red feds

The killing of Fred Evans

On 'Black Tuesday', 12 November 1912, in the midst of a bitter six-month strike by miners in the small New Zealand goldmining town of Waihi, striker Fred Evans was killed - one of only two fatalities* in an industrial dispute in New Zealand's history.

Fred Evans' violent death during the 1912 Waihi miners' strike made this otherwise obscure figure into a martyr of the New Zealand labour movement. He remains one of only two people to be killed during an industrial dispute in this country's history.