Redcoats in the 1840s Moreton Bay and New Zealand frontier wars
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/qre.2019.6Keywords:
99th (Lanarkshire) Regiment of Foot, 1840s, 1850s, frontier wars, Aboriginal peoples in Queensland, Māori peoples in New ZealandAbstract
This article examines the significant place of the 99th (Lanarkshire) Regiment of Foot as part of the shared history of Australia and New Zealand through the 1840s and 1850s, including its role in frontier conflict with Aboriginal peoples in Queensland and M?ori peoples in New Zealand. This preliminary comparison explores the role and experiences of detachments of the British Army’s 99th Regiment on three different colonial frontiers during the 1840s transitional period: the end of convict transportation and the opening of free settlement in Moreton Bay in 1842–48; the short-lived North Australia colony (later Gladstone) in 1847; and New Zealand’s North Island in 1845–47.
References
Some noted examples in this vein include Lyndall Ryan, Tasmanian Aborigines: A history since 1803 (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2012, with its first edition produced in 1981); Henry Reynolds, Frontier: Aborigines, Settlers and Land (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1987); Patrick Collins, Goodbye Bussamarai: The Mandandanji land war, Southern Queensland 1842–1852 (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 2002); Bain Attwood and S. G. Foster (eds), Frontier conflict: The Australian experience (Canberra: National Museum of Australia, 2003); Libby Connors, Warrior: A legendary leader’s dramatic life and violent death on the colonial frontier (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2015), Jonathan Richards, The secret war: A true history of Queensland’s Native Police (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 2008) and Nicholas Clements, The black war: Fear, sex and resistance in Tasmania (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 2014).
A recent major publication focusing on the New Zealand Wars of the 1840s and 1860s and 1870s not only makes an extremely important contribution to the events that unfolded in New Zealand, but provides greater awareness of the role of the British Army and Royal Navy as part of these conflicts. It includes comparative chapters focusing on the Australian and other colonial experiences, as well as the Australian dimensions to New Zealand’s wars. See John Crawford and Ian McGibbon (eds), Tutu Te Puehu: New Perspectives on the New Zealand Wars (Wellington: Steele Roberts Aotearoa, 2018); see particularly Part Five: Rod Pratt and Jeff Hopkins-Weise Australian and imperial context and the chapters by John Connor, Lyndall Ryan and Jeff Hopkins-Weise, Hopkins-Weise, John Moremon, and Ian F.W. Beckett, pp. 388–493.
Important seminal works exploring the service and experience of the British Army (including discharged and retired personnel) in colonial Australia include Maurice Austin, The army in Australia 1840–50: Prelude to the golden years (Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1979); Peter Stanley, The remote garrison: The British Army in Australia (Sydney: Kangaroo Press, 1986); Craig Wilcox, Red coat dreaming: How colonial Australia embraced the British Army (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 2009); and Christine Wright, Wellington’s men in Australia: Peninsula war veterans and the making of empire c. 1820–40 (Melbourne: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). One other aspect that is still sorely lacking is research into the lives of the families of the British Army who also resided and often settled in Australia from the 1790s through until 1870. Again, despite some broad inroads, these often lack any Australasian focus, and are scant for the period from 1815 to the 1840s, with emphasis generally being the experience of the Napoleonic period, the mid-nineteenth century and into the early twentieth century, and India. Important (though limited) works dealing with the lives and experiences of British Army wives and families include: Veronica Bamfield, On the strength: The story of the British Army wife (London: Charles Knight & Co., 1974); Myna Trustram, Women of the regiment: Marriage and the Victorian army (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Mona Macmillan and Catriona Miller (eds), Exiles to empire: Family letters from India & Australia by Fannie & Annie Pratt 1843–1863 (London: Pentland Press Limited, 1997); Annabel Venning, Following the drum: The lives of army wives and daughters past and present (London: Hodder Headline, 2005); and George and Anne Forty, They also served: A pictorial anthology of camp followers through the ages (London: Midas Books, 1979), pp. 154–89. Two studies focused on Moreton Bay military families are Jennifer Harrison’s ‘The Moreton Bay commandants and their families, 1824–1842’, Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland 20(4) (2007), 148–58, and ‘The children’s burial vault in convict Brisbane – revisited’, Queensland History: The Royal Historical Society of Queensland 21(5) (2011), 283–95.
L. Ryan and J. Hopkins-Weise, ‘Memorialising Britain’s imperial wars in New Zealand in the 1840s: The 99th Regiment Memorial in Hobart, Tasmania’, New Zealand Journal of History, 49(2) (2015), 160–75; L. Ryan and J. Hopkins-Weise, ‘Memorialising the New Zealand Wars 1845–47: The 99th Regiment Memorial, Hobart, Tasmania’, in Crawford and McGibbon , Tutu Te Puehu, pp. 408–32.
For detailed exploration of Australia’s role during New Zealand’s wars of the 1840s and 1860s, including imperial forces despatched from the Australian colonies during the 1840s, see J. Hopkins-Weise, Blood brothers: The Anzac genesis (Auckland: Penguin, 2009), pp. 15–18, 55–61, 231–4, 239–42; J. E. Hopkins [now Hopkins-Weise], ‘“Fighting those who came against their country”: Maori political transportees to Van Diemen’s Land 1846–48’, Tasmanian Historical Research Association: Papers and Proceedings [hereafter THRA], 44(1) (1997), 49–67; J. Hopkins-Weise, ‘Van Diemen’s Land and the New Zealand Wars of the 1840s’, THRA, 50(1) (2003), 38–55; J. Hopkins-Weise, ‘The role of the Australian colonies in New Zealand’s Wars of the 1840s and 1860s’, in Crawford & McGibbon, Tutu Te Puehu, pp. 433–45.
F. V. G., ‘Military service in Australia’, United Service Magazine, Part III,(1838), p. 520.
C. Bateson, The convict ships: 1787–1868 (Glasgow: Brown, Son & Ferguson, 1985), pp. 283–90; Austin, The army in Australia 1840–50, pp. 70–1.
P. Stanley, ‘“Oh! The sufferings of my men”: The 80th Regiment in New South Wales in 1838’, Push from the Bush, 2 (1981), 1–22.
P. Burroughs, ‘The human cost of imperial defence in the early Victorian age’, Victorian Studies, 24(1) (1980), pp. 7–32.
C. Sargent, ‘The British Army in Australia’, Sabretache, 29(3) (1988), 17.
This pre-1915 neglect has been addressed recently in Craig Stockings and John Connor (eds), Before the Anzac dawn: A military history of Australia to 1915 (Sydney: NewSouth Publishing, 2013). In addition, both authors have sought to resurrect the largely forgotten presence of the British Army in Moreton Bay and elsewhere in Australasia in an array of publications: see Rod Pratt, ‘The military at Moreton Bay, 1825–1842’, Queensland History Journal, 21(12) (2015), 819–26; Hopkins-Weise, Blood brothers; Rod Pratt and J. Hopkins-Weise, Brisbane’s 1st Battalion 12th (East Suffolk) Regiment Detachments, 1860–66 (Brisbane: Free Library, 2005); J. Hopkins-Weise and Rod Pratt, Brisbane’s 50th (Queen’s Own) Regiment Detachments, 1866-69 and the Saint Helena Penal Establishment Military Guard (Brisbane: Free Library, 2004); Rod Pratt, ‘The affray at York’s Hollow, November 1849’, Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, 18(9) (2004), 384–96; J. Hopkins-Weise, ‘Queensland and the New Zealand Wars of the 1860s’, Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, 18(5) (2003), 209–31; J. Hopkins-Weise & Rod Pratt, ‘The 50th (Queen’s Own) Regiment Military Guard at the St Helena Penal Establishment, Moreton Bay, 1867–69’, Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, 18(3) (2002), 97–114; J. Hopkins-Weise and Rod Pratt, ‘New directions in Australian colonial historiography: A call for the timely reintegration of the British Army, frontier conflict, and involvement in wars of empire’, in C. Dixon and L. Auton (eds), War, society, and culture: Approaches and issues — selected papers from the November 2001 symposium organised by the Research Group for War, Society, and Culture (Newcastle: University of Newcastle, 2002), pp. 105–16; J. Hopkins-Weise and Rod Pratt, ‘The scarlet legacy: The British Army’s forgotten presence in Moreton Bay, 1860-69’, Sabretache, 42(2) (2001), 3–38, and editor’s correction, Sabretache, 42(3) (2001), 1; and Rod Pratt, ‘“A brace of pistols in my pocket ::: and a cutlass in my hand”: Corporal Archibald Campbell’s military service in Australia, 1832–1837’, Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, 16(8) (1997), 343–52.
Henry Despard obtained his first commission in the army as an ensign in October 1799, and later obtained the rank of lieutenant-colonel by purchase in August 1829. Hart’s Army List provides a potted background of Despard’s last active period of campaign service in 1817–18: ‘served at the siege and storm of Chumeer (received a contusion on mounting the breach) and three other forts in the East Indies, in 1807; siege of Gunourie; campaign against the Seiks in 1808 and 1809; campaign of 1817 and 1818 in the Deccan, including the battle of Jubbulpore.’ H. G. Hart, The New Annual Army List, for 1844 (London: John Murray, 1844), p. 251.
Despite criticisms about Despard’s age and much earlier active service in India, he was certainly not alone in the 99th Regiment, as a number of other officers who served in Australasia had similar earlier service experience dating back to the latter period of Napoleonic Wars, 1810–15. Other officers with Napoleonic Wars service include Captain John Armstrong, who was a veteran of the Peninsula (or Spanish) Campaign and later saw active field service in New Zealand including the Horokiri Valley pursuit in August 1846; Major (and Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel) Napper Jackson, who was a veteran of the Peninsula Campaign 1810–14, who assumed command of the 99th when Despard departed in 1854; Quarter-Master Alexander Macdonald, who was a veteran of the Peninsula and Waterloo Campaigns; and Captain (and Brevet-Major) Ewan Macpherson, who was a veteran of the campaign in Holland in 1814. Napper Jackson was a veteran with extensive service in the Peninsula campaigns during 1810–14, for which he later received the Military General Service Medal with seven clasps after it was gazetted for issue in 1848, and he also saw brief service in New Zealand, being one of the officers despatched with the 99th Regiment detachment to the Bay of Islands during August and September 1844.
N. C. E. Kenrick, The story of the Wiltshire Regiment (Duke of Edinburgh’s) the 62nd and 99th Foot (1756–1959) (Aldershot: Gale & Polden, 1963), pp. 74–5; D. Murphy, ‘Major General Henry Despard CB, “Corporal Desperado”’, Parts 2 & 3, Sabretache, 35 (Jan/March 1994), 25-33 and 35 (Apr/June 1994), 16–7.
Marie-Louise Ayres, ‘A picture asks a thousand questions’, National Library Magazine, June 2011, p. 10; also see F. Uhr, ‘September 12, 1843: The Battle of One Tree Hill — a turning point in the conquest of Moreton Bay’, Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, 18(6) (2003), 244, 247 and 250–3; Pratt, ‘The affray at York’s Hollow’, 384–5.
Captain Jaffray Nicholson was an experienced 99th officer with almost 20 years’ service under his belt in 1843. Hart, The New Annual Army List, for 1844, p. 251; Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office: CSO 8/101: Colonial Secretary’s Office, to the Brigade Major, Van Diemen’s Land, dated 14 Oct 1843, pp. 91–2; Captain Nicholson, 99th Regiment, Commanding Detachment to New Zealand per the Emerald Isle, to the Military Secretary to His Excellency, the Commander of the Forces, dated Sydney, 9 November 1843, pp. 95–100.
I. Wards, The shadow of the land: A study of British policy and racial conflict in New Zealand 1832–1852 (Wellington: Department of Internal Affairs, 1968), pp. 104–5. See also T. M. Hocken, The early history of New Zealand (Wellington: Government Printer, 1914), pp. 78–9; J. Cowan, The New Zealand Wars: Vol. I (1845–1864) (Wellington: Government Printer, 1922), pp. 17–18; T. L. Buick, New Zealand’s first war (Wellington: Government Printer, 1926), pp. 39, 40, 42–3; M. Barthorp, To face the daring Maoris: Soldiers’ Impressions of the First Maori War (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1979), pp. 47–8.
Sydney Morning Herald, 3 August 1844; Historical Records of Australia: Series I, Volume XXIII, July, 1843–September, 1844 (Sydney: Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament, 1925), p. 713; Historical Records of Australia: Series I, Volume XXIV, October, 1844–March, 1846 (Sydney: Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament, 1925), p. 254.
Sydney Morning Herald, 5 and 6 August 1844.
Ibid., 16 and 17 September 1844; Historical Records of Australia: Series I, Volume XXIII, p. 790.
This total of 99th personnel serving at Moreton Bay includes six officers: Ensign John James Armstrong, Lieutenant Charles Blamire, Lieutenant George Jean De Winton, Lieutenant Patrick Johnston, Lieutenant Charles Edward Leigh (a survivor from the wreck of the convict transport Waterloo in Table Bay, Cape Town in August 1842) and Lieutenant William Hobart Seymour. Lieutenant Blamire became Adjutant of the 99th in April 1846, and later rose in rank to lieutenant-colonel in October 1865; he briefly commanded the 99th Regiment in South Africa, but died in Natal in November this same year.
Seven of these 99th Regiment soldiers who served in Moreton Bay, including Lieutenant George Jean De Winton, also formed part of a separate 99th detachment despatched to form the military force for the abortive North Australia colony during early 1847.
Roderick Flanagan, The Aborigines of Australia (Sydney: George Robertson, 1888), Chapter XIV: ‘The “rising” of 1842–4’, p. 130.
One of the most influential and respected personalities at Moreton Bay at the time of the district’s opening up to free settlement was Dr Stephen Simpson. Often referred to as a Waterloo veteran, there is no evidence for this whatsoever, although he definitely served in the British Army during the final years of the Napoleonic Wars, primarily in light cavalry (i.e. Dragoon and Light Cavalry regiments) to 1817. It is unclear, though, whether his short military career involved anything more than home service in the United Kingdom. For more on Simpson, see Judith Iltis, ‘Simpson, Stephen (1793–1869)’, Australian dictionary of biography (Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University), retrieved from http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/simpson-stephen-2666/text3715, published first in hardcopy 1967; see also Shield, in this volume.
See Kerkhove in this volume.
Refer to Pratt, ‘“A brace of pistols in my pocket ::: and a cutlass in my hand’, 343–52.
These military expeditions, despatched to deal with bushrangers; were reported in Sydney Morning Herald on 10 September 1844 and 13 May 1846.
Sydney Morning Herald, 21 March 1845.
Sydney Morning Herald, 14 January 1846.
Libby Connors, Warrior; C.C. Petrie, Tom Petrie’s reminiscences of early Queensland (Brisbane: Watson, Ferguson, 1904), pp. 147–8.
Brisbane Courier, 25 April 1892.
Maitland Mercury, 18 November 1843.
J. Mackenzie-Smith, Brisbane’s forgotten founder: Sir Evan Mackenzie of Kilcoy, 1816–1883 (Brisbane: Brisbane History Group, 1992).
Lieutenant Patrick Johnston of the 99th would soon see active field service against the Maori in New Zealand and was wounded in action at Ohaeawai in the Bay of Islands on 1 July 1845.
Sydney Morning Herald, 12 October 1843.
The Sydney Morning Herald, 12 October 1843, p. 3 mentions six soldiers, although the Sydney Chronicle, 25 July 1846, p. 2, describes a guard comprising a ‘corporal and twelve privates’.
Queensland Times, 26 October 1893, p. 5, and 28 April 1928, p. 13 describe these remains and their locations.
Christopher Pemberton Hodgson, Reminiscences of Australia with hints on the squatters’ life (London: W. N. Wright, 1846), p. 234.
In 1868, the Aboriginal cricket team touring Britain gave regular spear-throwing demonstrations with team captain Dick-a-Dick (Jungunjinanuke) striking a man-sized target at 430 feet (131 metres). R. Harcourt and J. Mulvaney, Cricket walkabout (Melbourne: Golden Point Press, 2005), p. 39. A flintlock Brown Bess by comparison only had a maximum effective range from 80 to 100 yards (73 to 91.5 metres) at the same-sized target. Many sources examine the relatively limited range of the Brown Bess musket used, notably George Hanger, To all sportsmen (1814), and Hans Busk, Handbook for Hythe (1860), p. 14. The most recent and scholarly is in the Journal of the American Revolution, ‘The inaccuracy of muskets’, retrieved from https://allthingsliberty.com/2013/07/the-inaccuracy-of-muskets.
S. Gapps, The Sydney Wars: Conflict in the early colony, 1788–1817 (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2018).
De Winton’s 1898 published book was a compilation of his monthly articles that he had published previously in the 99th regimental magazine, The Nines. De Winton, when a lieutenant, was also one of the two officers who served as part of the 99th detachment at the North Australia Colony at Port Curtis in early 1847, along with Captain H. J. Day.
Major De Winton [George Jean De Winton], Soldiering fifty years ago: Australia in the forties (London: European Mail, 1898), pp. 110–11. Also note De Winton’s veiled comment about knowledge of squatter reprisals on the edges of the pastoral frontier (p. 100): ‘indeed, a raid on the blacks was in my time, by squatters, often so conceived ::: it is difficult at times to draw an ethical line, especially in districts where her Majesty’s writ does not run.’
John Oxley Library: A2.13 frame 313, Colonial Secretaries’ correspondence, 26 September 1843.
The cartouche box (i.e. ammunition pouch) held a block of wood drilled with twenty-four holes to accommodate twenty-four cartridges and beneath this was a tin magazine divided into three compartments, each holding a dozen cartridges giving a total of sixty rounds per box. Examples of this are given in the following works: J. A. Bodell, A soldier’s view of empire: The reminiscences of James Bodell, 1831–1892 (London: Bodley Head, 1982), p. 163; and William Y. Carman, ‘Infantry clothing regulations’, Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, 19 (1940), 200–35. Carman describes these as the types 1808 and 1829 pattern boxes, which ‘consisted of a wooden block with holes drilled for 36 rounds, beneath this two tin compartments (magazines) for holding a dozen rounds each’. Type B ‘had a wooden block for holding 24 cartridges with three compartments for holding a dozen rounds each’. Both held sixty rounds in total.
John Oxley Library: Colonial Secretaries correspondence, 26 September 1843, A2.13 frame 313.
John Oxley Library: Colonial Secretaries correspondence, 22 March 1844, A2.14 frame 374. The 99th Regiment was present in Brisbane/Moreton Bay from 1843 to May 1844 when replaced by a detachment of the 58th Regiment. The 58th detachment remained until June 1845 when it was in turn replaced by another detachment of the 99th, which served in Brisbane until May 1848. The detachment of the 11th Regiment would later arrive in Brisbane in November 1848 following petitioning from the local populace for troops to again be stationed in Brisbane. As the various regimental detachments rotated, it was also not unusual for personnel from one regiment to still be present and serving for some time, despite the arrival of new troops from another regiment, as it took time for the commissariat, financial and family affairs of each regiment’s detachment to finalise and for all transport requirements to be met.
John Oxley Library: Colonial Secretaries correspondence, 24 February 1846, A2.15 frame 594.
Brisbane troop strength derived from Quarterly Returns, 99th Regiment, AJCP WO12 Reels 3896-3897.
This reinforcement comprised an additional twenty soldiers. Sydney Morning Herald, 27 September 1843, p. 3.
William Lane of the 99th Regiment is described as one of the convicts sent from New Zealand to Tasmania to undergo a sentence for desertion. Refer to Kristyn Harman, ‘Soldiers, thieves, M?ori warriors: The NZ convicts sent to Australia’, The Conversation, 25 October 2017, retrieved from https://theconversation.com/soldiers-thieves-maoriwarriors-the-nz-convicts-sent-to-australia-86133; Kristyn Harman, Cleansing the colony: Transporting convicts from New Zealand to Van Diemen’s Land (Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2017), pp. 114–15, 118, 120–1, 192–3.
G. C. Robinson, Tracking down the family Lane, 1824–1988 (Melbourne: Graeme C. Robinson, 1988).
Sydney Morning Herald, 12 October 1843, p. 3.
William Edward Grant was appointed ensign in 1831, lieutenant in 1836 and captain in 1839.
A memorial to Captain Grant was raised in St John’s Anglican Cathedral, Parramatta, New South Wales, and is believed to date from late 1845 or 1846; it is one of only four contemporary memorials erected in memory of individual officers killed during the New Zealand Wars 1845–46 who are commemorated in Sydney and Parramatta.
Pratt, ‘The affray at York’s Hollow, November 1849’, 384–96. The officer commanding this detachment of the 11th Regiment was Ensign George John Arnold Mackenzie Cameron, who was appointed ensign in 1844, and after a short period of service left the army and settled in Brisbane, where he married in 1858. Cameron was also briefly involved in the first volunteer movement when, in December 1860, he was appointed lieutenant in the Brisbane Companies, Queensland Volunteer Rifle Brigade.
Captain Henry James Day was the last commandant at Norfolk Island, 1851–55, where he acted with his staff as caretakers, awaiting the arrival of the Pitcairn Islanders who had been relocated there. He would rise to the rank of lieutenant-colonel of the 99th Regiment in February 1860, and commanded the 99th as part of the British expeditionary force which captured Peking during the China War in 1860, before retiring by sale of his commission in March 1863. His son, also Henry James Day, similarly served as an officer in the 99th and was Adjutant during the China War.
Sources dealing with the history of the North Australia Colony include De Winton, Soldiering fifty years ago, pp. 96-108; F. W. S. Cumbrae-Stewart, ‘North Australia, 1846–7’, Journal of the Historical Society of Queensland, 1(6) (1919), 352–79; L. McDonald, ‘The colony of North Australia’, in Gladstone: City that waited (Brisbane: Boolarong, 1988), pp. 47–71 (also refer to pp. 10–11).
Cumbrae-Stewart, North Australia, 1846–7’.
De Winton, Soldiering fifty years ago, p. 99.
De Winton, Soldiering fifty years ago, pp. 99–100.
De Winton, Soldiering fifty years ago, p. 100. This 99th Regiment soldier was 1087 Private Patrick Long.
The Thomas Lowry departed Port Curtis with many of the North Australia Colony’s officials and families, along with Lieutenant De Winton and thirty-one other ranks from the 99th Regiment detachment and their families on 27 April 1847. The last staff and military from this colony returned to Sydney aboard the Lord Auckland in early July 1847. De Winton’s perceived significance in the founding of this short-lived colony saw him honoured with a chapter describing him as the ‘oldest living Gladstonian’ in a 1898 history of the settlement: J. F. Hogan, The Gladstone colony: An unwritten chapter in Australian history (London: Fisher Unwin, 1898), pp. 175–87.
Sydney Morning Herald, 7–12 and 15 April 1845; Morning Chronicle, 9 April 1845; Weekly Register, 12 April 1845; H. G. Hart, The New Army List: No. XXV, 1 January, 1845 (London: John Murray, 1845), p. 151; & Kenrick, The story of the Wiltshire Regiment, p. 75.
Sydney Morning Herald, 17 and 19 May 1845; Weekly Register, 17 and 24 May 1845; Morning Chronicle, 21 May 1845.
J. Belich, The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian interpretation of racial conflict (Auckland: Penguin, 1988), pp. 47–54.
Sydney Morning Herald, 28–29 July 1845; Observer, 15 August 1845; Illustrated London News, 29 November 1845.
Sydney Morning Herald, 17 and 20 October 1845; Morning Chronicle, 18 October 1845; Weekly Register, 25 October 1845.
At Ruapekapeka, the 99th Regiment component of the forces available to Colonel Despard included one captain, three lieutenants, two ensigns, one staff, ten sergeants, five drummers, seven corporals and 144 privates (effective strengths as at 12 December 1845). Sydney Morning Herald, 11 February 1846; Morning Chronicle, 11 February 1846; The New Zealand Journal, 170, 20 June 1846, pp. 145–46, 149; ‘Return of killed and Wounded ::: during the assault on Kawaiti’s Pah, on the 11th January 1846’, in Enclosure 1 in No. 7, Further Papers Relative to the Affairs of New Zealand: Correspondence with Lieutenant Governor Grey, 1845–46 (August 1846), pp. 420–21; Buick, New Zealand’s first war, p. 263.
On 15 December 2017, RadioNZ announced news of the discovery and archaeological investigation of a mass grave of twelve British soldiers who had died at Ruapekapeka. See https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/346241/british-soldiers-lost-graves-uncovered-at-ruapekapeka.
Private French does not appear to be named as one of the casualties in either the contemporary press or other accounts of the events at Boulcott’s Farm on 16 May, which predominantly involved elements of the 58th Regiment; however, his name and cause of death from wounds are recorded on the war memorial erected on the corner of High Street and Military Road in eastern Boulcott in 1925. French’s name is listed on the 99th memorial in Hobart, and it is possible he became a casualty in the events directly following the Maori attack on 16 May. It is clear that elements of the 99th Regiment were heavily involved in defending and patrolling the Hutt Valley through 1846, including a number of skirmishes, one of which took place on 16 June, when a reconnaissance party of soldiers commanded by Captain Reed, 99th Regiment, was attacked and casualties sustained, though sources vary in the details. One 1859 source states that two soldiers were killed and one officer and five other soldiers were wounded, whereas another later source details the casualties as five wounded (four men of the 58th, and one from the 99th). A. S. Thomson, The story of New Zealand: Vol. II (London: John Murray, 1859), p. 132; Wards, The shadow of the land, pp. 273–4.
Sydney Morning Herald, 18 September 1846; Britannia & Trades Advocate, 1 October 1846; Illustrated London News, 16 January 1847; Wards, The shadow of the land, p. 283; Kenrick, The story of the Wiltshire Regiment, p. 84.
J. Hopkins-Weise, ‘“Fighting those who came against their country”’; K. Harman, Aboriginal convicts: Australian, Khoisan and Maori exiles (Sydney: NewSouth Publishing, 2012), pp. 207–50; Harman, ‘Soldiers, thieves, M?ori warriors’; Harman, Cleansing the colony, pp.131–42.
Sydney Morning Herald, 9 August 1847; Wards, The shadow of the land, pp. 344–5.
H. & L. Hughes, Discharged in New Zealand: Soldiers of the Imperial Foot Regiments who took their discharge in New Zealand: 1840–1870 (Auckland: NZ Society of Genealogists, 1988), pp. 5, 67.
R. Gurney, History of the Northamptonshire Regiment: 1742–1934 (Aldershot: Gale & Polden, 1935), p. 209; M. Barthorp, The Northamptonshire Regiment (The 48th/58th Regiment of Foot) (London: Leo Cooper, 1974), p. 45.
Although the 99th deployed fifteen officers and 309 other ranks to New Zealand, it did not supply the greatest number of troops in the campaigns of 1845–46. Nonetheless, the 99th formed an important component of the overall forces available. By way of comparison, the 96th Regiment had a total of six officers, one staff and 167 other ranks serving in New Zealand during 1845, and eight officers, one staff and 158 other ranks in the following year; the 58th Regiment by 1846 fielded 23 officers, four staff and 747 other ranks. With regard to casualties among the regiments serving in New Zealand in1845–46, the 58th sustained the greatest number, followed by the 99th, with the 96th suffering the least. According to official British statistics, in the period 4 March to 2 July 1845, when the attacks on Kororareka, Puketutu and Ohaeawai took place, fifty-seven British soldiers and sailors were killed and 114 soldiers, sailors and pioneers were wounded. An additional return for the period 11 January 1846 to 20 July 1847 provides figures of twenty-eight soldiers, seamen and pioneers killed in various actions, as well as fifty-three wounded. It is clear, though, that the casualties (both killed and wounded) among the 99th comprised a significant proportion of overall casualties during the 1845–47 wars. Earl Grey, The colonial policy of Lord John Russell’s administration: Vol. II (London: Richard Bentley, 1853), p. 134; Kenrick, The story of the Wiltshire Regiment, p. 84; Austin, The army in Australia 1840–50, p. 252.
