Historical information

This wagon was used in towns across south-west Victoria during the first half of the twentieth century by Pooran Singh, an Indian-born immigrant. Singh arrived in Australia alone in 1899 at the age of 30. The following year, at the Colac Licensing Court in western Victoria, he was one of 78 hawkers granted a Hawker’s Licence. According to the Colac Herald, all but two of the applicants appeared to be Asian. While some hawkers registered horse-drawn carts, Singh was one of nineteen licensed to trade on foot, selling door to door. Applicants were encouraged to contribute to a collection for the Colac Hospital.

Over time, Pooran Singh progressed to owning his own wagon—a top-of-the-range light delivery vehicle—and a horse named Prince. His work often took him along rough country roads. In September 1909, near Thowgla in the Corryong district of north-eastern Victoria, he was thrown from his wagon while navigating a deep rut and was run over by one of its wheels. Although he suffered bruising to his chest, his injuries were not serious. The following year he was granted a Hawker’s Licence in Corryong. By 1916, while living and working at Garvoc in western Victoria, he advertised in The Standard after losing his paper license on Cooramook Road. In 1918, at the Warrnambool Petty Sessions Court, he was one of four applicants granted renewal of their hawkers’ licenses, and each donated ten shillings to Warrnambool Hospital. Throughout these years, Singh was known to farmers and their families as he travelled across Victoria’s Western District, living and working from his covered wagon.

In his later years, Pooran Singh formed a close friendship with John Jandes Moore and his wife, Vera, of Russells Creek, Warrnambool. They offered him the use of their property as a base for his travels and cared for him during his final illness. John Moore was later appointed one of the two executors of Singh’s will.

Pooran Singh died in Warrnambool on 8 June 1947, aged 77. His final wish was to be cremated and for his ashes to be returned to India for immersion in the Ganges. The cremation was arranged by Guyett’s Funerals in Warrnambool. Having never married, Singh left his estate to his four nephews, enabling them to buy land and build homes; one later installed a memorial plaque in his honour. In the late 1980s, Guyett’s Funerals placed his ashes in the niche wall at Warrnambool Cemetery as a memorial, while continuing to hope that family instructions might eventually arrive. Nearly 63 years after his death, renewed enquiries brought public attention to the long and respectful care given to his ashes. As a result, the renowned Indian cricketer Kapil Dev travelled to Warrnambool to collect them and escort them to India, helping to fulfil Singh’s final wish. He was joined by one of Singh’s grand-nephews, Harmel Uppal, who had travelled from England. At a formal ceremony on 25 July 2010 commemorating Singh’s life, the ashes were handed to Dev and Uppal, and local resident Avis Quarrell, who had known Singh as a child, read a poem she had written in his memory. She still owned a shell necklace that Singh had made for her mother. Some Warrnambool locals who had been closely involved also travelled to India, where they joined Uppal’s family from the village of Uppal Bhopa, near Jalandhar. On 31 July 2010, Pooran Singh’s ashes were immersed in the Ganges, fulfilling the wish he had expressed more than six decades earlier.

After Pooran Singh’s death, his horse and wagon remained on John Moore’s property. When Prince died, he was buried on the beach at Warrnambool. The wagon stayed with the Moore family and was at times used as a cubby house. In about 1997, John Moore, the son of John Jandes Moore, donated it to Flagstaff Hill. After restoration, the wagon became an attraction in the village, where volunteer Pat and his Clydesdale horse, Duke, offered visitors rides around Flagstaff Hill’s lake.

Significance

This wagon is significant for its association with an Indian emigrant who used it to earn an income in Australia. It also reflects the vital role of hawkers, who travelled through rural and regional communities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, supplying food, goods and news.
The wagon is also historically significant as a former Flagstaff Hill attraction, offering visitors the experience of horse-drawn rides around the lake.

Physical description

Wagon: a light delivery vehicle once used as a hawker's wagon. It is a four-wheel, horse-drawn vehicle with iron tyres, brakes, spoked wheels painted red with decorative yellow strips on the hubs, a timber shaft, and springs on the undercarriage. It was once a covered wagon, fitted with green, wooden sideboards, a front seat with leather-padded backrest and mounting steps.
The late-19th to early-20th-century wagon was once owned by Pooran Singh, a local Indian hawker.