- page -
http://www.cdu.edu.au/cdupress
Go Back >> List of Entries
the end of the war. Unlike many Darwin Chinese families which split up after the war with family members
going to live in other capital cities, the Chins returned to Darwin to re-establish the family business. Despite the
devastation of Darwin due to the Japanese air raids and Australian military activity in the town, Sun Cheong Loong
and Company had suffered minimal damage. Consequently Chin Gong was able to resume business at his former
premises.
In 1947 Chin Gong extended his business by establishing a new store in Smith Street—W G Chin and Sons.
With business expanding at such a rate in the boom years after the war, Chin Gong decided to form a company with
his family, to be known as W G Chin Holdings Pry Ltd. This Company was expanded even further in later years
with the building of Chin Building (1956), Chin’s Arcade (1959) and Chin House (1963). Chin Gong lived long,
dying in 1982. His sons were still active in the family business in the early 1990s.
Family information.
S HUTCHINGS, Vol 1.
GOODHART, ANNA MARIA WOIDE: see WATERS, ANNA MARIA WOIDE
GORDON, CHRISTINA nee WALLACE (1863–1952), pioneer bush woman, miner, publican and business-
woman, was born Christina Wallace on Christmas Day 1863, possibly in Bristol, England. She came to Australia
as a child and by about 1887 had met and married Duncan Gordon, a Queensland teamster and prospector.
Duncan and his twin John were born on 28 October 1858 at Castle Douglas, Scotland, and came to Australia with
their parents, James Gordon and his wife Elisabeth, nee Wallet. Their father James was a brother of John Gordon,
after whom the town of Gordonvale in Queensland was named. It is not known when or why Christina’s family
came to Australia, or where Christina lived as a young girl, but the Gordon brothers were quite well known
teamsters in the early days of Cooktown and later at Gympie and Port Douglas and it is presumed that she met and
married Duncan during this time. According to press and oral history reports, Duncan’s brother John accompanied
Christina and Duncan throughout their married life. The family spent many years travelling overland across
northern Australia.
Like many women of her time, Christina had her share of sorrow and hardship during her childbearing years.
Her first child, Duncan, was born in Queensland in 1890 or 1891; a second son, John, was born in Queensland in
1894; and a third son, Wallace, believed to have had a twin brother who died, was born on the Western Australian
goldfields near Broad Arrow in 1897. John also died as a young boy. It seems that the family stayed in the Biloela
area of Central Queensland for some time.
The family made at least two, and probably more, overland trips to Western Australia in the 1890s and the
early 1900s, which almost certainly took them through parts of the Territory. Christina was reported in the press
at the time to be ‘as good a miner as any man handling pick and cradle with the best of them.’ An article in the
Perth Sun Times in July 1910 referred to her as a ‘plucky woman’, adding that, ‘There is only one white woman
on the field and that is Mrs Gordon who pioneered at Hannans before it was Kalgoorlie and has overlanded
with hubby to this back of beyond.’ In later life she had many tales to tell of Paddy Hannan and the other early
Western Australian mining identities and once described her early lifestyle, which helped establish her pioneering
reputation in the Northern Territory later on: ‘For the first few years of my married life I had no home and not a
stick of furniture. Our home was wherever we pitched camp. We lived in tents and if we had a camp bed to lie in
at night we counted ourselves lucky. We travelled in drays, with bullocks and donkeys, but no matter where we
were there was not a night that went by without fresh bread being baked. And when we got on, I was never without
a crate of hens to give us eggs, or a side of bacon to sweeten a kangaroo’s tail or a cooked galah. Our next step in
homemaking was a bough hut and a more comfortable place to live in you couldn’t find. We still didn’t have any
furniture; what was the use of it when we were shifting camp so often. And we were comfortable enough and as
happy as the day was long.’
As well as prospecting, the family reportedly went to northwest Australia for a while where Christina and
Duncan helped to build about 58 kilometres of a dingo and rabbit proof fence. When the Tanami gold rush occurred
in about 1908 to 1910, the family took its horse, buggies and belongings and headed off via Halls Creek for the
fields. It reportedly made a substantial profit working the alluvial although family members suffered hardships of
inadequate water and fever. At one time, during a seven-day stay without water, Christina and the family survived
on the milk of one of their camels who was nursing a young calf.
A Northern Territory Times and Gazette article later detailed the story and paid tribute to Christina’s part in it:
‘The dawn of the Tanami Goldfields and the extraordinary exploit of Mrs Gordon, the only white woman to visit
the place. When the discovery was announced, Mr Gordon and his brother, John, with the former’s wife and two
children, were at the Fitzroy Crossing in West Australia where ordinary bush work occupied their attention. As soon
as the news of the gold filtered through they determined to take on the big adventure and succeeded in crossing
the long stretch of poorly watered country without mishap. The Aboriginals they met had contact for the first time
with whites but helped the party to find water and assisted them in other ways. The same natives subsequently
became hostile and caused serious trouble to other travellers. On reaching the field the Gordons whose arrival was
subsequently succeeded by three or four hundred bush battlers set to work in the quest for gold, and averaged up
to 283 grams a day for some time. Other pioneers were not so fortunate and the population dwindled until the place
was deserted except for the brothers Lawrie who have plugged along there for the past 15 years. Mrs Gordon stood
by... during the whole of their stay there and helped to make history for the brave women of Australia.’
Christina’s period on the Tanami earned her a respect that stayed with her all her life and the title of ‘Mother
of the Tanami’.