Hidden history of the Chinese in North Sydney

Hear from Dr Ian Hoskins, curator of the new online exhibition, with guest speaker Dr Sophie Loy-Wilson, Senior Lecturer in Australian History at the University of Sydney, who specialises in Chinese Australian history.

The Chinese have been barely visible in historical accounts of North Sydney, which is typically characterised as a place of boat builders, ferry wharves and grand Harbourside homes. But it was also a place where Chinese people made their living, often as market gardeners and storekeepers. This online exhibition, drawing on North Sydney Council archives, immigration records and contemporary press, goes some way to writing the Chinese back into North Sydney’s history.

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About the presenters

Dr Ian Hoskins is North Sydney Council's Historian and an award-winning author. He has worked as an academic, professional historian and curator for over 30 years. His acclaimed books are recognised nationally for their chronicling of Australian history.

Dr Sophie Loy-Wilson is a historian of Chinese Australian communities. Her first book was a study of China-Australia relations in the interwar years, seen through the lens of Chinese Australian communities in Shanghai. In the book, she highlighted the importance of economic archives for immigration historians; these archives often preserve migrant agency. She combines methodological insights from labour history, overseas Chinese history, and the New History of Capitalism to bring a ‘New Materialist’ approach to Australia’s multi-ethnic and multi-lingual past.

Host or Publisher Stanton Library