Mei Quong Tart Print Page

The portrait bust sculpture, mounted on a brick pedestal, commemorates Mei Quong Tart (1850-1903), Chinese merchant and philanthropist. 

Quong was born in Canton Province (1850) and came to Australia (1859). Quong became a leading 19th century Sydney merchant and importer from China. His tea rooms in King Street and later in the Queen Victoria Markets (now the QVB) were the finest in the City. He was also an active philanthropist, and often provided dinners, gifts and entertainment at his own expense for charities, community groups and worthy causes. He sat on the famous New South Wales Royal Commission on Alleged Chinese Gambling and Immorality and Charges of Bribery Against Members of the Police Force 1891-92, which was chaired by the Mayor and met at the Sydney Town Hall.

He was a leader in the Chinese community acting as its spokesman and advocate. He was one of the founders of the first Chinese merchants` association in Sydney, the Lin Yik Tong, and campaigned against opium smoking and gambling. The Chinese Emperor made him an honorary Mandarin of the Fourth Grade in acknowledgement of his services to the Overseas Chinese community and to European-Chinese relations in Australia.

On 19 August 1902, Quong Tart was brutally bashed with an iron bar and robbed of a few pounds at his office in  a crime that shocked Sydney. The attacker Frederick Duggan, described as a "dim-witted thug" was jailed for 12 years, a light sentence in which police believed was a simple robbery gone wrong. After the attack he never fully recovered, and died from pleurisy at his Ashfield home 11 months later, in July 1903, aged 53.

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