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Pioneer turret NZ Wars memorial, Ngaruawahia

Nine steamers plied the Waikato and Waipā rivers between 1863 and 1870 to supply the British and colonial military forces stationed in the area. This river fleet was a key means of implementing British strategy during the Waikato War (1863–4). General Duncan Cameron’s plans required complete British control of these waterways.

Three paddle-steamers – Avon, Pioneer and Koheroa – served during the Waikato War, along with four armoured barges and several smaller barges. The fleet enabled the rapid movement of forces and supplies into the Waikato heartland; they also allowed the British to scout, shell and outflank Māori positions.

Cameron began assembling an armoured fleet before the invasion of Waikato on 12 July 1863. The paddle-steamer Avon was purchased in Lyttelton and fitted out for war at Onehunga in 1862. It was armed with a 12-pounder ship’s gun and a Congreve rocket tube, and iron-plated for protection from enemy fire. In addition, four armoured barges were prepared as troop carriers.

Pioneer was the first naval vessel built for the New Zealand government. The shallow-draught paddle-steamer was constructed at Pyrmont, Sydney, by the Australian Steam Navigation Company at a cost of £9500 (equivalent to $1 million in 2011). Pioneer was launched on 16 July 1863, left Sydney under tow on 22 September and arrived at Onehunga on 3 October.

The vessel was a flat-bottomed, stern-wheeled paddle-steamer, 43 m long with a 6 m beam. Twin 30 hp engines and a 3.7 m (12 ft) stern wheel enabled a top speed of 9 knots (17 kph). The vessel was fitted with two iron turrets measuring 2.4 m high and 3.6 m in diameter. Positioned fore and aft, these protected 12-pounder Armstrong guns and provided loopholes for troops firing rifles and small arms.

Pioneer’s engine room and other important components were well armoured. On the Waikato River near Meremere, the vessel came under fire from an old ship’s gun acquired by the King Movement. While one round penetrated plating and spoiled a barrel of beef, Pioneer was largely undamaged by the improvised projectiles.

The ship was purpose-built for use on the Waikato River. Although constructed from 3/8 inch (9.5 mm) iron and weighing 304 tons, its draught was only 0.9 m when carrying hundreds of men. This enabled Pioneer to operate as far inland as Te Rore, on the Waipā River near Te Awamutu.

Pioneer was manned by officers and men from Royal Navy ships, including HMS Curaçoa. Its service was comparatively brief. Pioneer was wrecked on the Manukau Bar in 1866 after breaking its moorings at Port Waikato.

This turret from Pioneer stands in the Waikato town of Ngāruawāhia near the confluence of the Waipa and Waikato rivers. It was presented to the town by the government in 1927 and is now located on The Point, close to the band rotunda and the First World War memorial.

Ngāruawāhia, the home of the Māori King, was occupied by the British in early December 1863, soon after their hard-won victory at Rangiriri. For the next few months The Point was a staging depot for the campaign to conquer the fertile land between the Horotiu (upper Waikato) and Waipā rivers. No trace remains of a redoubt built nearby on the site of earthworks that had been hastily thrown up by the Kingites.

The second Pioneer turret is located in the small town of Mercer, some 50 km north of Ngāruawāhia via State Highway One. Despite being used as Mercer’s police lock-up and later incorporated in the local First World War memorial, it retains more original features than its twin.

Apart from Pioneer’s gun turrets, the major surviving relic of the Waikato River fleet is the iron hulk of HMS Rangiriri, a sister vessel to the Koheroa. This arrived from Sydney too late to see active service but landed the first military settlers at Kirikiriroa (Hamilton) on 24 August 1864. It ran aground on the east bank of the Waikato River in 1889 and served for many years as a retaining wall and diving platform. In 1982 Rangiriri was excavated and moved to its current site opposite Waikato Museum. In 2009 the hulk was lifted, treated and moved to a purpose-built shelter above flood level.

Transcript of information panel

The Pioneer gunboat was built in Sydney / for military operations in the Waikato and / was part of the river fleet used in the British / invasion in 1863–4. It played a crucial role / in transporting hundreds of troops up the / rivers, and was capable of carrying 500 / troops at a time. After the war it was used / for transporting supplies and European / settlers. / It was an iron flat-bottomed stern-wheel / paddle steamer of nearly 3000 tonnes, with a length of 43 metres and a beam of 7 metres, drawing only 1 metre of water when / fully loaded. It was built of 9 millimetre / bullet-proof iron and fitted with four watertight compartments. / Its two gun turrets were pierced for 12 / pounder Armstrong guns and rifles. One / stands here, as a reminder of the war, which / led to the confiscation of Waikato lands. / The other turret is at Mercer.

Further information

James Cowan, ‘Gunboats and Maori Cannoneers: The Romance of The Rail: A Descriptive and Historical Story of the North Island Main Trunk Railway’, in The New Zealand Railways Magazine, vol. 3, no. 2 (1 June 1928), p. 34
James Cowan, ‘The River War Fleet’, in The New Zealand Wars: a history of the Maori campaigns and the pioneering period: Volume I: 1845–1864, R.E. Owen, Wellington, 1955, pp. 308–15
Andy Dodd, ‘PS Rangiriri: the last remant of “New Zealand’s first navy”’, Forts and Works, no. 25, June 2009, pp. 1–7
Grant Howard, The navy in New Zealand, Reed, Wellington, 1981, pp. 11–12
Neville Ritchie, ‘The Waikato War of 1863–64: a guide to the main events and sites’, Te Awamutu and District Museum, 2001
J. O’C. Ross, The White Ensign in New Zealand, Reed, Wellington, 1967, pp. 87–8
T.D. Taylor, New Zealand’s naval story, Reed, Wellington, 1948, pp. 108–9

Credit:

Image: Jock Phillips, 2011

Text: Karen Cameron, 2011

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Ngāruawahia NZ Wars memorial

Ngāruawāhia is 20 km north-west of Hamilton at the point where the Waikato and Waipā rivers meet. The town is home to the Māori Kīngitanga or King Movement. The first Maori king, Pōtatau Te Wherowhero, was crowned there in 1858 and established the settlement as his capital. Pōtatau’s son, Tukaroto Matutaera Pōtatau Te Wherowhero Tāwhiao, succeeded his father as Māori King in 1860. The early part of Tāwhiao’s 34-year reign coincided with the Waikato War (1863–64).

British forces under Lieutenant-General Duncan Cameron entered Ngāruawāhia on 8 December 1863. The town was renamed Newcastle but soon reverted to its original name. By January 1864 Cameron had 7000 men south of the settlement, half of them devoted to protecting the supply line along the Waipā River to the front. By April the Kingite heartland had been occupied by imperial and colonial troops.

This memorial obelisk stands in Ngāruawāhia Public Cemetery, about 1½ km south-east of the town centre on State Highway 1. It records the names of three imperial and colonial troops, and is dedicated to 10 others whose names are now unknown, who died during the New Zealand Wars and were buried nearby.

The 13 men were originally buried in the Octagon in the town centre. Their remains were exhumed and reinterred in the public cemetery in mid-1882 by a party of six Armed Constabulary led by Sergeant Joshua Foster. The relocation was part of a wider project to improve soldiers’ burial grounds in Waikato.

Foster and his men arrived at Ngāruawāhia on 19 July. Less than two decades after fighting ended in Waikato, the original grave site appears to have been somewhat neglected:

Some of the head-boards are to the good, but all traces of the occupants of many of the graves is completely lost. There is one head-stone erected to the memory of Lance-Sergeant Jameson, Army Hospital Corps. This has been carefully removed and placed at the head of a new grave in the public cemetery, alongside are the bones of the twelve others, who will have a stone erected by the Government, which will afford all the information available.

This memorial was erected at the behest of Edith Statham, the Inspector of Old Soldiers’ Graves in the Department of Internal Affairs from 1913. The names of only three of the 13 men to whom it is dedicated could be retrieved from the original headboards at the Octagon site: Private William Hammell of the 65th Regiment, Corporal Thomas Hill of the Colonial Defence Force (CDF), and Lance-Corporal William Hewitt of the Commissariat Transport Corps (CTC).

The memorial records that Private Hammell died on 2 February 1864 at the age of 19. However, official casualty lists spell the surname as Hamel or Hamell and give his date of death as 29 February. According to these lists, Hamel was born in Lurgan, County Armagh, northern Ireland. He was a labourer before enlisting in the British Army on 21 February 1852, a date which rules out the age at death shown on the memorial.

Two explanations seem possible. The first is that two Williams with similar last names, both of the 65th Regiment, both died in the Waikato during February 1864. The second is that the original headboard was so difficult to read that Foster’s men made errors transcribing the inscription in 1882.

The second explanation is plausible, given the dilapidated state of the original headboards reported by the Waikato Times in 1882. It is possible, for example, that the number ‘9’ had disappeared from Hammell’s date of death inscription on the original headboard. Similarly, he may have been 29 years old when he died, with the ‘2’ being mistakenly read as a ‘1’. Further information is required to determine which, if either, of these scenarios is correct.

According to the memorial, Corporal Hill died on 28 April 1864 from wounds he had received at Rangiaowhia on 22 February. Though the best-known engagement at Rangiaowhia took place on 21 February, mounted units pursued Māori fleeing from nearby Hairini Ridge as far as the settlement the next day.

The name of ‘Corporal Thomas Hill’ does not appear on the ‘Nominal Return of Officers and Men of the Colonial Forces who have been Killed in Action or who have Died of Wounds prior to the 11th July, 1868’. However, the return does record a Corporal Thomas Little, who received a ‘severe’ gunshot wound to the thigh at ‘Rangiawhia’ on 21 (or 22?) February. It is entirely possible that the surname ‘Hill’ on the memorial resulted from a misreading of ‘Little’.

Little is currently known about Lance-Corporal Hewitt, who died on 9 April 1864, a week after the battle at Ōrākau. His name has not been found on official casualty lists and his death may have been entirely unrelated to this engagement.

Lance-Sergeant Freeman Jamieson (or Jameson) is another whose name has not been found on official casualty lists. According to his headstone Jamieson, of the Army Hospital Corps Purveyors Branch, died on 19 May 1864, aged 28.

Additional images

Inscription

Monument

Front face:
In memory of / Wm. Hammell / 65th Regt / who departed this life / 2nd Feby 1864 / Aged 19 years

Left face:
In memory of / Corporal Thomas Hill / Col Defence Force / who died 28th April / from wounds received in action / Rangiaohia 22 Feby 1864

Right face:
Here also lie / the remains of soldiers / who fell in the Maori Wars, / and whose names cannot / be traced. / “They live in memory / by their deeds.”

Obverse facing:
In memory of / Lance Corpl Wm Hewitt / Corp. C.T.C. / who died 9th April 1864 / aged 22 years

Grave

In memory of / Lance Serjt. / Freeman Jamieson / Purveyors Branch / Army Hospital Corps / Died 19 May 1864 / Aged 28 years / This tablet is erected by / the Officers of the Purvey- / ors Department, Non-Commiss- / ioned Officers and Pri- / vates Army Hospital Corps

Sources

‘Further Papers Relative to the Issue of the New Zealand War Medal’, Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives, 1871 Session I, G-01a
Extract from ‘Ngaruawahia’, Waikato Times, 8 August 1882
‘In Memoriam’, Evening Post, 2 January 1914
James Belich, ‘Paterangi and Orakau’, in The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian interpretation of racial conflict, Penguin, Auckland, 1998, pp. 158–76
James Cowan, ‘The Invasion of Rangiaowhia’, in The New Zealand Wars: a history of the Maori campaigns and the pioneering period: volume I: 1845–1864, R.E. Owen, Wellington, 1955, pp. 351–64
Jeffrey E. Hopkins-Weise, ‘New Zealand's Colonial Defence Force (Cavalry) and its Australian context, 1863–66’, Sabretache, 1 September 2002, http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-2072614/New-Zealand-s-Colonial-Defence.html, originally published as 'A History of the Colonial Defence Force (Cavalry): and the Australian context', in The Volunteers, vol. 26, no. 1, July 2000, pp. 5–25
Chris Maclean and Jock Phillips, The sorrow and the pride: New Zealand war memorials, GP Books, Wellington, 1990, p. 33
Nigel Prickett, ‘The Waikato War, 1863–64’, in Landscapes of conflict: a field guide to the New Zealand Wars, Random House, Auckland, 2002, pp. 69–86
Nancy Swarbrick. ‘Waikato places – Te Awamutu’, Te Ara – the encyclopedia of New Zealand, updated 26 May 2010

Credit:

Images: Margaret Marks, 2008

Text: Karen Cameron, 2011

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Old Taupiri Road NZ Wars memorial

This memorial obelisk is located at 122 Old Taupiri Road, about 1 km north of the Waikato town of Ngāruawāhia. Little is currently known about the land that it stands on, except that it was once a burial ground. The memorial is dedicated to unknown men who died during the New Zealand Wars and are thought to be buried nearby.

Ngāruawāhia is situated at the point where the Waikato and Waipā rivers meet. The first Māori king, Pōtatau Te Wherowhero, was crowned there in 1858 and established the settlement as his capital. British troops occupied Ngāruawāhia on 8 December 1863, following the battle of Rangiriri in November. It is likely – although by no means certain – that at least some of the military burials at Old Taupiri Road took place during the six months between the beginning of the military occupation and the effective end of the Waikato War in the autumn of 1864.

The Old Taupiri Road burial ground was the subject of an official report in 1882, when Sergeant Joshua Foster of the Armed Constabulary described the decay of the wooden grave markers and the obliteration of their inscriptions. Foster thought that restoring the grave markers would be too costly and recommended the erection of a central memorial carrying the names of those buried nearby. By the time his recommendation was finally carried out more than 30 years later, the names had been lost.

It is not clear when the Department of Internal Affairs first became interested in the Old Taupiri Road burial ground. The process of erecting a memorial on the site was well under way by February 1914, thanks largely to the efforts of Edith Statham, the department’s Inspector of Old Soldiers’ Graves.

The department sought appropriate memorial designs in early 1914. Frank Harris & Co., W. Parkinson, John Bouskill, and McNab & Mason all submitted proposals costing around £25. By 4 August, Bouskill’s design for an eight-foot-high polished granite memorial had been approved and ordered.

Bouskill erected the monument by the beginning of 1915, at a cost of £26 9s. However a departmental report dated 14 April noted that the memorial had not yet been unveiled. A concrete path to it was planned, and the inscription required amendment. An extra £6 4s 8d was paid for the additional wording, ‘Erected by the / N. Z. Government 1914.’

The Old Taupiri Road burial ground was gazetted as a public cemetery in 1916. It appears to have been vested in the Crown; for many years maintenance was carried out by the Ngaruawahia Cemeteries Trust, which was paid an annual grant of £1 by the department. This payment ceased for no obvious reason in January 1945 and by the mid-1960s the cemetery was in a poor state.

In 1964 the memorial was reported to be unsafe. Although it was restored two years later, nothing was done to clear the rest of the cemetery. By the early 1970s, local residents were unaware that the memorial was even there. An upgrade by the Waikato County Council in 1973 gave the cemetery its current appearance.

Inscription

Here lie the remains of men / who fell in the Maori Wars / and whose names cannot / be traced. / “They live in memory / by their deeds.” / Erected by the / N. Z. Government 1914.

Further information

James Belich, ‘Paterangi and Orakau’, in The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian interpretation of racial conflict, Penguin, Auckland, 1998, pp. 158–76
Chris Maclean and Jock Phillips, The sorrow and the pride: New Zealand war memorials, GP Books, Wellington, p. 25
Nancy Swarbrick. ‘Waikato places – Ngaruawahia’, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, updated 26 May 2010

Credit:

Image: Margaret Marks, 2008

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Reporting the Ngaruawahia music festival

Newspaper clippings:

Newspapers and magazines were largely positive in their reporting of the 1973 Great Ngaruawahia Music Festival, although those of a tabloid bent tended to focus on the nudity rather than the festival itself. Other issues covered included the potential dangers of drug use and the eventual liquidation of the festival company.

Credit:

Newspaper clippings from Radio NZ Library. Main image from Thursday, 1 February 1973.

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King Tawhiao's whare at Ngaruawahia

This photograph of King Tāwhiao’s whare at Ngāruawāhia was taken after the Kīngitanga’s capital was occupied by the British in December 1863.

Credit:

Alexander Turnbull Library
Reference: 1/2-096095-G
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any reuse of this image.

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Māori and English Queens, 1974

Te Arikinui Dame Te Ātairangikaahu and her husband, Whatumoana Paki, welcome Queen Elizabeth to Tūrangawaewae marae, Ngāruawāhia, in 1974.

Credit:

Alexander Turnbull Library
Reference: EP/1974/0627/26

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any reuse of this image.

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Ngaruawahia First World War memorial

Ngaruawahia war memorial.

Site	Style	Ornamentation	Unveiling Date	No of Dead
park/gardens	Cenotaph	Wreath, fern leaf	1922

Credit:

Jock Phillips and Chris Maclean

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American officer and Tainui kuia

An American officer and a Tainui kuia (elderly woman) share food from a hangi at Ngāruawāhia in February 1943.

Credit:

Alexander Turnbull Library
Reference: C16022
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

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American servicemen at Ngāruawāhia regatta, 1943

Visiting American servicemen and Tainui Māori watch the annual regatta and each other at Ngāruawāhia on 27 March 1943.

Credit:

Alexander Turnbull Library
Reference: F 351 1/4
Photographer: John Pascoe
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

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