Mr William Christie Lawrence of Lawrence (later of St Bathans) describes the Chinese community at Lawrence during his youth.
He says Chinese miners established a township of their own half a mile out of Lawrence. They had their own butcher shop, a grocery shop, a hotel, and other small shops. The [business]men were all married to European women. The hotel sold good quality European liquor, and they brought peach and apricot brandy over from China.
He describes a Chinese funeral – food was taken to the grave: a cooked fowl, boiled eggs, and rice. Candles and firecrackers were lit, and they gave away small amounts of money. There is mention of Chinese gambling games, which included fan tan, sing tai loo, and dominoes.
The Chinese miners lived six to a big sod hut with a tussock roof. He says there were about a thousand Chinese men spread around the area in Lawrence, Gabriel’s Gully, Beaumont, Waipori, and Tuapeka Flat.
He names some of the Chinese men he knew: Chow Tai – the butcher; Sam Yek Long - the grocer; Sam Chu Lai - the hotel keeper; as well as ‘ordinary workers’ Ah Wong, Lee Tai, (brother to Chow Tai), and Ay Young. He says they were good sorts. He doesn’t know if they made much money from the gold diggings, but one group paid 40 pounds an acre for a claim and all went home to China quite well off when it was finished. He says the Chinese men all wore their hair in a pigtail in those days – they couldn’t go back to China without it.
Mr Lawrence’s father was a brick maker for Rose, Gunn and Spence, who had a brickyard in Lawrence. His father bought the brickyard from them eventually, and added tiles and pipes to the production after that.