His Own Man: The Inconvenient Life of Lee Hing Jacgung - Paperback

Lee Hing Jacgung was no ordinary man, living an ordinary life in 19th century China, California and Victoria.

He was a refugee from war and revolution, and a medical apprentice and landsman, who sailed the world and rescued the shipwrecked. He dug for gold in California and Victoria, sued Queen Victoria, and worked as a headman and translator for the courts and police on the Mt. Alexander Goldfields, before reinventing himself as a pioneer, selector and farmer in Jeeralang, Gippsland.

He was a brilliant success and an abject failure, who found his love in wife, family, friends and God ... and his fear in venial public officials, corrupt merchants and secret societies.

He was no ordinary man, for he was his own man.

COVERAGE: bushfires, Canton, Castlemaine, churches, clearing land, community life, crime, cross-cultural issues, cultural heritage, Customs operations and officers, domestic life, emigration and immigration, evangelism, exhibitions, farming, folk cures, Fryerstown, gold-mining companies, goldrush, Guildford, Hawaii, headmen, Hengshan, Hong Kong, inquests, Jeeralang, land tenure, law courts, lawcourts, Licences Reduction Board, litigation, Long Du, Masonic Lodges, medical care, mixed marriages and liaisons, Morwell, Mt. Alexander Goldfields, murder, naturalization, opium smuggling, pests, petitions, politics, prominent people, roads, San Francisco, schooling, selection, settlement, ship wrecks, shipping, shopkeepers, social dynamics, Strzelecki Ranges, suicide, Supreme Court of Victoria, tours, translators, Traralgon, triads, triads, Vaughan, water-supply companies, whaling, Yapeen, Zhongshan

COMPANIES: Australian United Gold Mining Co., Duke of Cornwall Gold/Quartz Mining Co., Fryer's Creek Sluicing and Water Supply Co., River Loddon Valley Water Supply Co., Tubal Cain Quartz Mining Co.

EXHIBITIONS: Intercolonial Exhibition of 1866, Traralgon Agricultural Society Show of 1895

PROMINENT PEOPLE: Albert James Abbott, Alexander McEwan, Alfred Wyatt, Andrew Plummer, Daniel Wright Gossett, Edward Eyre Williams, Fisher Ames Newell, George Horneck, Ham Hoy Ling, Henry Fields Gurner, Isaac C. Woods, James Ah Coy, James Goodall Francis, Jeremiah Lester jnr., John Chatfield Tyler, John Davies, John Guthrie, John Sackfield, Joseph Powell Hodges, Katherine Jacgung, Lee Hing Jacgung, Louey Ah Mouy, Lowe Kong Meng, Mark Amos, Nathaniel Kinsman, Redmond Barry, Richard Annesley Billing, Richard Davies Ireland, Richard Luke Middleton Kitto, Robert Molesworth, Samuel Henry Bindon, Thomas Denis Stratford Heron, Thomas Dryburgh, Thomas Howard Fellows, William Augustus Briard, William Foster Stawell

SHIPPING: Audubon, Brahmin, Circassian, Emperor of China, Far West, Gilmore, Hannibal, Lady Amhert, Royal Stuart, Sea Breeze, Telegraph, Vaquero, What Cheer

SOCIETIES: Gee Hing (aka Hung League & Society of Heaven and Earth), Mackenzie Lodge (Vaughan), United Confederacy of Chinese

TOURS: Gubernatorial Goldfields Tour of 1861, Vice-Regal Visit to Australia of 1867/8