FAKIR, Ravji
Born 1895; died 26 November 1918, aged 23; buried 27 November 1918; age 23
Ravji (sometimes given as Rangi) Fakir was born in Bombay (today’s Mumbai). His death certificate records that he had lived in New Zealand for not more than 9 months. It may have been even less: on the passenger list for the Riverina, there was a group of Indian males sailing as steerage passengers, with no ages given and identified as ‘Tourists Travelers Domestics etc’, one of whom was ’R Fakir’. If this was Ravji, he arrived in Wellington on 30 July 1918.
On 16 October of that year, The Dominion published a list of men who had been selected by ballot from the Reserve list for service with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, one of whom was Ravji Fakir Koli. He had given his occupation as ‘bottle gatherer’.
At the time, he was living at 37 Haining Street, an address that matches the one on his death certificate (although that gives his occupation as ‘hawker’). Haining Street was widely regarded as a byword for slum housing. On 20 November 1918, The Dominion published a telling anecdote (mentioned in Geoffrey Rice’s study Black November), about a health inspector who said that he found ‘twelve or fifteen Assyrians’ crowded into ‘one tiny little place in Haining Street – a hovel, reeking with humanity’. The report went on to say that one of the inhabitants ‘was taken away in a bad state, and died’. In a letter to the editor of The Dominion on the following day, 21 November, a correspondent signing himself ‘A Syrian’ vigorously denied the accusation, insisting that there were no Syrians living in Haining Street, that none of his countrymen had so far died of the flu, and that they were ‘not accustomed to living in hovels’. He added that the official had ‘allowed his imagination to run riot’. On 2 December, there was a follow-up story which confirmed that the people living in the Haining Street dwelling were not Syrians but Hindu. Although the death first reported on 20 November was not that of Ravji Fakir because he died six days later, on 26 November, we know that he was living in the area and possibly in the same boarding house with other countrymen from India.
Ravji Fakir did not leave a will. In February 1919, the Public Trustee issued a public notice seeking any claims that might exist against the estate of ‘Rangi Fakir, of Wellington, Bottle Gatherer’. After meeting the funeral costs, his estate amounted to precisely £60 (equivalent to a little more than $6,200 in 2017 values).
Ravji’s headstone gives some additional information. It reveals that he was the ‘father of Sukhi BEN’. Sukhi is a popular name for girls in India, particularly in the north. No trace of her has been found in any New Zealand records which tends to suggest that she remained in India with her mother when her father set off for New Zealand. The headstone would have been installed when the burial plot was purchased, which did not occur until March 1981, 63 years later. It includes some Gujarati script which confirms that the deceased was Ravji Fakir and adds that he came from the village of Akura.
A link between the person who purchased the plot and installed the headstone with Ravji Fakir is being investigated further.
Researched and written by Max Kerr
Grave Information:
Section: PUBLIC2
Plot: 339 I
Born 1895; died 26 November 1918, aged 23; buried 27 November 1918; age 23
Ravji (sometimes given as Rangi) Fakir was born in Bombay (today’s Mumbai). His death certificate records that he had lived in New Zealand for not more than 9 months. It may have been even less: on the passenger list for the Riverina, there was a group of Indian males sailing as steerage passengers, with no ages given and identified as ‘Tourists Travelers Domestics etc’, one of whom was ’R Fakir’. If this was Ravji, he arrived in Wellington on 30 July 1918.
On 16 October of that year, The Dominion published a list of men who had been selected by ballot from the Reserve list for service with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, one of whom was Ravji Fakir Koli. He had given his occupation as ‘bottle gatherer’.
At the time, he was living at 37 Haining Street, an address that matches the one on his death certificate (although that gives his occupation as ‘hawker’). Haining Street was widely regarded as a byword for slum housing. On 20 November 1918, The Dominion published a telling anecdote (mentioned in Geoffrey Rice’s study Black November), about a health inspector who said that he found ‘twelve or fifteen Assyrians’ crowded into ‘one tiny little place in Haining Street – a hovel, reeking with humanity’. The report went on to say that one of the inhabitants ‘was taken away in a bad state, and died’. In a letter to the editor of The Dominion on the following day, 21 November, a correspondent signing himself ‘A Syrian’ vigorously denied the accusation, insisting that there were no Syrians living in Haining Street, that none of his countrymen had so far died of the flu, and that they were ‘not accustomed to living in hovels’. He added that the official had ‘allowed his imagination to run riot’. On 2 December, there was a follow-up story which confirmed that the people living in the Haining Street dwelling were not Syrians but Hindu. Although the death first reported on 20 November was not that of Ravji Fakir because he died six days later, on 26 November, we know that he was living in the area and possibly in the same boarding house with other countrymen from India.
Ravji Fakir did not leave a will. In February 1919, the Public Trustee issued a public notice seeking any claims that might exist against the estate of ‘Rangi Fakir, of Wellington, Bottle Gatherer’. After meeting the funeral costs, his estate amounted to precisely £60 (equivalent to a little more than $6,200 in 2017 values).
Ravji’s headstone gives some additional information. It reveals that he was the ‘father of Sukhi BEN’. Sukhi is a popular name for girls in India, particularly in the north. No trace of her has been found in any New Zealand records which tends to suggest that she remained in India with her mother when her father set off for New Zealand. The headstone would have been installed when the burial plot was purchased, which did not occur until March 1981, 63 years later. It includes some Gujarati script which confirms that the deceased was Ravji Fakir and adds that he came from the village of Akura.
A link between the person who purchased the plot and installed the headstone with Ravji Fakir is being investigated further.
Researched and written by Max Kerr
Grave Information:
Section: PUBLIC2
Plot: 339 I