This October Malta’s population numbers were temporarily boosted by the arrival of many descendants of a remarkable man, John Joseph Fatullah Hannah Asphar, who met for a historic reunion. Long-lost cousins travelled from as far afield as the US, Australia and the UK to join those already at home in Malta.

Their ancestor, John Asphar, arrived in Malta with his mother in 1854 as a result of a chance meeting with a Maltese missionary priest, Don Pietro Formosa, in Calcutta. Mr Asphar was attracted to the idea of settling in England but dreaded the thought of the cold weather. His own father was the youngest of 24 children of Hannah Botros Asphar and had left his birthplace in Aleppo, Syria to travel to Calcutta, where he set up a trading business.

John Joseph Fatullah Hannah Asphar.John Joseph Fatullah Hannah Asphar.

John Joseph Fatullah Hannah married a Maltese woman, Angelica Bonavia, and they lived in Gudja when they first arrived. The main altar in that parish church was donated by Angelica, and she and her husband were buried in the church, as was the custom in those days.

Philanthropy was a way of life for the Asphars; John Joseph’s father had donated the land on which the Loreto Entally orphanage in Calcutta was built in 1843. Five children were born to the couple: John Francis, Luigi, Elisabeth, Mary and Theresa. After Angelica died, it was said that the people of Gudja respected her so much that, when she was sick, they spread rushes in the streets nearby so that there was less noise from their traffic. Mr Asphar’s second wife was Philomena Caruana.

Of the four remaining children, John Francis married Mary Vella, and Elisabeth married Alfonso Maria Galea, another philanthropist. Mary was single, and Teresa, known as Terry, became a White Sister and worked all her life in East Africa.

Three generations of the Asphar family spent a precious week together enjoying a number of excursions in Valletta, Mdina and Gozo and a dinner in St George’s Bay, Birzebbuga where several family members have lived.

The tourist guide for one of these excursions was Teresa Cachia Zammit, a granddaughter of John Francis Asphar.

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