- page -
http://www.cdu.edu.au/cdupress
Go Back >> List of Entries
family together, and in the next 12-year period 11 more children were born—Thomas, Edward, Leslie, Elsie, Fred,
Lim, Maizie, William, Kathleen, May and Lily. By 1902, the Kwong children totalled 16.
Despite the rugged conditions of the remote Northern Territory, Kwong prospered well, purchasing rental
properties and at least five large gold mining leases. This wealth appeared to be a target for derision, and a court
case in 1889 revealed a clear attempt to frame him for embezzlement of a stolen cheque. He embarked on several
projects, including an experiment in the processing of opium, for which he built a solidly secured building of
stone in Cavenagh Street. The opium experiment was unsuccessful, and in 1894, Kwong sold his share of the
building. This series of five stores survived three major cyclones and a bombing raid, and was later known as the
‘Stonehouses’ or the ‘Sue Wah Chin’ building. In 1894, he bought two large gold mining leases at Union and Lady
Alice reefs, but the production from these fields would soon begin to wane.
In January 1897, a tropical cyclone damaged much of the town, including Kwong’s properties. (After the
storm, his third wife gave birth to his sixth son, Lim, and the family often referred to him as the ‘cyclone baby’).
His first wife had difficulty in adjusting to such a harsh and foreign land and in 1898 Kwong travelled with her, and
their four children, for a brief visit to Canton. Unfortunately, all except Kwong chose to remain in China—never to
return to Australia. During this trip to China, in 1899, Kwong met and married his fourth wife (Wong Kwei Far),
who had come to Canton from Beijing (Peking) to visit her former mistress. He returned with her to Palmerston.
The cyclone of 1897 and the dwindling economy of the Territory had left Kwong Sue Duk in a poor financial
state. He sought relief in the growing economy of the Cairns region (North Queensland) and in late 1902 arrived
alone in Cairns. He was given a two-storey building to live in, rent-free, by a man who still owed him 3 500 Pounds.
The man then gave Kwong additional money so he could send for his families, and in time wives two, three and
four and all their children arrived in Cairns by ship.
The family set up a store and business under the name of Kwong Sue Duk Kee, next to the Sze Yap temple
in Sachs Street, Cairns, where he sold mostly Chinese goods. In the back of the store, he had an office where he
dispensed herbal remedies for such common ailments as indigestion, colds, and other minor complaints. Displaying
their faith and respect for him, patients, both Chinese and European, called him ‘Dr Kwong’. Whilst in Cairns, five
more children, Harry, Annie, Maud, Victor and Kong Won were born to his third and fourth wives, but Kong Won
died at an early age. Kwong wanted to compensate for this loss and later adopted Lawrence and his sister, Violet.
Kwong Sue Duk’s family were from the Sze Yap (‘Four Districts’) region of Guangdong, and this group
of Chinese lived in the southeastern segment of the Cairns Chinatown, whilst people from the ‘Chong Shan
Districts’ who were more numerous lived in Sachs Street at the other end of the enclave. The Chinese community
in Cairns earned some acceptance and respect from the European population and Kwong Sue Duk in particular
was well thought of by both the European and Chinese communities and he acted as consul for his countrymen.
European-Chinese race relations in Cairns, since well before this period, appeared unusually good compared
with the southern centres, and seemed to largely revolve around the mutual economic dependence that quickly
developed between the two groups.
For the Kwong descendants, networks and relationships with a number of Chinese families developed across
northern Queensland as the children of Kwong Sue Duk began to marry and start their own families. Traditional
Chinese wedding ceremonies for his daughters were a curiosity to Europeans at the time. However, Kwong Sue
Duk had other plans for his sons, and as they began to reach marriageable age, he looked to China to select suitable
wives for them. In late 1907, the whole family (except two married daughters) boarded a ship for Hong Kong.
In 1909, Ida, the youngest of the 24 children, was born in Hong Kong. She and another sister, Annie, are the two
surviving members of his original immediate family today.
Kwong Sue Duk returned to settle in Townsville, Queensland in 1910. In 1913 most of the family followed, as
they felt more at home in Australia and Kwong established another successful Chinese herbal medicine practice
in Little Flinders Street.
In 1917, Kwong was now 64 years of age, and another major move was made. He was selective about whom
his growing daughters should marry, and to find more eligible bachelors he looked to Melbourne, the thriving
capital of Victoria, where a large Chinese population existed. His second wife remained in northern Queensland
where most of her children were now married and working, and Kwong Sue Duk took wives three and four and the
younger children to Melbourne. The Chung Wah Society found temporary lodgings for them and eventually the
family moved into a three-storey building at 296 Russell Street. Kwong Sue Duk continued his herbal medicine
practice in Melbourne and country Victoria, including the townships of Ballarat and Bendigo.
Whilst Kwong and most of his family now considered themselves essentially Australian, some of his offspring
began their own interesting lives abroad. In 1914, number six son, Lim (the Darwin cyclone child) went on to
Columbia and Harvard Universities. He joined China’s diplomatic service and was soon posted as Chinese Consul
General to the Philippines, and then San Francisco. Later, as bank president, he was instrumental in converting
the Bank of Canton to an internationally significant company. In 1925 Kwong’s youngest son, Victor, followed his
brother’s footsteps to Harvard University. He served as Second Secretary to the Chinese Embassy in Washington
and San Francisco, then many years with the United Nations General Assembly.
Whilst the children were establishing their own lives, wives two, three and four moved to stay with them, and
Kwong Sue Duk also travelled to visit them all. In 1925, and at 72 years old, he visited Lim in Shanghai, then third
wife and family in Hong Kong. In 1927, he returned to Melbourne to visit sons and daughters and their families,
then retired to live in Townsville, where many of his eldest children lived. He continued with his herbal medicine
practice from Townsville but on 17 February 1929, after a short illness, he died at the age of 76.
For a ‘man of Family’, this peaceful end to life, amongst his many children and grandchildren, was consummate.
They remember him for his quiet, fair, but strict discipline at home where he taught by example the personal and