Other Early Chinese Temple Sites in Queensland昆士兰其余早期华人庙宇遗址

Type

Overseas Daoist Temples

Location

Australia · Queensland · Charters Towers, Mackay, Halifax, Killarney and others · Charters Towers (Bluff Road), Mackay, Halifax (near Ingham), Killarney, Bouldercombe, and other locations

First built

Built in stages between 1880 and 1894 · The Killarney temple was completed in September 1894; exact founding dates for most others are unknown, and all have been abandoned

Overview

In addition to the temples at Cairns, Cooktown, Croydon, Ravenswood, Rockhampton, Atherton, Innisfail, and Brisbane, Queensland's mining towns and sugar-growing districts once had a number of other Chinese temples, known examples including Charters Towers (Bluff Road), Mackay, Halifax near Ingham, Thornborough, Georgetown, Bouldercombe, and Killarney in the southeast (completed in September 1894). Researchers estimate that around thirty regional Chinese temples were built across Queensland over time, of which only two survive largely intact today (the Hou Wang Temple at Atherton and Lit Sung Goong at Innisfail), plus the Temple of the Holy Triad in Brisbane, making three that survive in total. This is a composite entry, and it should be stated clearly that none of the sites listed retains any above-ground structure; some are known only from archival photographs and local gazetteer records, and the deities enshrined and the community of origin for many of them can no longer be determined, so they should not be inferred one by one.

Highlights

• Around thirty regional Chinese temples were built across Queensland over time
• Only three survive today
• The Killarney temple was completed in September 1894
• A composite entry; none of the sites retains an above-ground structure