Sam Hicks
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Sam Hicks' photograph which SP42/1, C1905/4317 |
Sam Hicks came to Australia from Canton.
He was a young man of 18 or 19 upon arrival in 1894. In the course of the following decade, Hicks worked as a cabinet maker which, along with gardening and shopkeeping, was a common occupation for Chinese men away from the goldfields. Possibly he came with joinery skills.
In 1903, Hicks returned to China for two years to visit his mother. To have any hope of returning to Australia, he had to prove his long-standing residence in the country. Sam did so, in part, by declaring his assets and interest in 'the Commonwealth' on his application for a Certificate of Domicile. Accordingly, we know that he owned a horse and cart and a greengrocer's business worth about £100. The latter had been bought from his uncle, Sam Williams, who also ran a shop on Lane Cove Road (Explore Records). Uncle Sam may have minded his nephew's shop in the younger man's absence.
The application also contained a reference from the local North Sydney police which noted that Sam had a 'good name' and had only been in Sydney for the last 10 months of the nine years he had spent in NSW.
And what of that name 'Sam Hicks'? It was almost certainly an adopted moniker. That it sounds like 'See Yip', the name of four counties southwest of Guangdong from where Hicks probably came, may be more than coincidental. Was 'Sam Hicks' a name given by a westerner in response to hearing See Yip?
It was not unusual for Chinese men to use western Christian names. Sam, Louie, Willie and Harry were among the more common. Sam Hicks, however, apparently changed his whole name, much as his uncle had probably done. Curiously, for one year in the Council ledgers, 'Sam' Hicks became 'Samuel'. Perhaps the shopkeeper took to introducing himself in that way to his landlord who, in turn, fronted the clerk to provide the details of his property and tenant. Possibly the clerk himself formalised Sam's name in his careful script without having met the man, assuming that Sam Hicks was one of the Anglo-Celtic majority. Westernising one's name may have been a strategy for minimising the harassment and bureaucracy that afflicted the local lives of Chinese men. Possibly it was also a way of fitting in, of integrating. Allen Lowe Linobviously called himself simply Allen Lowe for that is how his name appears in Council's ledgers in the 1920s. In one of those entries a clerk has written 'Chinese' beside the name so that Lowe's ethnicity should be known. We can only guess at the relevance of the annotation. Sam's listing in the 1904 edition of Sands Directory – the foremost guide to Sydney's residential and commercial addresses – was simply 'Hicks S., fruiterer' of 176 Blues Point Road.
In light of his probable name change, it is interesting to consider Sam's appearance. The Customs photograph that accompanies his Certificate of Domicile shows a man with the remains of a traditional Qing dynasty hairstyle of the period. The characteristic cropped fringe contrasts with the longer hair behind. Missing is the queue or pigtail, so much a feature of Chinese hairstyles and the subject of racist depiction and harassment.
Hicks shared the small block between Victoria and Mitchell Streets with 'Albon A.E., bootmaker'. A little farther along was another fruiterer, Charles Bowtell. His business was part of a retail precinct which included butchers and grocers. Willington and Son's large grocery store had been a landmark on the corner of Blues Point Road and King George Street since the 1870s. The presence of other outlets, if not other fruiterers, was a benefit in those pre-supermarket, pre-automobile times - for the shopper could buy much of what was needed within a few blocks. The butcher might attract customers who would also drop in to see Sam Hicks for oranges, lemons or bananas. It was not quite 'one-stop shopping' but there was convenience in such a congregation.
One can only wonder at the nature of the competition between the grocers and the choices made by their customers. Did Hicks overcome prejudice by providing the low-cost produce for which the Chinese were renowned?