'Johnny Alloo ... of Ballarat Notoriety' - Chinese-Australian Pioneer Restauranteur, Interpreter, Police Informer, Political Activist, 1844-1868
Author(s): John Smyth
Synopsis of the Book
‘Johnny Alloo of Ballarat notoriety’: Chinese-Australian pioneer restauranteur, interpreter, police informer, political activist, 1844-1868,
by John Smyth, published by Golden Land Publishing House (Xin Jin Shan Chinese Library Inc., Ballarat), 2024
This book seeks to correct a grievous wrong—the erasure of the Chinese contribution to the history of Ballarat and colonial Australia.
The Chinese were a quarter of the population of Ballarat at the peak of the gold rush in 1858, but until recently, Chinese history was largely confined to two places in Ballarat—both of them in cemeteries.
What this groundbreaking book does— the first in a proposed series by the Xin Jin Shan Chinese Library— is to look at this largely neglected aspect of Ballarat’s colonial history though the colourful life of one of the first Chinese to come to Australia almost a decade before the discovery of gold, and who set up his first eating house and butchery in 1852 on the Eureka Lead, Ballarat, and a year later, the first Chinese restaurant in Australia on Main Road, immortalized in the lithograph of Samuel Thomas Gill.
This is a story of an incredible Chinese-Australian, an orphan—John Alloo (aka Chin Thun Lok)— from a peasant background in Canton, with no formal education beyond the English he learned in a mission school in Hong Kong, and how he became the patriarch of a dynasty of lawyers, now into their sixth generation in New Zealand.
It is a story about hope, and what is possible, even when the key figure gets caught up in all manner of nasty twists and turns that were among some of the darkest moments in the history of colonial Victoria in the 1850s.
Product Information
About the Author
John Smyth is Emeritus Research Professor, Federation University Australia. He is a fourth generation Ballaratarian—both his children were also born here, so the family goes back five generations in Ballarat. His great-grandfather arrived in 1859.
John went to kindergarten, primary and secondary school in Ballarat before going to Melbourne University where he studied economic history, and wrote a history of the Imperial Quartz Mining Company, Hiscocks, near Buninyong, under the supervision of Professor Geoffrey Blainey.
While at Monash University doing his Diploma in Education, John furthered his interest in history, by writing a history of the Ballarat Agricultural High school—interviewing 93 year old Mrs Refshauge, wife of the first head master.
After 5 years as a high school teacher, John moved into higher education and has been a full professor in universities all of the world for the past 40 years—this is his 52nd year of working in universities.
John is the first Emeritus Professor appointed by Federation University (in 2015), is a fellow of the prestigious Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, was a Senior Fulbright Research Scholar, and is the author/editor of over forty books.
In retirement, John has brought his skills and training as a sociologist to bear, in researching the history of Main Road Ballarat, building on Weston Bate’s Lucky City: the first generation at Ballarat 1851-1901.
General Fields
- :
- : Golden Land Publishing House
- : 10 May 2024
- : books
Special Fields
- : John Smyth
- : Paperback
- : English
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