The following photo from the Museums Victoria Collection was one I posted on the WDF Facebook page while featuring photos from Carapook. The description with the photo reads, “Indian hawker and farmer on farm”. The names given are Basil Pearce and Rahn (sic) Singh and the location and date of the photo, Carapook 1924.

I set about looking for more about the two gentlemen. First Bazil, who was born at Gritjurk, northeast of Coleraine, in 1870,¹ a son of William Pearce and Ann Watts. Basil married Mary Ellen King in 1904.² They lived at Muntham, Carapook, and finally, Coleraine.

This is Mary, Bazil’s wife, knitting up a storm in 1941 for the war effort, all done on a single pair of knitting needles.

Bazil and Mary’s married son Bazil junior enlisted only a month after the publication of Mary’s photo. He went to New Guinea with the 2/12 Australian Infantry Battalion and died from wounds there in February 1943.

Bazil Pearce senior died in 1958 at Coleraine, aged eighty-eight.³ Mary died in 1980 at Coleraine, aged ninety-four.⁴

An increase in migration from India to Victoria in the 1880s saw an influx of Indian hawkers in the Hamilton district by the early 1890s. Trading from carts, or on foot, they made their way around isolated properties in the west of the state selling their wares, including pots and pans, drapery, and clothing.

Each December, hawkers were required to apply for a license. In 1892, because of a rise in complaints to authorities, the government introduced additional conditions to the Hawkers’ and Pedlars’ Act including the need to display a license number.

That didn’t discourage anyone, with forty-three license applicants at the Hamilton Court on 13 December 1892, an increase from twenty-six in 1891.

In December 1893, close to fifty Indian hawkers, mostly Sikh, gathered near the Martin Street gate of the Hamilton Botanic Gardens (below), waiting for their time before the magistrate. In December 1894, there were around seventy. In both years, local photographer John Arnest captured the colourful scene.

The Indian hawkers were incredibly generous and, like clockwork, each year when they paid their license fee, they also made a contribution to the local hospital. In 1894, Sukbi Nand Verma, the “interpreter for Indian residents in the colony,” wrote to Charles Wiggins, the secretary of the Hamilton Hospital and Benevolent Asylum, requesting acknowledgment of a donation of £11 12s 3d by the local hawkers. One of those he mentioned as having contributed to the donation was R. Singh. An extract of Sukbi’s letter is below,

We, the undersigned Indian hawkers, beg to present our poor and humble donation in aid of the charitable Hospital, Hamilton, with the simple view of encouraging and furthering this laudable public cause. We are not inclined to think that we should get any praise for our so doing, but on the other hand, a sense of universal brotherhood and a sympathy and feeling for the helpless sufferers actuated us to alleviate the sufferings of the poor patients by taking a step in this direction. The sum offered, no doubt, is trifling, considering the solid and substantial benefits which the Asylum confers upon general masses, but, however, let it be understood that it is the outcome of grateful and feeling hearts. Our religion teaches us to always extend a helping hand to those who really stand in need of it, and after giving a fair and deep consideration to this problem, we found none more worthy of our attention and help than this Asylum… (Hamilton Spectator 11 December 1894)

Ran Singh was in Hamilton in December 1896 when he received a license to sell goods on foot, and again in 1897. In 1898, the number of license applications decreased, but Ran Singh received a foot license. However, in 1899, the magistrate did not grant him a license.

In 1902, Ran again received a license to hawk on foot. It seems he then moved to the west of Hamilton. In 1914, Ran was among the gift givers for the marriage of John Quigley and Evelyn King at Merino. In December 1915, Ran and fellow hawkers, including Lucca Singh, donated to the Casterton Hospital after paying for their licenses at Casterton.

This is Lucca Singh, with his van photographed somewhere in the Casterton district, around 1925.

It appears Ran’s circuit was between Coleraine to the east and Casterton to the west, and between Carapook to the north (where he met Bazil) and Merino, to the south. There is a photo of Ran at Henty c1925, a location between those places, on the link …Ran Singh at Henty.

By the 1930s, Ran was in his seventies and had suffered some ill health. Locals had suggested he go to a hospital for medical treatment, but he refused. On Wednesday 9 October, Ran drove his horse-drawn van into Coleraine and set up camp in his usual place, a vacant block in McLeod Street. Around 4.30pm that afternoon, Ran went to Trangmar’s store in Whyte Street Coleraine (below).

Shop assistant John Brens served Ran, just as he had done many times over the previous fifteen years. Ran purchased a bottle of brandy and Uneeda biscuits. He was very frail and appeared unwell. John helped him down the steps of the store (below).

Ran returned to McLeod Street, and about 5.00pm he went to the home of Henry Hutchins who lived to the rear of the block where Ran camped. Henry had known Ran for about thirty years since he first started camping in McLeod Street. Ran boiled his billy on Henry’s stove and made a pot of tea. He left but returned at 7.00pm and spent an hour with Henry before announcing he was off to bed. Ran returned to his van and arranged the bags he used as a curtain at the front of the van while he slept.

Around 9.45pm, John Heron stepped out into his backyard and saw a glow coming from McLeod Street. He rushed to the front of his house and saw Ran’s van on fire. John tried to prise open the doors, but the heat forced him back. Others, including Henry Hutchins, arrived on the scene with buckets of water, but to no avail. By the time the fire brigade arrived shortly after, it was too late.

Ran’s body was removed to the Coleraine Police Station and his friend Lucca Singh was called in to identify his body. Lucca confirmed he had known the almost 80-year-old Ran since he arrived in Victoria from Punjab, India around 40 years before.

An inquest found Ran had died because of a heart attack and asphyxiation from the smoke. However, the coroner was unsure if the heart attack occurred before the fire. John Heron heard no sound coming from the van when he tried to open the doors, and when Constable John Duffy recovered Ran’s body, there were no signs of a struggle. It’s possible Ran suffered a heart attack and an unattended candle started the fire.

There are few reminders of the time when Indian hawkers were commonplace in the Western District. At the Hamilton (Old) Cemetery, there is a memorial for Gungah Singh. He died of consumption aged 45 and his friends sought permission to cremate his body on the cemetery grounds. The Central Board of Health and cemetery trust approved the request, and the cremation took place on Saturday 7 September 1901. Gungah’s ashes were returned to India to disperse in the Ganges River.

Further Reading

Name variations of early Indians in Australia at Chinese Australian Family Historians of Victoria 

Sikh Pioneers of Australia at Sikh Wiki.

Sources

1. Registry of Birth, Deaths, and Marriages, Victoria, Bazil Pearce, Birth Reg. No. 22181/1870
2. Registry of Birth, Deaths, and Marriages, Victoria, Bazil Pearce, Marriage Reg. No. 2038/1904
3. Registry of Birth, Deaths, and Marriages, Victoria, Bazil Pearce, Death Reg. No. 26612/1958
4. Registry of Birth, Deaths, and Marriages, Victoria, Mary Ellen Pearce, Death Reg. No. 28226/1980