Wing Hing Long: From store to museum

by Janis Wilton

Welcome to a journey through time.

As you step into this store, you step into an experience which links past, present and future.

In visiting Wing Hing Long you encounter:

• the rise and decline of a tin mining town and community
• the buildings, fittings and flavour of a rural general store from early in the twentieth century
• the importance and diversity of the contributions made by Chinese-Australians to rural commerce and life

Wing Hing Long is in Ruby Street, Tingha, northern New South Wales. For details about visiting hours phone:  (02) 6723 3156

Introduction

Wing Hing Long was established in the late nineteenth century as one of a number of stores servicing the tin mining communities of the district. Tin was first discovered in the early 1870s and saw a boom in population and productivity which peaked in the late nineteenth century and which slowly declined as the mining booms went bust.

An advertisement in a 1900  edition of the Inverell Times described the services offered by Wing Hing Long:

The noted cheap store of Tingha. Groceries, drapery, ironmongery, tobacco, pipes and everything that goes to make up a new stock.  Prices defy competition. [i]

Here was a typical general store in rural New South Wales - here you could buy anything and everything. It was a bustling and busy place and, at this time, the building with its new timber walls and iron gabled roof demonstrated that the town itself had moved from the slab huts and shingle rooves of a temporary mining community to more permanent structures.

This was a store with a sound business and good prospects for the future.

In 1918, Jack Joe Lowe became the owner of the store.[ii]  Born in China in 1882, he had landed at Cooktown around 1900, and spent time in Sydney and Gunnedah before arriving, with his wife and eldest son, in Tingha in about 1915.[iii] J.J. Lowe was the fifth Chinese owner of the property. The first was Ah Lin, identified as a storekeeper from Inverell.  He purchased the land from George Fearby in 1881.  Subsequent Chinese owners were Jock Sing of Glen Innes (1883-1887); Ah Bow, a miner from Tingha (1887-1899); and Charles Hing, a storekeeper from Tingha (1899-1918).[iv]  It is unclear which of these early owners built the store, but building materials and styles suggest that it was constructed some time during the 1880s.[v]

Jack Joe Lowe advertised his services both as a herbalist and as a general store.[vi]  His wife, Fong Quain Lowe, ran a cafe adjacent to Wing Hing Long.  His five children - Edgar (Ned) (b.1914 in Gunnedah), Marjorie (b. 1915, Tingha), Mavis (b.1917, Tingha), Ronald (b. 1917, Tingha) and Verdon (b. 1920, Tingha) - grew up working in Wing Hing Long and in other commercial ventures which J.J. Lowe acquired in Tingha.  These included another smaller general store referred to as 'the top shop' and the Palace Picture Theatre.[vii]  The family lived on the premisses of Wing Hing Long.  They used the residence at the back of the store, and rooms near the store office at the rear of the hardware section.[viii]

Like other Chinese stores in rural areas at the time, Jack Joe Lowe employed a number of Chinese staff, including some overseas-born Chinese who were sponsored as shop assistants under the 1901 Immigration Restriction Act.  They were provided with accommodation, board and a salary.  Their living quarters were in the sheds underneath the family residence and, for a time, a couple of the Chinese employees also slept in the upstairs section of the store. The conditions of their sponsorship entailed that they were bound to work at Wing Hing Long.[ix]  Over the years the store also employed many local residents.

In 1939 Jack Joe Lowe moved to Tamworth where he and his youngest son, Verdon, established a business of the same name. The store in Tingha remained in family ownership. After the Second World War, Jack Joe Lowe’s daughter, Mavis Pratt, took over management and ultimately ownership of the store, and continued in that position until her retirement in early 1998.

In early 1998 the store and most of its contents were purchased by Guyra Shire Council for community management as a living museum.  This transfer of ownership was achieved with the assistance of the Golden Threads Project, the commitment and negotiating skills of Ron Pickering and the Tingha community, the cooperation of the Pratt family, and the financial support of the NSW Heritage Office and the NSW Ministry for the Arts.

In acquiring the store, the decision was to maintain it as much as possible as it was early in 1998.  The buildings, fittings and contents provide a visual account of the way the store - and indeed the town - has evolved over a century of service.

The store and its stories:

The Building

The main part of Wing Hing Long was probably built in the 1880s with extensions and alterations occurring in the early part of the twentieth century. It was one of the few buildings in the main street of Tingha which survived fires.

The buildings retain the weatherboard walls and galvanised iron rooves of this time, and the wear and tear evident in them is indicative of the rise and decline of the business and of Tingha itself.

The two storeyed residence and sheds at the back of the store have also changed very little. The store owners lived upstairs. Downstairs was storage space for goods and living quarters for some of the Chinese employees who worked in the store before the Second World War.

Ruby Street, Tingha, following a fire which destroyed the buildings next to Wing Hing Long in 1912.

Residence at the back of the store, about 1918.

View of residence, 1998.

Wing Hing Long today.

Residence at the back of the store,  1998.

View of residence, 1998.

Inside the store today

The walls, fittings, furniture and layout of the store date mainly from the early part of the twentieth century. The tone and texture tell stories of the rise and decline of the store - and the town. The goods on display include a mixture of groceries sold in the store in the 1990s and of hardware, clothing, grocery and other items dating from the 1950s. The signage and advertising offer similar stories.

Like other Chinese owned general stores in regional areas, Wing Hing Long also imported and sold goods especially for members of the local Chinese community. Some of these goods have survived.

The front grocery section.

One of the cashier's pulleys.

Signage on the front of the cashier's office.

Display in the main showroom, 1997.

Fabulon and Mortein cylinder advertising and display stands.

Meatsafe.

Peter Pratt recalled that this was where the cheese was stored: 

The cheese used to come in big blocks.  There was a cheese board with piano wire attached for cutting through the cheese.

The main showroom.

Newman and Finlan drycleaning cabinet.

Toy display, 1988

Part of the hardware section.

Packing case for incense sticks.

Sylko display box.

Shoes on sale at Wing Hing Long in the 1960s.