A pauper's burial

John Henry Holmes did not deserve his death or the fuss that accompanied it.
He had been born into a cultured English family on October 20, 1820, to James and Ann.
Indeed, his father was court painter to King George IV. Some documents give his name as Henry John Holmes - but he was known as Henry.
He would have lived in a strata of society with great benefits, including his education which was at Harrow, a boarding school founded by royalty.
He went to Australia about 1853 and married a widow Catherine Martin about 1860 and they went on to have five children. Catherine died in 1872.
Some time after he came to New Zealand living in Auckland and working as a scenic artist at the Opera House.
By then he was alone. And he liked to drink.
On January 24 he was in bed reading - he suffered from insomnia - when he heard the call that there was a fire.
The two storey building on Elliott St was a series of workshops, including Holmes’.
Delilah Harris, who lived with her family in another of the rooms, knocked repeatedly on their joint wall. She later told an inquest that he did not answer but she heard a man walking about quickly as if trying to get out.
The fire was put out, but it had damaged a good part of the building. It was never discovered exactly how the fire started.
Holmes was found by the stairwell, nude with his trousers in his hand overcome with smoke inhalation.
That would have been tragic enough but he was to be buried as a pauper. It took some theatre friends to raise a collection for him. They gave some money to John Mackinley, who had his workshop in the same building.
HIs friends wanted a Christian burial, Mackinley and his group - called Freethinkers - did not.
An argument broke out at the cemetery and poor Holmes’ body waited in the nearby hearse. Finally at the gravesite the Freethinkers kept interrupting the reverend brought in for the funeral.
It nearly came to a fight with neither side agreeing what religion or school of thought Holmes had belonged to.
Despite the two sides, Holmes ended up buried decently but even the newspapers of the time called it a disgrace.
Holmes is buried in the Symonds St Cemetery in Auckland.
Photo by Maxim Tajer.​