Restricted Business

George Fong On in China
Ernest Fong On, Grace Fong On, 1999
John Fong On (front) and his wife Violet, 1999
John Fong with his wife Violet outside the Atherton temple (Hou Wang Miau)

George Fong On was part of the Chinese generation who arrived in Australia after the gold rushes of the 1850s to 1870s, but before the Immigration Restriction Act 1901. In 1867, at the age of 16, he came to Australia from the Chung Shan Province of Kwang Dong, China. He began work on a cattle station at Pine Creek, Darwin. He also worked as a stevedore, ran a butcher’s shop and owned a mixed haberdashery and grocery store. Here, in 1902, he married Siu Chai Hee and had two daughters, Maude and Alice.

In 1901 George Fong On and Siu Chai Hee were part of the class of people in the new Commonwealth who became non-citizen residents – Chinese people who had been ‘domiciled’ in Australia prior to Federation. George had been granted a Certificate of Exemption from the Immigration Restriction Act, 1888, in 1899. Now, if they wished to travel to China and return, they had to apply for a form of ‘re-entry’ permit: the Certificate of Exemption from the Dictation Test. This test prohibited entry into Australia of:

Any person who, when asked to do so by an officer, fails to write out at dictation and sign in the presence of an officer, a passage of fifty words in any prescribed language.

In 1907, when Fong On and Siu Chai Hee with their two Australian-born daughters moved to Atherton, Queensland, handprints were taken to establish their identities.

In Atherton’s Chinatown they opened a mixed business and Grace, Ernest and John Fong On were born. In 1926, Fong On wanted to buy land in Atherton. As ‘domiciles’, or non-citizen residents, he and Siu Chai Hee were unable to own land in Australia. A quarter-acre allotment on Main Street, Atherton, was purchased in the name of their 22-year-old, Australian-born daughter Maude. Later that year, the Fong On Store, the first concrete building in Atherton, was built on the land.

The family provided services and goods to the Atherton community until the 1980s. John Fong On is currently the custodian of the Atherton Temple (Hou Wang Miau) constructed in Chinatown 1902-3.