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Thomas Forsyth
1819 - 1904

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• Birth	1819	St Ninians, Stirlingshire, Scotland
  Gender	Male
  Died	5 Sep 1904	Braidwood Reg No 8693/1904
  Buried	Braidwood Cemetery
  Person ID	I01	Thomas Forsyth Gold Commissioner Braidwood
  Last Modified	9 Jan 2018

  
  

  Father	David Forsyth
  Mother	Christian McNab
  Family ID	F3	Group Sheet

  
  

  Family	Margaret Taylor,   b. Abt 1819, Kirkaldy, Fifeshire, Scotland ,   d. 28 Sep 1901, Braidwood Reg No 8711/1901
  Married	24 Oct 1846	Tillicoultry, Clackmannan, Scotland
  Children	1. Thomas Forsyth,   b. 20 Dec 1858, Bells Creek, Braidwood, NSW. Braidwood Reg No 5443/1859 ,   d. 1888, St Leonards Reg No 6114/1888   2. Isabella Alexandria Forsyth,   d. 1936, Canterbury Reg No 23008/1936   3. David Forsyth,   d. 22 Jun 1873, Braidwood Reg No 3485/1873   4. Margaret Taylor Forsyth,   b. Abt 1848,   d. Oct 1873, Braidwood Reg No 3519/1873   5. Christian Forsyth,   b. Abt 1850
  Family ID	F1	Group Sheet

  
  

• Notes

  1841 Scotland Census ???? living with Brother? about Thomas Forsyth Name: Thomas Forsyth Age: 22 Estimated Birth Year: abt 1819 Gender: Male Where born: Scotland Civil parish: Tillicoultry County: Clackmannanshire Address: Tillicoultry West Of Burn Occupation: Woollen H L W J Parish Number: 468 Household Members: Name Age David Forsyth 32 Catharine Forsyth 30 Jean Forsyth 11 Christian Forsyth 8 John Forsyth 6 Catharine Forsyth 3 Robert Forsyth 11 Mo Thomas Forsyth 22 1851 Scotland Census about Thomas Forsyth Name: Thomas Forsyth Age: 31 Estimated Birth Year: abt 1820 Relationship: Head Spouse's Name: Margaret Forsyth Gender: Male Where born: Stirling, stirlingshire Parish Number: 468 Civil parish: Tillicoultry Town: Tillicoultry County: Clackmannanshire Address: Westside Of Burn Occupation: Hand Loom Weaver (woolen) ED: 5 Page: 28 (click to see others on page) Household schedule number: 107 Line: 18 Roll: CSSCT1851_97 Household Members: Name Age Thomas Forsyth 31 Margaret Forsyth 32 Margaret Forsyth 3 Christian Forsyth 1 Isabella Taylor 17 Arrived in Australia on the "Bloomer" on 28th July 1853 Death 8693/1904 FORSYTH THOMAS DAVID CHRISTIAN BRAIDWOOD The Australian Star (Sydney, NSW : 1887 - 1909) Sat 10 Sep 1904 Page 6 Family Notices FORSYTH.? September 5, 1904, at his residence, Bell's Creek, Braidwood, Thomas Forsyth, fifth son of the late David Forsyth, of Bannockburn, Scotland, aged 86 years. --------------------------------------------- Sydney Morning Herald The man who brought cafe society to town July 18 2003 Chinese-born Mei Quong Tart spoke with a Scottish brogue, wore the tartan and his brutal beating in the newly opened Queen Victoria Building shocked the city. Steve Meacham traces a Sydney original. Hewas, says biographer Robert Travers, "carried to the grave with all the pomp and ceremony befitting a state governor or a great statesman", with 200 men escorting the coffin from his Ashfield mansion to a train which carried the funeral party to Rookwood Cemetery. There, thousands gathered to pay their last respects. Inside the coffin, the dead man cut a curious figure - dressed in the ceremonial robes of a Mandarin of the Blue Button, over which was draped his masonic apron. Mei Quong Tart - known throughout NSW as "the Australian Mandarin" - had died, 11 months after being the victim of a murderous attacker who had battered him with an iron bar. Frederick Duggan, a dim-witted thug, had been jailed for 12 years for the crime, which police believed was a simple robbery gone wrong. Not everyone agreed. Some wondered whether more powerful criminal forces had sponsored a political assassination. On Thursday, the life of Quong Tart will be honoured in an evening of song and verse at the State Library of NSW, the first in a 12-month calendar of activities marking the centenary of his death on July 26, 1903. Quong Tart was among the most colourful Sydney characters of his day. A Cantonese entrepreneur, he spoke with a thick Scottish brogue picked up on the goldfields. A pioneer of what we now know as "casual Sydney dining", he was a noted philanthropist who gave away much of his considerable fortune to succour the city's destitute. A solemn pamphleteer who sought to end his people's miserable dependence on opium, he was a keen amateur cricketer noted for his love of puns. "He straddled both cultures, bridged both worlds," says Jennifer O'Callaghan, who is the curator of the Quong Tart component of the library's Heritage Collection exhibition. "He was the first Chinese person to be accepted and embraced by the wider community of NSW," she says. And all this at a time when sections of the Sydney media were working themselves into a frenzy about the so-called "yellow peril". Quong Tart was born in 1850 in Canton, the son of a well-to-do merchant. Yet at nine he was sent to the gold diggings of Braidwood with an uncle. There he began working for Thomas Forsyth, a storekeeper from Argyllshire, who gave him an abiding love of things Scottish. In later life he would dress up in a kilt and recite Robbie Burns, earning him the nickname "Quong Tartan". But his big break came when he was adopted by Alice Simpson, wife of a local grandee, who was charmed by the Scot-sounding Chinese boy. By the time he was 18, he was wealthy, having been encouraged by the Simpsons to invest in gold claims. He was also popular - a member of the local cricket team and a Freemason. In 1871, he became a British citizen but his family wanted him to return to China. "His mother had found a nice Chinese girl she wanted him to marry," says O'Callaghan. Finally, he did return - 22 years after he had last seen his parents - but only to tell them that his future lay in Australia. Moving to Sydney, he set up a tea importing business in King Street and soon had set up chairs and tables where customers could try his tea. Sydney's first tea shop had been created. "In the Sydney of the time, you could eat food in a tavern if you were male, or you could go to expensive restaurants," says O'Callaghan. "There were no cafes or tea shops selling inexpensive food." Quong Tart tea shops opened all over Sydney; at Moore Park Zoo; at the Haymarket theatre district; and in the best arcades. In 1889 he opened his grandest, the Loong Shan Tea House in King Street, a salubrious restaurant with marble fountains and golden carp in ponds. It quickly became one of the most important political meeting places in the city. Three years earlier he had married a young Englishwoman, Margaret Scarlett. "Her family didn't approve," says O'Callaghan. "Her father, a business associate of Quong Tart's, didn't attend the wedding. Inter-racial marriage was considered shocking. They really were pioneers." The couple had six children, but Quong Tart - an Anglican convert - had each of them baptised in different denominations to avoid charges of prejudice. He built a mansion, Gallop House, in Ashfield, and embarked on charitable works and political causes, culminating in his campaign to ban opium in 1887. After years of acting as an unofficial Chinese consul, his services were recognised by China's Emperor in 1894 when he was appointed Mandarin of the Blue Button - similar to a British earldom. Four years later, he opened the Elite Dining Hall and Tea Rooms in the newly built Queen Victoria Building. He was in his office in the QVB when he was attacked in August 1902, a crime which shocked Sydney, partly because it seemed so senseless - his attacker got away with just a few pounds. Letters from Chinese friends - translated by the library for the first time - indicate that many of them had suspicions. Some blamed "the Western people", others fellow Chinese businessmen whose interests had been damaged by Quong Tart's crusades. "The letters reveal the factionalism within the Chinese community," says O'Callaghan. "They also show the library is interested in documenting all aspects of Australian life."