Known as Charlie Lum
Birth name Ng Gem Lum Adult name Ng Moon Gain Ah Gin Lum see Timaru Herald article below Nuh Gin Lum Naturalisation Ngh Gin Lum Electoral Rolls 1911, 1914, 1919, 1928 bn 1868-1930 North Taishan District China died in China Charlie Lum Alien Naturalization:LUM Nuh Gim Gardner Timaru 6 June 1895 Marriage certificate: 1916 #4260 Ngh Gim LUM Internment Hannah C. Lum dob: 24 january 1897 died:20 March 1930 11:30pm buried:22 march 1930 age 33 Years Plot C2 0132 Headstone 31? 1495 Gim LUM purchase plot Brother Ng Moon Jem birth name Ng Fook Sau European name Eng Gooe Jim who also had a son Ng Thoan Hok Dr James Ng has written several books about Chinese in New Zealand " Windows of Chinese Past" which mentions The Sue Lee Gardens, Saltwater creek in Timaru as well as the NG family Excerpt about Sue Lee Gardens "The Gore gardeners transferred to Allenton in north Ashburton, where at least three Taishan men including Ng Moon Jems1 (birth name Ng Fook Sau; European name Eng Gooe Jim, who was baptised by Rev. R. Jackson in Chalmers Presbyterian Church, Timaru c.1903) had earlier established a garden in c.1911.(40) Ng Moon Jem was from the Koon Yat (Kung Yik, Gongyi) district in north Taishan. He and his brother Ng Moon Gain (birth name Ng Jem Lum) and possibly another younger brother had worked at the Sue Lee garden. Probably the Allenton garden had not done well because it struck strong competition from a Zengcheng Cantonese market garden at Tinwald in south Ashburton.(41) The latter was still a five-men garden in 1917, but the former was not mentioned in the Register of Aliens of that year. This was a sure sign that it had closed, |
the second Seyip Cantonese garden in Ashburton to do so because Rev. Don in 1883 had recorded another garden there of six men apparently headed by two persons of the Yee clan.(42)Earlier in 1921 (when there was not enough work for them in Gore) my father and Ng Sew Nam had gone to Allenton and reported on its good potential for a garden despite the previous closure in that suburb. As a result, land was bought in Allens Rd., Allenton, again in Ng Fon’s name, and the transfer from Gore proceeded. It appears that the young gardeners from Gore combined with veteran Allenton gardeners including Ng Moon Jem. See Thak became the leader of the garden - or at least the leader of the young ones. The new venture was named ‘King Bros.’, the ‘King’ being an approximation to the popular European pronunciation (‘Ning’) of Ng and also to ‘Kane’, the middle part of the birth names of the four sons of Ng Yee Dep. Eventually all these four went to Allenton and took shares in King Bros. The only Gore gardener who did not go there was Ng Jim Kwong, who went to Wellington and China and was called back to both King Bros. and the Sue Lee garden in Timaru ‘because he knew enough English to go on hawking rounds and drive a truck.’ A truck could take bigger loads further, say to auction markets, than a horse and cart which were best suited for hawking rounds on the flat). Ng Jim Kwong chose Sue Lee. At the time Sue Lee was being reorganised with new Ng shareholders as already mentioned.(43) He stayed at Sue Lee for the rest of his working life and was a quiet, hardworking man scarred by smallpox (one of two such Chinese I have seen in New Zealand) and noted for his reliability. He was also the last Ng male of the post-World War I arrivals in the South Island, New Zealand; he died in Timaru in 1994, aged 93.
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Exceprt from Ng Fon and his family in New Zealand.
Other Taishan Ngs had gone to the ‘Saltwater Creek garden’ (‘Harm Sue yun’) or ‘Sue (Water) Lee (Good Fortune) yun (garden’)g1 in Timaru, despite the competition of perhaps three other Chinese gardens serving that city at Fairview (owned by the Taishan Ma clan), Sandietown and possibly Wilson St.(31) The Ngs at Timaru had bought their garden from Lo Flo, a Panyu man,(32). The first group of Ng owners were chiefly Ng Moon Jem’s people (q.v.) from north Taishan, followed in the early to mid-1920s by a second group of Ngs mainly from our Onn Foon district, Taishan. The reason, it is thought, is that with the exception of the pioneer Ng Sar Foo and Ng Moon Jem and perhaps one or two others, the Koon Yat men did not or could not bring their sons and kin to New Zealand. The garden was on the coast by the mouth of Saltwater Creek, which served as the southern boundary of the city. |
When the writer was a boy, the Sue Lee men’s rough dormitory, huts and garages were fronted by a half-dead macrocarpa fence and the whole complex was an eyesore, being on the south side of the creek where the main south road crossed it.(33) y then the garden’s land was exhausted and lowered by repeated cropping. By the 1960s, Sue Lee had only three men left(34) to work the property and leased land of the garden, which closed in 1964. But when vegetable prices were high in two or so years in the early 1920s,(35) this Timaru garden reputedly was the most profitable garden in the South Island, earning £300-£400 per year per man for seven shareholders. That may have been the time when Sue Lee had three horse and cart hawking rounds. Thus the stage was set in Gore and Timaru for the coming of the next generation after shipping was normalised following World War I. Much of this information is in Don’s Roll of Chinese, directories and the New Zealand Register of Aliens, 1917. Although naturalised, my grandfather and other naturalised Chinese were included in the aliens register, in his case as ‘Ing Fong’, aged 49.
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George Richard Lum
15 March 1917- 26 January 1991 Married Florence Smitheram Daughter Georgina born 1949 Grandchildren Michael Rush Debbie Rush Neil Rush |
Mary Irena Lum
15 May 1918- 17 August 1943 married 1 October 1936 Norman Whitely Bn 18 March 1907- 11 August 1979 Children Mirie Armstrong Betty McIvar Grandchildren Alan, Colleen, Janet , David, Brian Great Grandchidren Emma, Sam, Max, Mallory |