The Young Historical Museum has 36 Chinese coins found on the Burrangong goldfield. We don’t know exactly where or when they were found, but they are similar to three coins found during excavations at Young High School in 2019-22.

Historians Nicholas Guoth and Paul Macgregor have proven that Chinese coins were not used as currency on Australian goldfields.

Chinese miners instead used gold dust and British currency to purchase goods in the Australian colonies and to import goods from China and other countries.

They spent most of their earnings in the colonies. Rather, these coins were used for gambling and/ or talismanic purposes.

Talismans are objects that are thought to have magic powers and bring good luck.

According to the obverse side of the coins in the Museum’s collection, they all date to the reigns of the Five Emperors (Wu Di) which are known from Chinese sources as being used as good fortune charms.

Most date to the reign of Kangxi (1662-1723), as pictured here on the left, and were used as talismans to bring about a “peaceful, prosperous” endeavour.

This accords with what historian Michael Williams describes as the desire for these Chinese miners to return home to the village “with glory” - that is having successfully earnt enough money overseas to return home with wealth and gifts.

These returns could be temporary or permanent.

The petitions for compensation put by various Chinese men attacked during the Lambing Flat riots in 1860-61 to the NSW government, demonstrate the desire for peace and prosperity and the desire to return to the home village ‘with glory’.

For example, Hu Foo and Kylong state that ‘the Government licences issued to and paid for by your Petitioners, whether as miners or store keepers, entitled them… not only to the quiet enjoyment of personal security, personal liberty, and the right to the peaceable possession of personal property, but also (to some extent) to a temporary interest in the soil; and that so great an imperfection cannot exist in the British law as not to provide for violence and outrage committed against such recognised rights, one of the principal maxims of the British Constitution being “that there is no injury without a remedy.”’

The Chinese were not the only people who came to Burrangong with the intention to return home after making money on the goldfields, and some were amongst those that stayed.

Simon Sanling, for an example, married an Irish born wife, Marcella, and they had three Australian-born children.

The text on the reverse of each coin (right side in the photo) is in Manchu and records the mint at which the coin was made.

Karen Schamberger - Young Historical Society