Striker fatally wounded at Waihī

Striking worker Fred Evans was seriously injured in a clash with police and strike-breakers during a bitter six-month-long dispute in the Bay of Plenty goldmining town of Waihī. He died the following day.

An Australian-born stationary-engine driver, Evans belonged to the militant Waihi Trade Union of Workers. Led by Bill Parry, this was affiliated to the New Zealand Federation of Labour (the ‘Red Feds’) and implacably opposed to the Waihi Goldmining Company. In May 1912 the union went on strike in protest at the formation of a company-inspired breakaway union for engine-drivers.

Escalating violence in Waihī culminated in the dramatic events of ‘Black Tuesday’, 12 November 1912. A crowd of strike-breakers and police stormed the miners’ hall, at the time defended only by Evans and two or three other men. Both sides were armed. During a struggle at the door, a strike-breaker was shot in the knee, possibly by Evans. As the unionists retreated, a police constable, Gerald Wade, was shot in the stomach. Evans was struck down by a police baton and, according to some reports, savagely beaten by strike-breakers.

Left for an hour and a half in police cells before being taken to hospital, Evans never regained consciousness and died the next day. Constable Wade survived but faced a long recovery, carrying a bullet near his spine for the rest of his life. As the strike collapsed, strikers and their families were hunted through the streets by armed mobs. The violence was as vicious as any seen in a civil conflict in New Zealand, and hundreds of people fled Waihī over the following days.

Image: Reconstruction of Evans' shooting