[CHINESE PRINTING] Garden License issued at Sandhurst (Bendigo) to William Hyde, dated 28 August 1883.

Melbourne : Government printer, [1883]. Lithograph printing, 210 x 220 mm, printed on both sides with parallel text in English and Chinese characters; manuscript entries record the issue of the License to William Hyde of Sandhurst on 28 August 1883; the License (no. 122155) authorizes Hyde to maintain a garden and residence on Crown Lands at Sandhurst for the period of one year, for the sum of 5 shillings; the document bears the signatures of the Treasury-authorized issuer and the Licensing Agent; original folds, some very minor staining, else clean and complete.

William Hyde (1835-1910) had been a gold miner on the Bendigo diggings in the early 1850s, where he had squatted in the area known as the First White Hill. He was to remain in the vicinity for the rest of his life, but from the late 1850s his interest turned to gardening. He established a private botanic garden on Charleston Road (now Strickland Road), which became a popular Sandhurst attraction for residents and visitors alike.

The fact that the Crown’s Garden License is a diglot printing in Chinese as well as English is testament to the significant number of Chinese prospectors who later earned their living from market gardening, an occupation which was a reliable alternative to the vagaries of gold mining. It also demonstrates a pragmatic approach on the part of the government to the way in which it explained its laws and regulations to the Chinese population that had chosen to remain on the goldfields, often in the face of prejudice and hostility from local European communities.