15. Observations of a China Consul

Dundas Crawford was sent to the Australian colonies at a time when the Colony of Queensland was concerned as thousands of Chinese goldseekers were arriving at Cooktown and walking inland to the Palmer River goldfields. This was in 1877 and the report of his observations of Chinese activity in Queensland, NSW and Victoria was duly sent to the Foreign Office. The report makes fascinating reading. It is not only a rare example of a wide-ranging investigation with many interesting comments but even rarer, it is written in a, for the times, objective and sensible manner. Despite this the Crawford report remains an underutilised resource. Historians have done what they all too often do with interesting material, plunder it for a quote or statistic relevant to their specific task and then leave the remains to languish in a footnote. It was in a footnote I found the Crawford report many years ago and intrigued I tracked it down in the copy of the voluminous British Foreign Office files kept in the National Library of Australia.  For the published article see: Michael Williams, ‘Observations of a China Consul’, Locality, Vol. 11, no.2, 2000, pp. 24-31. For the report of Crawford itself see: Great Britain, Foreign Office Confidential Prints: No.3742, Notes by Mr. Crawford on Chinese Immigration in the Australian Colonies, J. Dundas Crawford, 1 September 1877.  Please check out our publications at - https://chidestudypresscom.wordpress.com/the-bookstore Feel free to ask questions at: [email protected]