The Sam Family of Wyalong: Where does it fit in?

A coincidence?  Or a connection yet to be discovered?

 1901

At the same time as Margaret Robinson's great-grandmother, Martha Sam (born Conway) and her husband Harry were establishing themselves in Forbes NSW another family with the same name, a story remarkably similar to them and yet apparently unconnected to Martha and Harry was living at West Wyalong, less than 100 km (60 miles) away.

What follows below draws directly from research undertaken by two Australian academics, Alistair Kennedy and Kate Bagnall into Australians of Chinese ethnicity, as well as a book written by Morag Loh & Judith Winternitz, called "Dinky-Di: the contributions of Chinese immigrants and Australians of Chinese descent to Australia’s defence forces and war efforts 1899-1988."

Origins of the Wyalong Sam Family

William Flood Sam was born in China in 1839.   He came to Australia in 1858 from Hong Kong.  In 1873 he married Jane May White, a European girl some 18 years younger than him.   William was a market gardener.  They lived first in Wagga Wagga where they had married, then at Marsden and finally settled in West Wyalong.

Jane White had been in incarcerated in the Newcastle Industrial School for Girls in 1868.  When first arrested somewhere within the Grenfell police district the police claimed in a court that she "was living in a most neglected and disreputable manner".   Her time at the School makes for depressing reading.  She was discharged in 1872, sent as an apprentice in Wagga Wagga.  She married William Flood the following year, still a teenager not more that 15 or 16 years old.  Together they had 16 children: 5 girls and 11 boys.

Wyalong Sam sons serve in the AIF

Five (or possibly more) of the sons of William and Jane Sam, plus two of their grandsons (the children of their third daughter, Elizabeth, and her husband Samuel Loolong), served in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) during World War 1.  The Sam sons and the two Loolongs survived the war and returned safely to Australia.  According to Sam family tradition a sixth son, Thomas (b 1885), was killed on the beaches at Gallipoli in April 1915.  However, there is no trace of him in the records at the National Archives of Australia, the Australian War Memorial or the Imperial War Graves Commission of Thomas' enlistment and war service.

The exploits of the Sam boys were regularly reported in the local Wyalong newspaper, West Wyalong Advocate, during the war.  Another son, John (Jack) Sam (b 1887) reported in 1915 in the West Wyalong Advocate as having enlisted, is also untraceable.  The Advocate also reported that a further brother, William Cecil Flood Sam, could not enlist as he had a large family to provide for.  As noted above the enlistment of only five Sam sons can be definitively established.

Later in their lives several of the Sam boys came to be known by the surname, Sams, possibly to disguise their Chinese origin.  It should be noted that at this time the Australian military had an inconsistent attitude towards Australians of Chinese origin.  Chinese nationals were required to register as aliens during wartime (and afterwards).  But some Australia-Chinese were able to successfully enlist in the A.I.F if they could establish that they were "substantially of white origin".  This led to situations where were Chinese fathers had to report to the police to register as aliens while their Australian-born sons were away fighting for country and empire.  

A newspaper cutting, possibly from the West Wyalong Advocate c. 1916, appears in Loh & Winternitz’s book

One Sam family, or two?

There is no evidence that Harry Sam(s) of Forbes and William Flood Sam(s) of Wyalong were related, or even knew of each other's existence, despite their geographic proximity.  Academics Alistair Kennedy and Kate Bagnall have not included the Sams Family of Forbes in their research of Australian Chinese although family tradition is that Harry Sams was the product of a Chinese father and western mother (see The Journey from Arthur Conway to "Fither" Robinson).

Nevertheless the parallels between the two Sam(s) families are remarkable:

• Both families originated from the marriage of a Chinese patriarch and a western mother (although it appears that Harry was born in Australia while William Flood Sam was born in China).

• Each had large families, consisting mostly boys

• In each case multiple sons from the respective families joined the AIF, serving in France and England

• Newspapers in West Wyalong and Forbes respectively lauded the families' military sacrifice, while discreetly ignoring their Chinese ethnicity

• In each case at least one of the sons married a British bride and brought her back to Australia

• At some point in their family histories the family name in each case changed from "Sam" to "Sams".

Possible connections of the Wyalong Sams to the Robinson family tree

If the Forbes and Wyalong Sam(s) are connected, then the Wyalong Sams can also be regarded as part of the Robinson family tree.

Even if the two Sam(s) families are not connected there is the intriguing possibility that there was a direct relationship between one of the grandsons of William Flood Sam, George T Loolong, and Robert Robinson.

We know that Robert Robinson (1890-1942), the husband of Nellie Connelly (1888-1961) and the father of the first three of her children, was estranged from her after his return from World War One (see Robert, the real Robinson).  After his separation from Nellie Robert became involved with a new partner, Veronica (Vera) Conway with whom he lived until his death.  Vera was born in Wyalong and was the daughter of William Patrick Conway, who worked the goldmines around Wyalong which had been established by William Patrick's father and uncle (see The Conways of the Wyalong Gold Rush).  But how and when did Robert and Vera meet?

One possibility is that Vera is related to Martha Conway, the mother of Arthur Sams, who replaced Robert as Nellie Connelly's partner after Nellie and Robert split up (see Arthur's Journey from Conway to "Fither" Robinson). However to this date no direct link between the two Conway families, has been found. Indeed the available evidence suggests that the two families originated in different counties in Ireland

But perhaps the Sam family of Wyalong offers another explanation for how Robert and Vera met.

George T Loolong was one of several of the sons and grandsons of William Flood Sam who were described as "miners" on their AIF enlistment papers.  It may be that these Sam boys worked at the Conway goldmine in Wyalong, or at least knew the Conway family.  George Loolong served in the same AIF unit as Robert Robinson (the 56th Battalion) in France.  In fact both were wounded within a day of each other at the Battle of Polygon Wood in 1917.

After his injury George was discharged from the AIF and returned to Wyalong. From his war file we know that George was in receipt of a war pension on account of his injury.

After his own return from France Robert Robinson spent many fruitless months seeking a disability pension due to his own injury.

Could it be that Robert was in contact with George, perhaps seeking advice on how he was able to secure a disability pension and that for this reason Robert came to Wyalong? If so Robert may have met Vera Conway, the daughter of a mine owner possibly known to George.

This is pure speculation, but intriguing nonetheless.