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Article kindly put together by his grandson Paul Mallia.
CHARLES MALLIA: FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT OF THE A.M.I.C. INSTITUTE
FOR SEAMAN IN WELLINGTON.
Charles Mallia went to sea at an early age. He was first attracted by America then Australia, and finally New Zealand where he decided to make his home. The outbreak of the war 1914-18 found him in San Francisco, and his one thought was to return and fight for the country that had earned his allegiance. He signed on without any hesitation on
the Aorangi and immediately sail was set to Wellington. On reaching destination he joined the New Zealand Forces and went to France, where he was badly
gassed and bore the effects years afterwards in a long,
painful illness.
Whilst on leave in England he met and married his wife
Mary. They settled back in Wellington and slowly build a family of 5 children, one girl Angela and four boys, John, Frank, Bernard and last but not least Tony.
These times were hard for The Mallias. He worked as a carpenter at St Patrick's College and did a lot of
work as well for the churches round Wellington and for The St. Vincent De Paul Society.
His dream to build the institute for seamen drove him to rent the first floor of a factory in Vivian Str.
where seamen could dance and enjoy young company as well as being able to find a spiritual rock
to which they could cling. This work during the depression though extremely hard was strongly build on prayer and charity, his faith was its driving power. With his own hands he began to build the chapel, where many seamen knelt before its altar in search of peace.
In this location other Maltese seamen came across and were greatly assisted by CHARLES MALLIA namely Joe Saliba and Joe Borg who are no longer with us and also Nickola Sammut who resides to this day at Naenae.
Coincidentally one of his grand daughters (that of his youngest son) married the grandson of Dame Whina Cooper who was rewarded for her services to Maoridom with an MBE exactly on the same day in 1953 as MR CHARLES MALLIA. Of course he gave Malta his country of origin a wonderful name and we are proud of his example.
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