Information garnered from rates records in the Borough of Castlemaine and United Shire of Mount Alexander tells a different story. These records refer to three temples in 1860, three in 1861, one in 1865, two in 1866, and four in 1868. They also refer to one in Campbell’s Creek in 1875. ^[9]

However, we are not limited to rates records in this matter. The Mount Alexander Mail also noticed Chinese temples and related activities throughout the period. Between 1858 and 1876 there are references to temples ‘on the left hand of the Forest Creek Rd, a few hundred yards out of town’ (31.5.58), ‘on the side of the road, just beyond Somerville’s Store [Campbell’s Creek]’ (10.11.58), at Clinker’s Hill (16.5.59), in the township (11.2.67), Clinker’s Hill (again, 22.5.71), Ten Foot Hill (26.4.72), and Duke St (24.1.76).

Now, by any account this points to a religiously active community. In addition, it should be noted that the Mount Alexander Mail’s coverage of Chinese temples undergoes a marked, but perfectly understandable, change after 1859. The early reports clearly regard the simple existence of a Chinese temple, even temporary structures, as news in themselves. As the years go by, and presumably their readership becomes more used to seeing such things, the Mail only notes more serious events such as the opening of new and imposing structures, or else as sites for events not necessarily related to the temple itself – ‘a hut near the Chinese joss-house by some means took fire, and in a few minutes was destroyed with its contents’ (11.2.1867). Thus, we may safely conclude that the references to Chinese temples in and around Castlemaine referred to here are an underestimation of the true situation.

When the Mail reported on temples or on activities related to them, it adopted a notably neutral tone, concentrating on the fabric of the building and its ornaments as an object of curiosity—often in elegant description—rather than in what the temple meant. An 1858 article under the title ‘Chinese worship’ is a good example. ^[10] In a rich description of the temple structure and decoration there is very little by way of judgement. While certain mildly negative words and phrases may be noted—the display objects are ‘tawdry’, mirrors are of ‘Brummagem’ pattern (that is of inferior, Birmingham style, possibly fake), the lamp burns ‘feebly’, the man in the temple ‘mutters to himself’,—there are, equally, references to the undoubted sacredness of the place—it is a ‘shrine’, he is a ‘worshipper’ who has ‘devotions’ and is presumed to be ‘devout’. That is, the author is not dismissive of this building and these practices in the way that The Rev. King and Leong On Tong are in their use of terms such as ‘pagan’ and ‘idol house’, let alone in their actions. Nonetheless the article concludes, ‘We cannot say what all this may mean, but however devout the individual worshipper may be, his countrymen in the contiguous tent are not affected thereby, but chatter on as loud and shrill as usual’. Here, I suspect, the author is drawing a distinction between the Chinese observances which could take place at any time an individual preferred and collective Christian worship on a Sunday when the Christian Sabbath was observed with decorum, at least ideally in the minds of the protestants.

This tone is consistent in the material from the Mount Alexander Mail, even as the content of the articles changes. Indeed, there is a kind of admiration in some of their reports, such as the series of seven articles over eighteen months related to the subscription for, and construction, opening and consecration of the temple at Ten Foot Hill in the early 1870s. ^[11] As far as the Mail is concerned, by this time the Chinese are a notable part of the Castlemaine community whose religious buildings and observances are objects of interest for the whole community and no longer simply worth reporting for novelty value.

This is not to say that the stance of the Mail was shared with their entire readership. A letter from ‘Iconoclast’ from 6 June 1859 spells out a different set of attitudes to Chinese religions. He says that he has gathered information from a ‘respectable Chinese’,—later he tells us this man is a Christian—that the Chinese in Bendigo and Castlemaine both intend to seek subscriptions for ‘a joss-house of much larger size than the one now built’. His informant apparently ‘regret[s] the increase of heathen temples in this country. He wonders why they are not prohibited by law, fearing that his countrymen will be encouraged in their idolatrous practices by a toleration, which will be construed to mean an indifference to every form of religion’. ‘Toleration’ is clearly a threatening and problematic idea, for ‘Iconoclast’ as much as it was for King, for whom ‘indifference to every form of religion, ‘probably implied a threatening latitude for Catholicism. ‘Iconoclast’ then bemoans the lack of success of the missions to the Chinese and concludes, ‘So far, indeed, from the doctrines of Christ having successfully combated the dogmas of Kung-foo-tze [Confucius], it would almost seem as if the philosophy of the heathen sage were assuming the aggressive’.

Iconoclast goes on to bemoan the standard of the interpreters between the Chinese and the authorities and ‘the necessity of obtaining honest and competent Anglo-Chinese linguists’. His criticisms focus in on James Ah Coy:

I am assured on good authority, that Ah Coy, the Castlemaine Interpreter is sometimes performing the ko-tow before the picture of Kwan-ti on Clinker’s Hill, and yet this official calls himself Christian, and swears on the Bible. He has a right to be an idolator if he likes, but at least let him avow the fact.

However, not 10 days after this letter the first of a series from J. M’Culloch Henley, Anglo-Chinese Linguist, appeared in the Mail explaining various aspects of Chinese popular religions and Buddhism in a comparatively learned way. ^[12] It is, of course entirely possible that ‘Iconoclast’ and J. M’Culloch Henley were one and the same, his first letter making the case for employment of someone just like the author of the latter sequence. Such a conclusion is buttressed by the ending of his first letter, on the Chinese God of War Guandi (Kwanti in his rendering), which echoes Iconoclast’s sentiments very closely:

It is to be hoped that some steps will be taken to evangelise these heathens and teach them that the knowledge of the God of benevolence was superior to that of the sanguinary god Kwanti. If some steps in that direction do not be taken soon, we will have the horror of beholding the Chinese erecting temples to the gods of their native hills, more numerous to those erected to the “Unknown God”.

Here we have an interesting religious variation on the general fear of being flooded by the yellow hordes from the north—that churches will be overrun by joss-houses.