Cheok Hong Cheong

Cheong was born on 23 November 1851 in Foshan, Guangdong, China.[3] His grandfather was a banker whose business collapsed after the Taiping Rebellion.[4] His father, Cheong Peng-nam, arrived in Victoria, Australia in 1854 during the Victorian gold rush, and converted to Christianity in 1860.[5] Cheok Hong had two sisters, Fong-sen and Ah Chin;[6] in 1863, after his father had become permanently employed as a Presbyterian missionary in Australia,[5] Cheong emigrated to Victoria with his mother Yeet Kwy Phang See and his siblings.[3] They were all baptised at St John's Presbyterian Church in Ballarat in 1866.[6]

Following the death of Cheong's mother in June 1871, the family relocated to Melbourne. Cheong's studies were reportedly so exceptional that his tuition fees were borne by his teachers.[5] He spent two years at Ballarat College and another three at Scotch College.[7] He was admitted into the University of Melbourne in 1875, becoming the first Chinese in Victoria to matriculate,[5] although he did not attend, much less graduate.[8]

Cheong studied at the Presbyterian Theological Hall on a scholarship from the Presbyterian Church, although he dropped out midway in 1875, after a dispute regarding the Chinese mission that he worked at.[5] From 1875 to 1885, Cheong sold bananas with his father in Fitzroy.[5] In 1879, with his father's friend Lowe Kong Meng and fellow community leader and mentor Louis Ah Mouy,[5][9] Cheong published a thirty-one-page pamphlet titled The Chinese Question in Australia,[9] which defended Chinese immigration[10] and protested against the discrimination that the Chinese had been facing in Australia.[9] According to writer Ian Welch, Cheong was the main author of the document, with Ah Mouy and Kong Meng "approving" its contents.[11] In an interview with The Essex County Standard, Cheong pushed back against xenophobic attitudes towards Chinese immigration and opined that China was a pacifist country, "having manifested no desire to covet her neighbours' territories."[12] In 1885, Cheong accepted a salaried position at the Church Missionary Society of Victoria.[5] The same year, after impressing Bishop James Moorhouse with "such a remarkable address" at the Anglican Board of Missions' annual meeting,[13] Cheong was appointed as the superintendent of the Church of England of Melbourne, which necessitated his giving up of his role as a Presbyterian elder.[14]

In 1887, two Imperial Commissioners, General Wong Yung Ho and Commissioner U Tsing, arrived in Melbourne as part of their inquiry into the treatment of Chinese subjects overseas. The trio of Cheong, Kong Meng, and Ah Mouy presented the commissioners with a petition that had forty-four other signatories, calling for the "international wrong" that was anti-Chinese sentiment in Australia to be righted.[15] Cheong was particularly opposed to the Immigration Restriction Act 1901.[16] He was the president of the Commonwealth Chinese Community's Representative Committee, which had been founded in direct response to the act.[17] He was also a vociferous critic of the British opium trade,[13][18][19] which he described as "pernicious",[4] and travelled across England to lecture on the subject.[4][20][21] Cheong claimed to have received death threats because of his anti-opium activism.[22]

Despite the fact that he had arrived in Australia with no knowledge of the language, Cheong was eventually able to speak and write in "perfect English".[6] He was also proficient in French, German, Italian, and Spanish and "had more than a passing acquaintance" with Malay and Hindustani.[23] A March 1927 report by the Sydney-based Smith's Weekly alleged that Cheong was the "wealthiest Chinaman in Melbourne", with numerous properties to his name.[24]

In 1869, Cheong married Wong Toy Yen, with whom he had two daughters and five sons.[13] She died on 14 February 1927;[25] Cheong died a year later on 20 June 1928 at his residence "Pine Lodge", in Croydon, Victoria.[3] The Brisbane Courier celebrated him as "one of the foremost Chinese citizens in Australia".[26]