An Investigation of the Late Qing Establishment of the Chinese Consulate General in Australia and the 'Thomas Jones Chia Shooting Case'

Abstract

After repeated requests from Australian-Chinese residents, the waning Qing government finally sent off her first Consul General to Australia in 1909; yet by 1913 the post was already thrice shuffled. The present article begins by investigating how well the late Qing government understood this remote continent in the southern hemisphere, and the reasons behind the Consul General resignations. The latter part of the article focuses on the 'Thomas Jones Chia shooting case'. A translator of the Chinese Consulate General in Melbourne, Chia arrived in Australia before the 1911 Revolution, and after meeting the local actress Eunice Camille Russell in 1912, he immediately fell in love with her. They got married the following year, but the marriage came to an abrupt end shortly after Chia shot the Chinese Consul General in his office on 11 March, 1913. The article attempts to disclose the relation between the educated Chinese and the white Australian, and to reconstruct their middle-class lifestyle in the early twentieth century.

本文旨要探索晚清政府對僻處南半球澳大利亞的認識程度，並研究 何以在1909至1913年間中國駐澳使館三易總領事。 此外，通過對前使館通譯 謝德怡鎗擊總領事黃榮良一案，窺探當時在“白澳政策”下的華洋問題，並 在資料蒐集及爬梳過程中，重組當時中產知識階層的生活概況。