Arthur Kong
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A well-dressed and well-groomed NAA SP42/1C1937/435 |
Arthur Kong arrived in Australia in 1878 as a 10-year-old boy.
He lived in North Sydney for 37 of the next 39 years. It is possible he was the Ah Kong who was noted in Council's property ledgers residing at market gardens in Cammeray from 1894 to 1897 (Explore Records).
We do know that Arthur Kong ran a grocer's shop at 301 Lane Cove Road from 1898 to 1905. He probably lived upstairs. Kong appears to have had a second shop at 9 Willoughby Road from 1900 to 1901. Crows Nest was beginning to attract Chinese retailers at that time. In 1902, Kong was defrauded of 'a quantity of groceries' by one Robert Howard, who was sentenced to one month's imprisonment with hard labour. Whether that unhappy event had anything to do with the retailer leaving Willoughby Road and concentrating on his Lane Cove Road shop is unclear. He stayed there for another three years.
In 1907 Kong returned to Willoughby Road, to a shop at No. 80-82. He remained there until 1911. Willoughby Road, formerly North Sydney Road, was by then the preferred precinct for Chinese shopkeepers (Explore Records). In 1911, Kong was found guilty of using inaccurate scales. Whether this was intentional is unclear, but he was fined one pound six shillings. Significantly, fellow merchant Harry Fleishing attested to Kong being a 'most honourable and straightforward man' in the latter's application to leave Australia in 1917.
Kong left Crows Nest shortly after his brush with the law and set up shop at No. 360-362 Military Road, Neutral Bay. That was the main thoroughfare connecting North Sydney to Mosman. New shops were being built along the newly-installed tram line. Like Willoughby Road it was a good place to do business as the population grew dramatically. Kong remained there until 1916 when the only address noted for him is residential - 'Dalkeith' 42 Merlin Street, Neutral Bay. He may have had an interest in a business at 92 Oxford Street, Darlinghurst, in 1917, while still living in Merlin Street.
Kong departed for China that year and stayed until 1923. He probably married while overseas, as documents relating to a second trip in 1936 list him as 'married' and there is no mention of Kong's wife in the documents accompanying his return in 1923. It had become increasingly difficult for Chinese wives to join their husbands in Australia after 1905. By the 1930s, Kong had opened a shop in Parramatta, in Sydney's west, where there was a thriving Chinese retail community. His second visit to China, in 1936, was made presumably to see the wife he had left behind. Arthur lost his immigration papers while there but was permitted to return to Australia in 1937. He was fortunate, for Japan invaded China in July that year. More than 10 million Chinese people were killed and murdered during the ensuing war and occupation. The fate of Arthur's wife is unclear. By 1949, when he was living in Queensland and applying for registration as a resident alien, Kong's marital status was 'widower'. It would seem that, having left China in 1937, Arthur never saw his wife again.