ss nellore passengers 2

jill
Wed, 09/20/2023 - 18:32
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ss nellore passengers 2

This is the full list of so-called "Coloured and restricted passengers" on the S.S. Nellore that arrived in Sydney with Hong Kong evacuees on 20 October 1941. Australia had a "Whites only" policy at the time and I don't know if any of the passengers had already been turned back from Manila. My grandmother, Mrs. H.M Warren had a British passport issued in Shanghai and remained in Australia until her death in 1966. Many of the other passengers only had a 6-month permit to stay. I don't know if the large Cumines family is connected to the Cumine family already recorded on Gwulo.com

The reference is NAA: SP42/1, C1941/7797

Date picture taken
20 Oct 1941
Tags
Evacuated to Australia
Hannah Mabel Warren
S.S Nellore
Cumines
Gallery
1940s Hong Kong

Comments

  • Mrs L M Stepanoff,
  • Majorie Moalem,
  • Mrs H M Warren,
  • Lilly Agnes Yee,
  • Captain Cornelis Johannes Van Es,
  • Mildred Hilda Nyland,
  • Wu Tsun,
  • Lui Mei Chuen,
  • Laurence Leong,
  • But Tiy,
  • George Chin Mook,
  • Ah Wing,
  • Buck Gong,
  • Dick Keen,
  • Chin Wah Mon,
  • Samuel Ah Moi,
  • Ah Let [Ah Red],
  • Lun Jone,
  • Ah WSing,
  • Hing Shi Chang [S C Hing],
  • Mrs Thomas Wong [Lau See] and son James Wong Chun [Wong Hoi Chun],
  • Jeong Jarm,
  • Wah Sun Ping Kee,
  • William Cumines,
  • Mrs William Cumines [Kum Loy Man Cumines],
  • Irene Violet Cumines,
  • Rita Joyce, Lionel Frederick, Eric, Angeline Madge, Reginald Victor, Dolcie Joan and Violet Cumines [arrived ex NELLORE in Sydney on 20 October 1941 ] and
  • 5 unknown Chinese [passengers for transhipment and enroute to Auckland]

[box 453] 1941 - 1942
 

No, those Cumines are not connected with the Cumine family (Eric Cumine etc). The Cumine family were either interned in Shanghai or had managed to spend the war in Chongqing and other locales. But not in Australia. 

Under the White Australia policy, non-whites (including what they officially called half-castes) were prevented from landing unless they were able to pass a random 50 word dictation test given in English or any ‘prescribed’ language. In fact, if you failed the test (and it was designed that you failed), you could not only be deported but incarcerated. It was a crime to fail. Though I’m not sure by 1941 that the detention provisions remained.
My uncle, who was a ‘half-caste’, migrated to Australia from Shanghai (via HK) in 1939. But he had a European surname (Greaves) and a British passport. He he only looked ‘slightly foreign’.

In 1968 my Eurasian father applied at the Australian Embassy in Hong Kong, to emigrate to Australia.  
Due to the White Australia Policy, the Embassy wanted to see how oriental/Chinese his kids looked.  My mother is German, so I am one quarter Chinese, and at age 2, I had light brown hair.  The Australian Embassy deemed that acceptable and we were allowed entry to Australia. 
One of my father's Eurasian sisters tried three times to get into Australia in the 1960s, even though her husband was British and was already living in Australia and had a secure job.
Australia's White Australia Policy ended in 1973.

I didn’t know about the dictation test! I recall that, as Hannah Olson, my grandmother won various prizes at school (DGS). One of them may have been for dictation. I was puzzled that she was described as a “Quartercaste” on one of the Australian immigration documents. I wonder if that was her own declaration and a “white” lie. Her father was Swedish and there is no surviving proof that her mother was a half caste. It is significant, however, that the spelling of her mother’s Chinese name on her Australian death certificate in 1966 had been slightly altered (by her niece) to appear European. I haven’t yet found a definite death certificate for my great-grandmother, nor evidence of how and when she died.

The dictation test was not designed to test your ability to write down a spoken passage. It was designed to be un-passable. If you were fluent in English, they’d give you the test in Estonian or some other language in which you had no aptitude. Between 1901 and 1909 only 52 people passed the dictation entry test. From 1909 until the act was repealed in 1958, there was a 100 per cent fail rate. But of course if you were a non-white resident returning to Australia, you could apply for an exemption.