Main site navigation

Hoong, George (c. 1877 - c. 1948)


  • Click to view this image

    Edna Kuramoto (nee Dawson) and George Hoong, 1950s, courtesy of Chinese Museum (Museum of Chinese Australian History).

c. 1877
Canton, China
c. 1948
Canton, China
Alternative Names
  • Hoong, Duck (also used)


George's parents were Sui Hoong and Anni Yua. He immigrated to Australia about 1897, and married Maud Wilhelmina Pugh in May 1906.

George Hoong travelled to the goldfields of Victoria with an older brother who the family believes was named Sui after their father. At some stage before travelling to Melbourne George had a market garden in Echuca.

George Hoong lived at first in North Melbourne and then Carlton. He had a vegetable stall at Victoria Market.

He was living in Carlton when he met Maud Pugh and this was where all five of his children were born, one of which died in infancy.

One of his grandchildren remembers that once a week George would take four or so of them to the Chung Wah Café off Little Bourke Street. The Australians ate downstairs and the Chinese upstairs. George would always go to the kitchens to supervise his families meals.

He would also take them shopping in Chinatown. They went to a grocery named Sun Chin Loong to get rice etc. There was a curtain separating the shop from the three tier hammocks where old men would lie smoking opium.

George was friends with George Chen. George Chen married Shirley Kuramoto whose brother Alan married George Hoongs eldest granddaughter, Edna.

Diagnosed with cancer, George returned to China in 1948, dying not long after his arrival.

Prepared by: Julieann Dawson, family researcher


Edna Kuramoto (nee Dawson) and George Hoong
Australia - Victoria - Melbourne