Lionel Terry - The Murder of Joe Kum Yung in 1905

The Murder of Joe Kum Yung in 1905

Terry wrote letters and poems to various publications espousing his views on labour, capitalism, the Empire and race. He wrote and privately published The Shadow while in New Zealand. A copy of the original is in the State Library of Victoria in Australia (among other sources) and can be read online on that library's webpage. It can be found by going to the search page at . This text called on King Edward VII to defend his Empire against the capitalists and against Chinese and East Asian immigration.

From June 1905 he undertook a 900 km trek from Mangonui to Wellington, distributing copies of The Shadow as he went. Once he reached the nation's capital in September of that year he attempted to convince New Zealand's Parliament to ban any further Chinese and East Asian immigration to New Zealand, but failed to do so.

On September 24, 1905, Terry shot Joe (possibly Zhou) Kum Yung, a Chinese immigrant, in Haining Street, Wellington. Mr. Yung died later of injuries. According to John Dunmore, Mr Yung was an elderly Canton Chinese gold prospector, aged 70, who had a pronounced limp as a result of a past mining accident. Terry selected Yung as his victim due to this infirmity. Ironically, Mr. Yung appears to have been destitute, given his lack of luck on the declining goldfields, and yearned to return to his native Canton.

Although police had no leads on the murder, Terry submitted himself to the authorities the following day saying: "I have come to tell you that I am the man who shot the Chinaman in the Chinese quarters of the city last evening. I take an interest in alien immigration and I took this means of bringing it under the public notice."

The New Zealand Supreme Court convicted him of murder on 21 November 1905. Originally, he was sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted to life incarceration within New Zealand psychiatric institutions. Over the next 47 years Terry served time in Christchurch's Sunnyside, Dunedin's Seacliff Lunatic Asylum and Lyttelton Prison. He was later diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. This did not prevent some New Zealanders circulating a petition for mitigation of his sentence, although the local Chinese community circulated a counter-petition in response.