Mahomed Rashid Bux
Mahomed Rashid Bux was born in Perth in 1894. His father, Mahomed Bux, was a former hawker and in the 1890s ran a drapery shop in Barrack Street.
Mahomed Rashid was educated at the Christian Brothers College and was a keen and talented sportsman. In 1911, he played in the West Australian Football League (WAFL) for East Perth.
Like other Australian residents who were considered ‘prohibited immigrants’ under the Immigration Restriction Act 1901, Mahomed Rashid applied for a Certificate of Exemption from the Dictation Test (CEDT) when he intended to travel overseas. Holders of CEDTs were permitted to return within three years without sitting the dictation test that applied to aliens wishing to enter Australia from 1901 to 1958.
In 1912, Mahomed Rashid travelled to Lahore (in what is now Pakistan) to look after the family’s business interests and returned to Perth in 1922, later moving between the two cities for business and family reasons. In 1929, he and his three brothers and eight sisters inherited their late father’s estate worth almost £40,000.
The National Archives of Australia holds many CEDTs for Western Australian residents with Asian heritage. These records can be found by searching the RecordSearch database, available at www.naa.gov.au.
