Hi Sew Hoy Family! Welcome to the Reunion. Before we begin, please take the time to read some factual information about Choie Sew Hoy and his immediate family before attending the reunion or starting the walking tour (please scroll down). This will ensure a baseline level of knowledge when attending the reunion itself.
For Saturday, the intention of this tour is to take you on a journey of Dunedin, with a focus on landmarks important to Choie Sew Hoy. We want you to be able to actually visit and see the important locations related to Choie Sew Hoy, and give you some history of his arrival in both a simple and memorable way.
A very special thank you to Trevor/Jenny Agnew, who graciously supplied this website with a very comprehensive amount of time and detail. Without their help, the walking tour would not be in the complete form it is today.
Corner of Cumberland & Dundas Street (See picture below), on the side farthest from the clubhouse.
Bring:
Comfortable warm layers of walking clothing, shoes and socks. Dunedin gets cold.
Waterproof Jacket (if wet)
Reunion Umbrella
A convenient walking carry bag for snacks provided
Alternative Indoor meeting point if raining heavily:
Castle Street Lecture Theatre One, 9am (Beside Otago Uni Main Library)
Parking (if required):
Anywhere in the area, parked the whole day.
Getting Back:
Buses will be provided at tour end back to City/North Ground (3.45pm), and at designated points along to North Dunedin.
Provided:
Bottled drinking water, snacks, lunch.
Introductory Pre Reading Begins - Choie Sew Hoy Key Facts Pay attention to the key dates of Choie Sew Hoy, especially between the dates of 1868 - 1901 as he was in NZ.
Birthplace: Sha Kong, Upper Panyu District, 20 kilometres north of Guangzhou
Birth Year: Approx 1838
First Departed China: 1851 (to California, aged approx 13)
Year he arrived in NZ/Dunedin: 1868/69, aged approx 30/31. Note about 150 years ago, hence the reunion!!!!
Year he was naturalized in NZ (became an NZ citizen) : 1873 (5 years after his arrival to NZ) Date of Death (age): 22nd July, 1901, (aged approx 63)
Info Sources: Wikipedia, Sew Hoy Family Tree book / Dr James Ng
Below: A Photo of Choie Sew Hoy in the 1880's (Source: Wikipedia)
Where was he from? Below: Choie Sew Hoy came from the Upper Poon Yue, an area in the Guangdong Province (just North of Guangzhou) where a majority of the Chinese Goldminers in the 1860's came from. The below map shows the city of Guangzhou, Southern China, the largest city in the provence of Guangzhou - the provence where most of the emigration was from.
Below: A map of China, and Guangzhou
Why were the Chinese leaving their homelands?
James Ng in “Windows on a Chinese Past” (Vol. 1 p.87) describes the area of Guangdong Province (Map 1) prior to 1840 as having been a rich and famous province in Imperial China, renowned for educational academies, and exquisite crafts and artisans skilled in carving weaving, metal-ware, glass, paintings and furniture production. The city of Guangzhou, located on the Pearl River, had been a major South China port for centuries exporting Chinese goods including tea and silk and importing foreign goods.
The Cantonese had a stable, developed society and a high sense of culture. What happened that changed all this?
The First Opium War (1839-1842) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_first_opium_war The Red Turban Rebellion (1854-1856) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Turban_Rebellion The Second Opium War (1856-1860) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Opium_War
Natural disasters included a drought in 1847, and disastrous floods in 1852. Guangzhou had severe economic recession in 1853 as a result of the wars and the opening of other trading ports in China especially Shanghai. Extreme poverty, and crumbling government were to generate large-scale emigration from the 1860s. These people are now regarded today as part of the greater Chinese Diaspora that comprises an estimated 50 million ethnic Chinese living outside China.
Choie Sew Hoy went to California first in 1851, then Victoria in the later 1850's, then made the move over to New Zealand in 1868.
The Immediate Family Tree of Choie Sew Hoy
Choie Sew Hoy had two wives, having married once before his arrival to NZ, and marrying a second time during his stay in NZ
Choie Sew Hoy's First Marriage, Young Soy May:
Married in the 1850's when Choie Sew Hoy would have been less than 16 years old. She stayed in China and relatively little is known of her. They had four children together:
1. Kum Yok, M, 1855-1932 2. Kum Poy, M, 1868-1942 3. Chay May, F, (18xx - 19xx), exact dates unknown 4. Chay Ho, F, (18xx - 19xx), exact dates unknown
Choie Sew Hoy's Second Marriage, Eliza Ann Prescott (1869-1909):
While in New Zealand, Choie Sew Hoy married (defacto) Eliza Ann Prescott, who had originally worked for him as a young English secretary. Of note, Eliza Ann Prescott was zero when Choie Sew Hoy arrived to NZ (1869), and there was a 31 year age gap between the pair.
Canton Villa is where Choie Sew Hoy and Eliza (Prescott) lived from 1885 to his death in 1901 and hers in 1909. Their two children, Violet and Henry, were born there. (Source: Hocken Library / Dr James Ng).
Choie Sew Hoy Family Tree - Pictorially
Choie Sew Hoy's Six Children:
1. Kum Yok (1855-1932):
Choie Sew Hoy's & Soy Yong May's eldest son.
Kum Yok was 14 when Choie Sew Hoy left from Victoria to New Zealand, in 1868
Stayed in Guangzhou with his mother originally, but arrived in NZ four years after Choie Sew Hoy in 1873, aged 18.
Helped the NZ business, but 24 years later in 1897, he departed back to Guangzhou to run the Chinese side of the Sew Hoy business (Cheong On).
Was a shareholder of the Sew Hoy Big Beach dredging company alongside his father.
He had 3 wives and 12 children. Approx 75% of the Sew Hoy online family tree reside under him (811 of 1079 total descendants)
2. Kum Poy (1868-1942):
Choie Sew Hoy's & Soy Yong May's second eldest son
Kum Poy was only 1 when Choie Sew Hoy departed to New Zealand in 1869
He arrived in NZ in 1884, at the age of 19, worked with his father, and stayed on in NZ until his death in 1942 aged 74.
He was a shareholder of the Nokomai Sluicing Company with his father, and ran it after his fathers death in 1901.
He had 2 wives and 10 children. Approx 18% of the family tree reside under him (197 descendants of 1079)
You will visit his house later and obtain more detail about him then.
3. Choy Chay May (18xx-19xx) 4. Choie Chay Ho (18xx-19xx)
Choie Sew Hoy and Soy May's third and forth children, unfortunately more information needs to be found out about these two daughters.
Choie Chay May was Choie Sew Hoy’s eldest daughter, born in Sha Kong. She married Mr. Chu and had one son. Choie Chay Howas Choie Sew Hoy’s second daughter, born in Sha Kong. She married Mr. Kong, had two sons
Source: Sew Hoy Family Tree Book.
5. Violet / Kum Fun (Phoenix) (1892-1972):
Eliza's first child, and Choie Sew Hoy's fifth, born 1892, Violet was only 9 when Choie Sew Hoy passed away.
On her birth certificate, she was known as 'Violet Eliza Camelia Tri Me' Sew Hoy', - Tri Me meaning 'Beautiful'.
Violet attended St Hilda's College, an Anglican private school in Dunedin where she became Dux.
She was an accomplished piano player, passing Trinity,Royal Academy of Music, and Royal College of Music exams
In 1911, aged 19, Violet married John Trengrove, a hotelkeeper, part-owner of a butchery,Trengrove & Barton Butchers.
Decades later, Sew Hoy family descendants on Stafford Street would purchase pork belly to make "Lap Cheong" Chinese Sausages from the Barton Butchers (Trengrove had sold his stake by then).
Violet and John divorced in 1922, and Violet remarried again in 1923 to Maitland Hoggan. Maitland abandoned her about 1928/29 and Violet raised her children. She lived to approx 80 years old, and had 4 children in total.
Approx 4% of the family tree come from Violet (42 of 1079 total descendants from the online and outdated tree)
Source: Trevor Agnew (G32, P28), providing information from Jenny Fright (G31, P83)
6. Henry William / Kum Long (Golden Dragon) (1895-1972):
Eliza's second child, and Choie Sew Hoy's sixth, born 1895, Henry was only 6 when Choie Sew Hoy passed away.
A keen cricketer and played for Albion in Dunedin, then Queenstown Cricket Club, where he eventually was elected Vice-President
Worked as a boundary rider, "a person employed to maintain the outer fences of a cattle or sheep station", in Southern Australia for 7 years. So he may have been in Australia during the 1908-1915 period.
20 Oct 1915, WWI: Attestation Form puts Trooper Henry William Sew Hoy in D Squadron, 9th Mounted Rifles, Enlisted Total service was 287 days. Character: Good. Discharged as Medically Unfit, 2 Aug 1916 at Trentham.
He married Gladys Logan Dunlop on 28 Nov 1917 in Queenstown, and had 4 children.
In 1944 he was a Queenstown Borough Councillor, topped the poll, so became deputy Mayor of Queenstown
In 1966, he granted his water rights in Bushey Creek and Five-Mile Creek to Queenstown, so that to this day the people of Queenstown drink Sew Hoy water
Approx 3% of the family tree come from Henry (29 of 1079 total descendants from the online and outdated tree)
Source: Trevor Agnew (G32, P28), Family Tree Book
Choie Sew Hoy's Passing
Below: An Obituary of Choie Sew Hoy
1901 (Jul) Otago Daily Times, 23 July 1901, page 4.
“The death of Mr Charles Sew Hoy, perhaps the best-known of Dunedin’s Chinese citizens, occurred rather suddenly yesterday at the age of 64 years. It is understood that the cause of death was heart disease, which had troubled him about 12 months previously. Mr Sew Hoy came from Canton, and as a young man went to San Francisco. He emigrated to Victoria in the fifties, where he started business. In New Zealand he turned to mining, and was largely interested in the development of the Otago goldfields. He was the principal shareholder in the Sew Hoy Big Beach Mining Company, the striking returns from which led to the first dredging boom in Otago. Of late years, he was concerned in the Nokomai hydraulic sluicing venture, the success of which is well known. He was a busy and enterprising merchant, having his store in Dunedin as far back as 1869. About 16 years ago he was initiated into the secrets of Masonry, joining the St. John's Kilwinning Lodge. Mr S. S. Myers was the officiating brother at the ceremony. The late Mr Sew Hoy took an interest in public affairs and in the welfare of his countrymen. As everyone knows, his name invariably figured on subscription lists for public functions and charitable purposes. He leaves a widow and a numerous family.”
Walking Tour Map, 1869: Finally, this is an 1869 map of where you will be walking today (the same year as Choie Sew Hoy arrived). The harbour has now been pushed back, it was originally only two streets from Princess Street, and the rear of the Chinese Gardens would have been touching the wharf.
Bus transport will be provided for the sections in Blue.