T.J.K. Bakhap (1866-1923), a Chinese-Australian? : The significance of his public and political life in relation to prevailing Australian attitudes to China, the Chinese, and Australia's place in the world

The question "A Chinese Australian?" was chosen as the best way of looking at Thomas Jerome Kingston Bakhap the subject of this thesis. The reason for pursuing research on Bakhap was indeed the initial belief acquired through casual mention of his name and public political life that he was half Chinese. Bearing in mind many prevalent attitudes to the Chinese in the era Australia's history a prominent public career for such a person and a political one at that would seem to be a relatively unique phenomena and worthy of greater attention than it has evidently received to date. The discovery that T.J.K. Bakhap was not after all of literal Chinese extraction in no way diminished the apparent uniqueness of the man.

In examining the 'significance' of the man's public and political career it is possible to make a range of comparisons. In what way did his actions ideals and words as a public figure closely follow prevailing Australian patterns of the same? In what ways did they diverge or dissent? and in what ways were they unique?

This thesis consists of four chapters each delineating a distinct phase of the man's life and each describing the stage in question in terms of some or all of these comparisons. The first chapter looks at the considerably long 'pre-parliamentary' phase of Thomas Bakhap's life. It settles the question of his racial origins and goes on to describe his relatively unique bi-cultural upbringing. It then examines the wider issues of Chinese immigration to the Australian colonies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and related patterns of colonial national and imperial attitudes. This background provides the basis for looking at Thomas Bakhap's early public life and determining it's significance in terms described above.

Chapter 2 looks at the period of Thomas Bakhap's membership of the Tasmanian House of Assembly. It gives a brief overview of the significance of this part of his life and then following the pattern of chapter 1 establishes the political framework / background against which his House of Assembly career is then examined in more detail. The same method including overview political / national framework and then detailed examination is then applied to two relatively short but significant phases of his career. These are: the first half of his senate career coinciding with the Great War and the latter post-war phase.