Palmer River Goldfield Joss House Sites帕默河金矿区华人庙宇遗址群

Type

Overseas Daoist Temples

Location

Australia · Queensland · Palmer River Goldfield · The Palmer River basin in North Queensland, including the mining towns of Maytown and Thornborough

First built

1870s · Abandoned between the end of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth as the goldfield was exhausted; all are sites, with no above-ground structures remaining

Overview

The Palmer River goldfield was the largest alluvial goldfield in Australia; in the 1870s Chinese miners poured in by the tens of thousands and at one point made up the great majority of the field’s population, and they built a number of joss houses in mining towns such as Maytown and Thornborough. These temples were mostly of timber or simple brick and stone, dedicated chiefly to Guandi, Guanyin and the Assembled Deities, and served also as places for meetings among fellow countrymen and for mutual aid at funerals. As the goldfield was exhausted and the Chinese immigration restriction acts were enforced, the mining towns emptied, and the temples all fell into ruin between the end of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth; it must be stated clearly that what is meant here is a group of sites rather than surviving temples. Research suggests that between 110 and 140 joss houses may have existed in Australian history, of which only nine survive today in some form; the dense concentration of temples along the Palmer River and their complete disappearance are the most concentrated illustration of that rise and fall.

Highlights

• The group of Chinese temples of Australia’s largest alluvial goldfield
• Including the mining towns of Maytown and Thornborough
• All abandoned; only the sites remain
• Some 110–140 joss houses once existed in Australian history, of which only nine survive