Plaque marks end of tomb restoration

• Published date: 29 September 2022
• Publication title: Clutha Leader

Fifth-generation descendant Adrienne Shaw, of Christchurch, has finally installed a plaque solely dedicated to Sam Chew Lain’s tomb at the Lawrence Chinese Cemetery

The original plaque was in the Lodge St George building until its closure and is now in the Tuapeka Goldfields Museum.

The plaque on the tomb is an exact replica.

Ms Shaw has been in the process of restoring the tomb since 2019.

In October 2021, a reunion of descendants of the Chinese camp was held, with a series of headstones, tomb and memorial unveilings at the Lawrence Chinese Cemetery and gold rush-era Chinese camp.

Among those was the official unveiling of the Sam Chew Lain mausoleum, but the plaque designed specifically for the tomb was not yet available at the time of the celebrations.

Ms Shaw said the project was now complete and the plaque was ‘‘the icing on the cake’’.

Sam Chew Lain was a Chinese businessman who arrived in New Zealand in the 1860s and managed to bridge the cultural...