N.Z. CROSS

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 147, 24 June 1922, Page 11

N.Z. CROSS

A RARE DECORATION TROOPER LINGARD'S BRAVE | DEED The late Mr. William Lingar*, of Wellington, had the distinction of being the first, winner of the New Zealand • Cross, said to be one of the rarest of all military decorations in the British Empire. Only about a score o{ crosses were ever awarded, and although Lingard was not the first whose services earned it, he was singled ont by Colonel (afterwards Major-General) Whitmore for the honour of first wearer very shortly after the action at Tauranga-ika in 1869, when his vak>ur brought him under official notice. The earliest instance of service for which the Cross was awarded, occurred in 1863, in the Waikato War, when Thomas M'Donnell, of the Colonial Defence Force Cavalry, and Yon Tempsky, of the Forest Rangers, daringly scouted the approaches to Paparata, a Kingite stronghold between the Lower Waikato and the Wairoa Ranges. M'Donnell lived to command the Armed Constabulary Field Force and to receive the New Zealand Cross many years after Lingard received his award; Yon Tempsky was j killed in 1868, and so never was decorated. Among the very few surviving Cross-holders are :—Colonel J. M. Boberts, of Rotorua; Captain G. A. Preece, of Palinerston North; Captain F. Mace," of Oakura, Taranaki; Captain Gilbert Mair, of Tauranga; Mr. Benjamin Biddle, of Whakatane; and Mr. George Hill, of Auckland. In hia youthful days, William Lingard was a smart and fearless cavalryman in the Wanganui forces, and one of Iris commanding officers, an Imperial cavalry soldier, described him as the best horseman he had ever seen. -In his boyhood's home in County Clare, Ireland, he had ridden to' hounds, and when he was educated for the Army it was intended that he should enter a cavalry regiment. However, he came to New Zealand as a lad in 1863, to try his fortune as a settler. In 1868, when the warrior TitoKowaru carried hostilities down to the Waitotaia district; Lingard was farming with somo friends on the Waitotara, and he and others, including Messrs. Brewer and Durie, had a series of thrilljjig adventures in escaping from.the Hauhaus, and getting their stock away to Nukumarn, near Wanganui. ' Lingard had been a trooper in the Alexandra Volunteer Lancers, a Wanganui troop formed about 1865, and in the beginning of 1869 he joined the Kai-iwi Cavalry',, a very 'serviceable corps of frontier settlers, commanded by Captain John Bryce, a notable figure in New Zealand politics in after years. Jlt was while serving in the Kai-iwi Cavalry in front of Tattranga-ika stockade, Titokowaru's strong fort, inland from Nukumaru, in 1869, that he performed the deed of courage which was | rewarded with the New Zealand Cross.

Fotu1 troopers of the cavalry rode up to the front of the stockade one day, in order to ascertain whether there were any Maoris in the place, asi it seemed unusually silent. These cavalrymen were Troop Sergeant-Major George Maxwell, Troopers Arthur Wright, Henry Wright^ and William Lingard., They rode close up to the position and galloped past the palisade. Suddenly a heavy fire was opened on them, and Maxwell was shot. He stuck to his saddle until he had ridden about, a handled yards from the stockade before he felL Troopers George Small and Allan Campbell galloped forward and recovered his body under heavy fire. At the same time the horses of both the Wright brothers were shot down about a chain, from the palisading. Arthur Wright jumped off his horse before he fell, and taking his saddle, ran down near the bush and rejoined the troop in the valley below, ,400 or 500 yards from the stockade, Henry Wright's horse did not fall until Arthur Wright was half-way to the troop. When he tumbled over he rolled on his rider's leg, and pinned him to the ground. He lay in this helpless position within a very short distance of the stockade, from which. a heavy fire was coming; he kept firing his revolver at the palisade, but was unable to use his carbine. A Maori warrior, ■ the locally celebrated Big KeTeopa, presently came out from under the palisading with a 'long-handled tomahawk, and Wright- would have been killed, ha<J it not been for the promptitude of Trooper Lingard, who galloped up and helped him away. He pulled him clear of his horse, and protected him under the heavy fire, while Wright retreated crouching,: to some seventy yards away from the stockade. Lingard, when he saw Wright was in comparative safety, then turned his horse and , galloped round to the far side of the stockade. A few moments later he returned leading a Maori horse (looted from a settler), which.had been tethered to a tuta bush; he cut the rope with his sword. After assisting .Wright to mount this horse the two .troopers rode down the hill and safely rejoined their corps. Undoubtedly, had it not been for Lingard's courage, and alacrity, combined with good horsemanship, Trooper Wright would have been tomahawked. The rescue was performed under a heavy fire at close quarters. Lingard, although only about twenty years old, was soon, afterwards put in charge of a small party of scouts organised by Colonel Whitmore. On the first expedition, at the Okehu Gorge, between Nukumaru and the Waitotara, these scouts, numbering six, encountered the Hauhaus, and lost one of their party. The story of the night's scouting work forms a chapter in "The* Adventures of Kimble Bent." Lingard was soon afterwards invalided to the Patea camp hospital, and Christopher Maling—another New Zealand Cross hero, afterwards Captain—was given charge of the scouts in his place. . ,