BATTLE OF WAIREKA

Taranaki Daily News, 19 July 1935, Page 10

BATTLE OF WAIREKA

SAILORS AND SETTLERS.

A CHARGE AT SUNSET.

On the Taranaki coast five miles south of New Plymouth is where the Maoris were attacked on March 28, 1860,'by British -Regulars and Volunteers. The Regulars marched down by the mam road, the Volunteers by the beach. W tot there was some order to be back a Plymouth by dark; it and the Volunteers did not. The resun was that the Regulars 1 New Plymouth, “leaving the Volunteers . an 7 Stia to fight it out with the Maoris from Kaipopo Pa, who had most surrounded them in the valley of ' the Waireka and were Q ?he ♦br> broken ground above them. VolunSrT (settler-soldiers) were now short ot ammunition and in ing waS restricted to Ensign W. B. Messenger went round and Sw that each man had a cartridge for the expected rush. . They would then have to depend on their bay°* et - d The above is summarised oi quoted from a story of the fight by Mr. James Cowan in the New ■ Zealand Railways &* Tbo .Volunteers wore ujto Captain (later Sir Harry) Atkinson. His little force was destined to see change in its fortunes before sundown. In what way? Mr. Cowan answers:“All at once,' as night was- drawing over the scene the sound of heavy firing and loud cheering was heard from Kaipopo hill. The Maoris ceased to press in on the settlers and retreated hurriedly up the slopes to their palisaded pa. “The order to leave the position was ’given by Captain Stapp-the most experienced officer in the force, who had been requested by Captain Brown take charge early in the day S work. Bearing their dead and wounded the Volunteers, and Militia retreated on Qmata • stockade and thence • marched back to the town, reaching there after midnight. Atkinson’s meh formed the rearguard, with the eight soldiers ; of the 65th who had'remained with the settlers. - . ... ; “Whit. had happened on Kaipopo hill to cause such a sudden end of the Maori attack? The settlers in arms discovered that at Omata stockade, Captain Peter Craoroft, the vigorous commander of H.M.S. • Niger, had marched out a company of his bluejackets and marines, sixty in all, to the relief of the Colonial soldiers.. .In the dashing Navy way, he went. straight for the Maori stockade, and stormed-it most gallantly, his eager sailors making little of the fire from the trenches; Shooting and slashing, the Navy lads were over, the stockade and the trenches in a few moments ‘like a pack of schoolboys,’ as a veteran Of Waireka told me. The Maori loss was heavy. The attack was delivered at the right time and in just the right way to save the settler-soldiers from a disaster. “Thete was tremendous excitement at New Plymouth; the ‘Nigers’ and the Taranaki riflement were the heroes of the hour. The settlers had proved their worth as warriors. Fathers and sons and brothers fought side by side. There were four Messengers in the day’s work.” Illustrating Mr. Cowan’s article is a picture of the Waireka battle drawn by Mr. A. H. Messenger, of Wellington, Son of Ensign W. B. Messenger, who later became colonel in the New Zealand Permanent Force. This ; watercolour is based on data given by the artist’s father, and sketches on the spot, and several of the figures can be identified as those of well-known New Plymouth soldiers and settlers.

“So ended the Taranaki settlers’ first battle. Atkinson’s and Stapp’s men,” writes Mr. Cowan, “inflicted heavy casualties on the Maoris, but it was Cracrdft’s splendid attack that decided the daj and cleared the district of the Maoris.” ■ . .

Captain Atkinson thus earned the distinction of being “a captain in the first Volunteer Rifle Corps in the British Empire to meet an enemy in the field. Later he- engaged in provincial and national politics with the same vigour and success that he had displayed oh the Taranaki battle-ground. He was three times Premier of New Zealand; he was knighted during his last Premiership, and he was Speaker of the. Legislative Council when . he died at Wellington in 1892. In .his soldiering career he was a perfect frontiersman, as skilled in bush fighting w* any Maori warrior. In political life he was a strong but not brilliant figure, a plain-living and plain-spoken man who won place and power by his honesty of purpose, his perseverance, and his great capacity for work.”