Graves marked to honour Chinese history

A RESTORATION effort aimed at recognising Chinese goldminers buried at the Buninyong Cemetery was unveiled over the weekend after a year of effort.

All 25 graves belonging to Chinese migrants, many of whom came to the region in the 1850s and 1860s, have each been marked with a stone plinth and a plaque identifying their names, homes, and burial dates.

With 14 of the graves previously unmarked, Buninyong Cemetery Trust chair Barry Fitzgerald said the initiative was about giving recognition to those buried.

“Previously there was no recognition of the gravesites apart from a couple old stones loosely grouped together,” he said.

“There’s now a stone and a plaque for each of the roughly 15 graves with about 25 miners there. It’s changed a slopy area of long grass to quite a dignified area.”

The restoration was unveiled on Saturday morning and included a presentation from the Lions Club of Melbourne Chinese’s Paul Lai, and Charles Zhang of the Chinese Australian Cultural Society Ballarat, who were involved with the effort.

The project was supported with about $20,000 between Community Bank Buninyong, the Lions Club of Buninyong Mount Helen, and the Lions Club of Melbourne Chinese.

Mr Fitzgerald said the restoration is something of an acknowledgement of the harsh treatment directed towards Chinese migrants during the gold rush.

“In 1855 the State Government whacked a 10-pound tax on any Chinese coming into Victoria,” he said.

“As the Chinese were coming out by ship from Southern China, they’d instead disembark in Robe in South Australia and walked the 450-odd kilometres to Ballarat, Buninyong, and elsewhere.

“It was an amazing effort for them to even get here and then they’d be herded into cam0p separate from the other miners.

“There was quite a bit of discrimination so this is a gesture recognising their role in the community.”