Eaglehawk Neck on the Tasman Peninsula wears its convict history proudly, but the story of an Indian orphan and his connection to the place is less well known.

Before the Lufra Hotel at Eaglehawk Neck was bought by Reg Ansett, it was owned and run by Chokria "Chokey" Nuroo, who purchased the hotel in 1906.

Chokey Nuroo was a popular and well-known figure in Tasmania in the early half of the 1900s. ( Supplied: Peter Derkley )

Nuroo ran the hotel for 30 years with his Tasmanian wife and their seven children.

Peter Derkley is the hotel's current general manager and collects memorabilia of Nuroo's time at Eaglehawk Neck.

He said he considered the industrious Indian to be a Tasmanian worthy of mention.

"It intrigues me how an apparent orphan boy became well established in Tasmania," Mr Derkley said.

"[He] was the provedore of the steam ships down the channel, which must have been massive, then somehow he became the proprietor of a fairly substantial building and enterprise."

From 'Indian valet' to Tasmanian hotelier

Chokria "Chokey" Nuroo aged about 10, not long after he was adopted by Jules Joubert. ( Supplied: Peter Derkley )

Nuroo was born in Kolkata, then known as Calcutta, in 1874 and adopted nine years later by French entrepreneur and exhibition manager Jules Joubert, who was in Kolkata organising an international exhibition.

Nuroo travelled the world with Joubert and it is rumoured he was displayed in early exhibitions as a young boy as a flesh and blood "specimen" from the "exotic east".

Eventually, Joubert brought the exhibition to Tasmania.

He and Nuroo arrived in Launceston in 1891 with news reports calling Nuroo "Joubert's Indian valet".

The pair continued touring with the exhibition before returning to Hobart in 1893, and for whatever reason Nuroo decided to leave Joubert and make Tasmania his home.

Nuroo worked as a provedore supplying a number ships before he sold up in Hobart and bought the former sanatorium overlooking Pirates Bay on the Tasman Peninsula and running it as a lucrative hotel.

He became a much-loved character in Eaglehawk Neck, and after he died on February 5, 1941, aged 66, his service at the crematorium at Cornelian Bay was packed.

Nuroo's ashes were interred at Clyde Island, a small islet off the coast of Pirates Bay, where a plaque still stands.

Chokey Nuroo married a Tasmanian woman and they had seven children. ( Supplied: Peter Derkley )

The property was sold a few years after his death and a new hotel was built a short distance from the old.

Within six months of the new building going up the old wooden Lufra Hotel mysteriously burned to the ground.

Mr Derkley said telling guests at the hotel the story of the Nuroo family was important and something he loved to do.

"He's obviously the father, or the source, of a big family group in Tasmania," he said.

"The fact that they still celebrate him, there's got to be some magic in there."