HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 68, Issue 5942, 12 May 1944, Page 2

HISTORICAL SOCIETY

OLD TIME NAVAL SHELL ONE IN TE AWAMUTU MUSEUM Considerable local interest has been aroused by a recent article in the New Zealand Herald describing an old-time naval shell discovered in a cliff at Birkenhead. In 4 the Society’s museum there is a similar shell discovered some years ago near the site of the battle of Orakau fought in 1864. This shell corresponds very closely to that described in the Herald, and Lieut.Commander Haynes, Inspector of Naval Ordnance in Auckland, who has been consulted by the Society, has identified it as a naval common shell of the same type, but emptied of its explosive charge and filled with lead to the approximate weight of a solid round shot. This type of projectile was used for target practice. The shell has apparently been fired from a gun because the wooden “sabot,” which was used to centre the shell in the bore, is missing. No doubt this relic has been fired in practice on the New Zealand coast by an old time ship of Her Majesty’s Navy. The question of how the shell reached this district still remains to be answered. The only artillery used at the Battle of Orakau were two sixpounder Armstrong breechloaders, one of which, belonging to the Society, was until recently on view near the Great War Memorial, but was removed by the Borough Council for repairs. But these guns had a calibre of under three inches and fired a cylindrical shell very different from the six inch spherical shell now in the Museum. The Maoris had no guns at Orakau, though they had one at least, a muzzle-loading smooth-bore, probably an old ship’s gun, at Paterangi, and others at Rangiriri. There were naval seamen with General Cameron’s forces, but it is difficult to believe that they would have brought a practice cannon shell with them. Of course the shell may have no connection at al] with the Battle of Orakau, and its presence near' that fatal field may have been merely accidental. The Society would be grateful for any light on the subject.