated 9 October 1863, advising of the postponement of payments and advertising a new date. Personal applications were now to be made to the Assistant Commissioner at Young between 1st and 15th December 1863.^[9] Campbell wrote to the Under Secretary for Lands on 23 October acknowledging receipt of communication, advising him of the new date and stating that he would endeavour to be present to assist Commissioner Clarke.^[10] There is no correspondence on file which shows how many of the claimants made it to Young within the prescribed time, were identified and received payment in December 1863.

However, in March 1864, 94 persons, representing parties of Chinese miners who had been driven from Back Creek on 30 June 1861, gathered at Tuena (on the Abercrombie River, between Bathurst and Goulburn). There they signed a petition which stated that they been awarded compensation and had gone to Young in 1863 to receive payment, but had arrived too late and had not been paid. The petitioners, who had come from the Snowy River, the Gulph, [Nerrigundah, near Bodalla on the NSW south coast], the Macquarie [River in Bathurst] and Rocky River [Uralla] stated:

… we formerly resided at Back Creek Lambing Flat and were driven away therefrom by the Riots that took place at Burrangong on the 30^th day of June 1861: – that all the property we possessed there at that time was destroyed by the rioters. Statements of our losses were placed in the hands of William D. Campbell Esquire, Magistrate of Burrowa, who after transmitting the same to the Government of the Colony, certain monies were afterwards awarded to us, as compensation for our losses. That when information reached us that we were to receive our compensation at Young, we went there, but owing to the great distances we had to travel, and not having the means wherewith to purchase horses, we had necessarily to perform the journey on foot, that on our arrival at Young we were told by the commissioner that we were too late and that he could not pay us the same which we expected to receive on this account …^[11]

NRS-7933-5-3673_64-2663LambingFlat-1_Pages 5-7_low Download

Museums of History New South Wales – State Archives Collection: Department of Lands; NRS 7933, Letters received [Department of Lands and Public Works/Department of Lands I]. NRS-7933-1-[5/3673]-64/2663 | Lambing Flat riots petition, 1864.

The petitioners stated that they had engaged the services of Mr James McCullock [sic] Henley, Anglo-Chinese linguist to present the address, “he having witnessed the destruction of our property, and knowing our condition better than any other person we know of.” The petition was unsuccessful. On the back of the petition is written:

The government having taken all reasonable steps to have this matter satisfactorily settled having reason to believe that several of these signatures are by parties endeavouring to personate the original applicants, I do not think this is advisable to reopen the matter.^[12]

It is also noted in red pen on the back of the document that Mr Henley received the response on 25 May 1864 and with this the case thus drew to a close. In January 1864, Campbell submitted his own invoice of £105 for services rendered as Commissioner, following up with a reminder in March.^[13] His invoice was approved for payment from the consolidated fund appropriation by the Legislative Assembly;^[14] this ended the correspondence.

This post is based on the journal article, “The Lambing Flat Riots and the Chinese Quest for Compensation”, by Juanita Kwok, published in the Journal of Australasian Mining History, Vol, 20, October 2022. Juanita Kwok was awarded the Max Kelly Award 2022 by the History Council of NSW for this article. The full article can be read by following this link

https://www.mininghistory.asn.au/wp-content/uploads/6-KwokV20.pdf

Museums of History New South Wales — State Archive Collection have kindly granted permission for petitions from the correspondence to be reproduced on this website.

To read more about the Lambing Flat riots, visit the Young Historical Museum’s blogsite, Museum in Young and visit the Young Historical Museum site.

[1] Museums of History New South Wales – State Archives Collection: Department of Lands; NRS 7933, Letters received [Department of Lands and Public Works/Department of Lands I]. NRS-7933-1-[5/3671]| Lands Department Letters received – Letter No. 61/787, 1861.

[2] MHNSW – StAC: NRS-7933-1-[5/3671]-64/1623 | Lands Department Letters received – Letter No. 61/787, 1861.

[3] Colonial Parliament NSW, Sydney Morning Herald, 15 March 1861, p. 3, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/13054154

[4] Petition of Simon San Ling, SMH, 4 September 1861, p.4, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/13067050

[5] Aggressions on Chinese Report, Votes and Proceedings of the Legislative Assembly, 1862, Vol. 4, Sydney, Government Printer, pp. 9-27.

[6] “Legislative Assembly”, SMH, 8 August 1862, p. 2, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/13232468

[7] NSW Government Gazette, 4 September 1863, No 171, pp. 1969-1970.

[8] Campbell to Under Secretary, 28 September 1863, NRS 7933, [5/3671], 63/5803; Cloete to Under Secretary for Lands, 28 September 1863, NRS 7933, [5/3671],63/5803.

[9] NSW Government Gazette, 16 October 1863, no. 197, p. 2207.

[10] Campbell to Under Secretary, 23 October 1863, NRS 7933, [5/3671], 63/6363.

[11] Museums of History New South Wales – State Archives Collection:
Department of Lands; NRS 7933, Letters received [Department of Lands and
Public Works/Department of Lands I]. NRS-7933-1-[5/3673]-64/2663 |
Lambing Flat riots petition, 1864 NRS-7933-1-[5/3673]-64/2663

[12] MHNSW – StAC: NRS-7933-1-[5/3673]-64/2663 | Lambing Flat riots petition, 1864.

[13] Campbell to Under Secretary, NRS 7933, [5/3671], 64/743; 64/1666.

[14] Supplement to the Government Gazette, no. 88, 26 April 1864.

Lambing Flat Riots and Chinese Petitions

Su San Ling Doh’s petition – Lambing Flat Riot Chinese petition

Simon San Ling – Lambing Flat Riot Chinese petition

‘Aggressions on Chinese’ Report

Payment of compensation awarded

Further Reading

Archival sources

Contemporary accounts

Secondary Literature