Gold rush
![Illustration of goldfields with figures dressed in Chinese-style clothing working.](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/12/d10f663c206440ce8a196403f8d8cce3.jpg)
Chinese on the goldfields
By the early 1850s, news of a gold rush in Australia sparked an influx in Chinese migration to Australia.
![Gouache painting of the waterfront at Guangzhou, China. The hongs or factories shown in this view are those rebuilt after the fire of 1841. This view is dated by the Protestant (Anglican) church erected in 1847.](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/12/57afbc3bfede4116baa4f88671cf79fa.jpg)
Celestial City: Sydney’s Chinese Story
As Sydney celebrated its centenary in 1888, several boats carrying Chinese immigrants sailed through Sydney Heads into a crisis that would shape the nation. ‘Celestials’, as Chinese people were known at the time, had been arriving in Sydney under organised immigration schemes since the 1840s