Appo Hocton

Jumped ship to become first Chinese Immigrant to New Zealand

It was an unconventional arrival for New Zealand's first Chinese immigrant in 1842. Wong Ah Poo Hoc Ting, approx.1820-1920, and who became known as Appo Hocton, (sometimes Hockton) left China aged nine to work on English vessels as a ship's boy. When the immigrant ship the Thomas Harrison berthed in the colony of Nelson on May 26, 1842, he joined other crew members and jumped ship.

Portrait of Appo in 1876, the Nelson Provincial Museum, Brown Collection, 13043/2
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The captain’s refusal to supply soap with which to wash his clothes is one reason given to explain Appo Hocton’s desertion from the Thomas Harrison in 1842.¹

The young Chinese ship’s steward hid in the hills above Nelson Haven until being caught. He appeared in court on November 4, 1842 charged with desertion and was eventually sentenced to 30 days in the ‘house of correction’ on Church Hill. Family stories persist that he was freed without serving his sentence, possibly assisted by the ship’s surgeon, Thomas Renwick.

Appo stayed in Nelson, becoming the first Chinese immigrant in New Zealand.³ In 1843 he began working for Dr Renwick as a housekeeper, saving enough money to buy a bullock and cart and setting up his own business. Appo Hocton is listed in the 1849 Nelson Census as a carter living in Bolton Square,⁴ a location near today’s Suter Art Gallery. He built up a solid business, successfully tendering for work constructing or upgrading Trafalgar, Milton, Collingwood and Nile Streets, and Waimea Road.⁵

Appo was classified as an alien and, as such, could not buy property. He successfully applied for naturalisation, so that he could become a British subject, and was formally naturalised on January 3, 1853, being the first naturalised Chinese New Zealander.⁶ He bought land in Washington Road and what became Hastings Street, and built houses, living in one and leasing the others.

Hocton cottages on Hastings Street , the Nelson Provincial Museum, Tyree Studio Collection 31724/3
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In July 1856 Appo married his widowed neighbour, Jennifer Rowlings. It is thought that her young son, William, was Appo’s natural child.⁷ Six months after Jennifer died, in 1865, Appo married Ellen Snook and they had three children, Appo Louis, Albert Ah Lina and Eirena Jane. The couple also adopted a baby girl, Olive Clara Schroder, in 1887.

Appo and Ellen outside their Thorpe home, the Nelson Provincial Museum, Daroux collection, 76428/5
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There are various references to Appo joining the throngs of men seeking their fortune when gold was discovered in the Aorere in October 1856 but current thought is that what is known as Appo's Creek near the Aorere River was in fact named after John Jacobus Appoo and that the second ‘o' has been dropped at some stage, leading to the confusion.⁸ Regardless of whether Appo went to the gold fields he must have been very aware of the wave of anti-Chinese sentiment that rose when it was suggested Chinese miners would flock to the newly discovered field.⁹  One can only wonder whether Appo personally experienced any repercussions from the anti-Chinese sentiments expressed by many of the Nelson settlers, or whether by now, he was considered one of them.

In 1876 Appo moved his family to Dovedale to begin farming at Brandy Creek and the area eventually became known as Chinatown. The children, with the exception of Albert, who was accidentally shot dead by Louis while rabbit hunting in 1879¹⁰, grew up, married and settled into homes Appo built for them.

Appo Hocton was highly regarded as a Nelson pioneer and was one of 84 who attended a settlers’ luncheon to mark Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887.¹¹ He remained active into old age, suffering only one accident, when he fell from his horse during a regular trip between Dovedale and Wakefield to buy fish.¹²

His date of birth was never verified, and his age at the time of his death, on September 26, 1920, ranges from 98 to 103, depending on which family story or document is quoted. New Zealand’s first Chinese immigrant and first naturalised Chinese New Zealander is buried alongside family members in the Dovedale Cemetery. By the turn of the new millennium he had 1600 living descendents throughout the country.¹³

2008 

Updated: April 03, 2020

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