According to the information recorded on Ah See and Maggie Dunn’s marriage certificate, Ah See was born in China in about 1840. His father was named He Ong and his mother Ah Chow. Ah See was a bachelor aged 45 when he married Maggie. Her age was recorded on the certificate as ‘under 21’.

The couple’s seven children — John, Mary, William, Jenny, Annie, Nellie and Kitty — were born between 1886 and 1902. Some time prior to November 1904, Ah See died leaving Maggie a widow and their children fatherless. In late 1904, 8-year-old Annie Ah See began attending the Deebing Creek Provisional School at the Deebing Creek Aboriginal Mission near Ipswich, while 5-year-old Nellie Ah See was enrolled in June 1905. The school admission register recorded that the girls lived at Deebing Creek and that their father was deceased.

Following Ah See’s death, Maggie married a First Nations man, Peter Rouse, and returned with him and at least one of her daughters, Kitty Ah See, to the Nanango region. Rouse was charged with the indecent assault of Kitty (Kate) in 1911. According to the Maryborough Chronicle, Maggie gave evidence that Rouse hit her and then assaulted Kitty, but Rouse pleaded his innocence and stated that “it was a put up job by his wife to get rid of him”. Rouse was sentenced to serve four years at the Brisbane Gaol.

On 5 November 1915, Ah See and Maggie’s second son, William Ah See, enlisted in A Company of the 41st Infantry Battalion. Prior to enlistment he worked as a carpenter on Morella Station, via Roleston [sic]. After training at the Enoggera Army Camp in Brisbane, William was sent to France. However, he was hospitalised several times with influenza, bronchitis and bronchial asthma. He was eventually evacuated to England for medical treatment and then classified as medically unfit. William arrived back in Australia in September 1917. Photographs of the soldiers of A Company 41st Battalion appeared in The Queenslander on 29 July 1916. William’s photograph was incorrectly captioned ‘V. Ah Lee’.

In October 1919, Brisbane newspapers including The Telegraph reported that William Ah See, ‘a half-caste Chinese’, sought to dissolve his marriage to Evelyn Mary Ah See on the basis of her ‘alleged misconduct’ with George Ferber, also a World War I soldier, with whom Evelyn had a child. A decree nisi was granted, ‘to be made absolute in three months’. Following the divorce, William married Lilian Ericksen and worked as a carpenter in Toowoomba.

Citation

Jan Richardson, ‘Ah See (ca. 1840 – ca. 1903)’, Harry Gentle Research Centre, Griffith University, 2022, https://harrygentle.griffith.edu.au/life-stories/ah-see/.