King Tāwhiao's Big O. E.

Turnbull Library Record, Volume 44, 1 January 2012, Page 37

King Tāwhiao's Big O. E.

ROGER BLACKLEY

A tantalising utopia known as the 'museum of the missing' is occupied by numerous art works that for one reason or another have gone to ground. One is the oil painting for which King Tawhiao posed in the opulent London residence of artist H. C. Seppings Wright near Russell Square during his 1884 visit. 1 The New Zealand Herald (repeating an article in the London Globe) recounted how, so that Tawhiao might appear in 'all the trappings of state', the well-connected artist borrowed Maori items that had been presented to Queen Victoria. The King wore a feather cloak of brilliant hues, with other 'textiles' hung behind him. In his right hand he held a greenstone mere, in his left 'a long, half-spear, half-paddle shaped wand of office' - a tewhatewha decorated with tufts of dog hair and brightly coloured feathers. The journalist related that 'it had previously been explained to him by some of his distinguished English friends that sitting for portraits is one of the distinctly defined duties of Royalty in Europe'. Nevertheless, Tawhiao found it a difficult assignment and instead of sitting still he would inspect how the work was proceeding, paying particular attention to the sketched lines of his moko and offering suggestions to the artist.

There was a second sitting the following day, when Tawhiao and his entourage enjoyed breakfast with the artist before they continued work on the portrait. The tedium of sitting was punctuated by excursions through Seppings Wright's apartment, 'when an almost infantile pleasure was shown in feeling the texture of Parisian curtains and other mural decorations, and in carefully examining the surface of photographs, apparently with the object of discovering whether the apparent relief had any real existence. After lunch, and further work on the portrait, Tawhiao requested pencil and paper in order to demonstrate his own prowess as an artist.

The designs themselves appear, at first sight, to be architectural, and might, in their intricacy, be taken for the too florid ornamentation of columns in a debased classical style. But the King was able to explain that these designs were reproductions of tattooing art with which he is familiar. More than that; by means of signs and the aid of a lady's

photograph which was lying on the table, he showed clearly that one of his designs was a fac-simile of the decoration on the chin of his Royal spouse.

The article concludes: 'Our Royal visitor is now far away on his homeward voyage, but it is well that so interesting a record of his presence remains'. I read and re-read the story, fascinated by the description of a now unknown painting, by the patronising account of the Maori appraisal of Seppings Wright's furnishings, and especially by the description of Tawhiao's drawings. Such was the impact of this article that, sometime later, I thought that I had located all these drawings when I saw a man who was lifting Tawhiao's portrait off the wall, revealing the yellowed sheets with moko designs on them. And then I woke up!

King Tawhiao's 1884 trip to London is usually framed as a failure. 2 Queen Victoria was apparently advised not to receive him and the other chiefs, since colonial rule was now in the hands of the colonial government. This snub, so keenly felt, has significantly inflected subsequent histories of the undertaking by Tawhiao Tukaroto Matutaera Potatau Te Wherowhero and his companions, Wiremu Patara Te Tuhi, Wiremu Te Morehu Maipapa Te Wheoro, Topia Peehi Turoa, Hori Ropiha and the 'half-caste interpreter' George Skidmore. It was the heyday of the 'new' journalism, which relied heavily on interviews quoted verbatim. 3 The intrusive scrutiny and the published misrepresentations proved a torment, with Tawhiao likening journalists to fleas and dictating a protest letter concerning his treatment by the Pall Mall Gazette. 4 However, despite the exoticising lens through which the newspapers inevitably project this story, it is the relentless coverage of almost every instant of the visit that allows us to trace the intrepid group's amazing cross-cultural adventure. Belonging to a long-standing history of international travel by adventurous Maori, as well as to a wider history of colonised 'dusky Potentates' exploring the imperial metropolis, Tawhiao's 1884 expedition offers an alternative to more familiar accounts of elite European touristic appropriation of exotic cultures. 5

The intensive media coverage also allows the interrogation of received wisdom concerning this event. The authorship of a famous photograph of Tawhiao in a kiwifeather cloak, familiar to generations of New Zealanders through its appearance on banknotes and in school textbooks, is one such revision. Despite its wide circulation by Auckland photographer Josiah Martin, to whom the photograph is universally attributed, the image turns out to have originated in the fashionable New Bond Street studio of John Mayall, and is likely to have been pirated by Martin on the

basis of a large-scale print issued from this studio. Another clarification concerns a short story by Alfred Grace, 'The King's Ngerengere', which has been regarded as a straightforward account of the visit paid by Tawhiao and crew to the Graces' country residence at Rickmansworth. Closer scrutiny suggests it is what it always purported to be - a work of fiction. Intriguingly, however, the story is paralleled in the oral tradition handed down within the family of one of the protagonists. Is this the case of a popular short story influencing Maori history? Or might it be the other way around - korero Maori shaping a Pakeha story?

Planning for the trip probably began as early as February 1882, when Tawhiao and a group of around 50 chiefs representative of Waikato, Ngati Maniapoto and Ngati Hikairo visited Auckland. Despite the lack of any invitation, Tawhiao resolved to lead a group of chiefs and meet with Queen Victoria to protest the accelerating colonial alienation of Maori land. By early 1884, the names of 10 leading chiefs from a representative range of iwi had been floated for the task (three of whom were serving members of the House of Representatives): Hori Kerei Taiaroa, Henare Tomoana, Henare Matua, Topia Turoa, Moetara, WI Hau, WT Pomare, Paora Tuhaere, Hone Mohi Tawhai and ihaka Te Tai. 6 The cost and logistics of the endeavour were staggering, and reservations on the steamers hotly contested. In the end, carrying a war chest reputedly of £4,000, Tawhiao travelled with only five companions. One was his cousin and brother-in-law Patara Te Tuhi, who, like Tawhiao, sported a facial moko. The others were Major Wiremu Te Wheoro, a Member of the House from Waikato, Topia Peehi Turoa from Whanganui, Hori Ropiha of Ngati Kahungunu, and George Skidmore, a native of the Bay of Islands whose mother was Ngapuhi.

Their 'voyage Home', as the newspapers insisted on calling it, was on the Sorota, where the six travellers occupied two of the larger cabins and enjoyed playing draughts and cards with other passengers. Te Wheoro proved particularly adept at euchre, a game also mastered by Tawhiao. Their route took in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide; then through the Suez Canal and Strait of Gibraltar. The landscapes they scrutinised were often found wanting:

The famous Bay of Naples did not please Tawhiao. He admitted its beauties were 'so-so', but expressed a preference for Auckland harbour and some place on the Waikato. All the way up the Thames the Maoris were comparing it with the Waikato, and asking questions about the depth, the width, and its length.

Today's widely travelled New Zealanders know that wherever you are in the world there is a high likelihood of encountering another New Zealander; but when Te Wheoro found himself among the swirling crowds of the Liverpool St railway

station he must have been astonished to spot an acquaintance from home. 7 George Vesey Stewart, a colonising entrepreneur known to Te Wheoro from encounters at Parliament in Wellington, leapt to the assistance of the disoriented Maori visitors. The chance encounter would profoundly change the nature of Tawhiao and his group's sojourn in the great city.

Their first residence - recommended by the steward on the Sorota - was Williamson's Hotel in Bow Lane, Cheapside, one of the most crowded parts of London. All of Cheapside ground to a halt when the Maori party made their first outing, as crowds massed and police proved powerless to control the situation. The 'fearlessness' with which the Maori group strolled out into the London streets excited great surprise, as did their lavish expenditure: 'The Maoris spend money very freely—too freely, I greatly fear. They buy whatever they fancy, and pay any price the vendor asks'. 8 Shopping was the first and would remain the most constant leisure activity, especially for Tawhiao. Among the earliest visitors to Bow Lane was Vesey Stewart, who recommended they shift to more salubrious lodgings in Montague Place, off Russell Square - a mere stone's throw from the British Museum and a short walk to Oxford Street. Landlady Amy Saintsbury, the widow of a friend of Stewart's, would play a leading role in hosting Tawhiao and his entourage. The experience left her with some exciting memories but also with crippling debts, and before long she resumed her former career in vaudeville. 9

Frederick William Chesson, secretary of the evangelical Aborigines' Protection Society, was another early visitor. Chesson's view was that, until their petition had been presented to Colonial Secretary Lord Derby, the Maori group 'should not show in public'. 10 To the horror of evangelical supporters, however, and despite disapproval by the staid Te Wheoro and Turoa, the future pattern of entertainment was firmly established by the extrovert of the group, Patara Te Tuhi. It was Patara who first accepted an invitation to the Alhambra Variety Theatre in Leicester Square, followed by dinner at the Savage Club, and the royal box at the Alhambra

- along with that of the neighbouring Empire Theatre - became a regular evening milieu for King Tawhiao and the fun-loving faction of his party. 11 Tawhiao's powers of mimicry extended to emulating ballet movements, and he informed the members of the Savage Club 'that he had seen ballets in Auckland very like those of the Alhambra'. 12 At the Empire Theatre, Tawhiao 'proved especially gracious, even going so far as to throw a bouquet to the premiere danseuse, Fraulein Eloffschuller; a courtesy which the audience rewarded with loud applause'. 13 As indicated by a later account of the audience involuntarily turning their heads like sunflowers towards the visitors in the royal box, at the theatre Tawhiao was as much viewed as he was a viewer. 14 The voyeurism stakes were even higher back at Montague Place, where neighbours had taken to spying through opera glasses. 15

Soon after the move to Bloomsbury, Tawhiao was introduced to the British Museum, which one source suggests, 'he continually visited for four successive days, but thought he had seen enough there after he had been in the "chamber of horrors," which he said was no good'. 16 That this was the Mummy Room, then as now located on the upper floor at the back of the museum, is confirmed by other reports. 17 Shown over the Houses of Parliament by Sir John Gorst, the British MP who had been resident magistrate in the Waikato before the war there, Tawhiao was delighted to inspect the throne in the House of Lords, lingering over the battle pictures on display, but was less impressed by the incomprehensible proceedings of Parliament itself. St Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey were dutifully visited, and the singing admired, but a distinct preference was given to more demotic entertainments. Again, it was Patara who had pioneered a visit to the zoo at Regent's Park, later accompanying a delighted Tawhiao to inspect the lions, seals and elephants. They were particularly thrilled by their ride on Alice the elephant, and back at Montague Place, Tawhiao entertained the others with imitations of the seals and monkeys. Later in the evening the intrepid pair returned to the Alhambra, 'quite by themselves'. 18

It was during a visit to Madame Tussaud's famous waxworks that a 'somewhat ludicrous incident occurred'. Together with a mind-reading seance, when Tawhiao confounded the English psychic by accidentally swallowing the button he was supposed to conceal, the Tussaud's visit became a choice piece telegraphically relayed through international media:

At the top of the stairs the Maoris caught sight of the figures, and could with difficulty be persuaded that they were wax, and that it was safe to move on. This objection had barely been overcome and we were strolling slowly forwards, when Tawhiao (who always walks first) rounded a corner and found himself faced with a formidable group representing Cetewayo [s/c] in his war paint, surrounded by several of his wives, and some Zulu warriors armed to the teeth. The King got one glimpse of this —just one—then he turned, and giving forth a guttural yell of a literally blood-curdling character, fled precipitately. We ran after him and Skidmore explained the figures were only wax like the rest. The old man's nerves had, however, received a nasty jar, and it took time to calm him down. Once this was done, however, all went well. 19

The Zulu leader Cetshwayo had been the celebrity visitor in the summer of 1882, and the circumstances of his visit were frequently contrasted in the press with those of Tawhiao. The text reveals the keen Maori appreciation of the hyperrealistic waxworks, which they examined closely, but also shows their interest

in the story of Cetshwayo's visit. The visit ended with trying out the seats of Napoleon's state carriage, one of Tussaud's prized exhibits.

The group's first visit to the Crystal Palace presented a snub to the Colonial Institute's annual conversazione at the South Kensington Museum, where around '2OOO persons were present, the company embracing all the great officials of the Colonial Office, and every Anglo-Antipodean of note in London'. 20 Instead, the Maori group chose to attend Fireworks Thursday at the Crystal Palace for the staging of an extraordinary yet ephemeral portrait: Brock and Co.'s colossal representation of Tawhiao's moko. 21 The group was brought to the Crystal Palace soon after midday and enjoyed hours of sightseeing that took in such favoured marvels as the aquarium and Phillipeaux's enormous trompe l'ceil panorama of the great battle of Tel-el-Kebir.

You stand in the middle and gaze at the representation of the battle, painted life size, all round. The effect is wonderfully real even to Europeans. The natives were simply dumbfounded by it. They stood there and gazed and talked, and talked and gazed. You couldn't get them away. Major Te Wheoro especially kept trying every effect, looking now this way, now that, in a half-dazed, half-amazed way. 22

Then a tired Tawhiao announced their departure, regardless that he was expected to trigger the evening's celebrity royal portrait. After pointless perambulations and a spectacular tantrum, Tawhiao relented and fired the portrait while looking down on an audience estimated at 50,000. According to the account in the London Globe , the King was more interested by the crowd than the fireworks. 23 Time and again we learn of Tawhiao's fascination with the crowd and its various manifestations: 'he says he likes to hear the tramp of the people in London more than anything else'. 24 Other highlights included the 'countless mob of girls' dispatching and receiving telegraphs at the General Post Office, and a 3,000-strong teetotal choir turning their songbook pages in unison. 25 The only mass display that failed to impress was the drill at the Grand Military Tournament: 'they had seen enough, and more than enough, of British soldiers during the New Zealand wars'. 26

Increasingly irked by the ceaseless whirl of activities, Tawhiao began to take himself off to nearby Oxford Street in order to spend time with an unlikely companion.

Tawhiao has made a friend. Among the tailors he periodically visits in search of novelties in the way of clothing is a 'cutter' named Young, a very taciturn, moody man, without a civil word for anyone. After visiting Young's shop once or twice, Tawhiao seemed strongly drawn to him. Neither can understand a word the other says, yet they obviously

appreciate being together. Tawhiao now spends a great part of each day smoking his pipe in Young's little shop parlour, with the moody tailor himself as his only companion. 27

The decidedly unusual refuge of the tailor's shop needs to be understood against a background of ceaseless visitors, invitations, outings, dinners and speeches, for it was precisely in order to evade one or another that Tawhiao would slip away to Young's. If he could not be prised out of Young's parlour, or was otherwise disinclined to participate in an outing, Patara Te Tuhi would oblige by standing in as the King. 28 Amending the hands-off approach of the first two months, when the group was left largely with Mrs Saintsbury and the journalists, the Colonial Office placed Reverend Frederick H. Spencer in charge of the party's final weeks. Spencer was responsible for a Maori-language account of the visit, He Kupu Whakaatu Enei mo to Matou Haerenga mai ki Ingarangi, published in London late in 1884 and including the text of the petition presented to Lord Derby, as translated by Spencer and Mrs Grace. But the group was far from pleased by the arrival of Spencer and the autocratic rule he immediately instituted.

All their little declassements have been ruthlessly nipped in the bud. Tawhiao can no longer bask amidst the smiles of the houris of the Alhambra, and if the wily Te Tuhi stays out after midnight he is called severely to account in the morning. The King's friendship for his tailor has also been quietly 'squelched', and all find it extremely difficult to mistake champagne for ginger-ale when Mr Spencer is by. 29

Subterfuge was needed, as occurred one evening when Spencer arrived at 7 p.m. to take them to yet another temperance meeting. Prompted by Mrs Saintsbury - who had little patience for Spencer or his temperance cause - Te Wheoro declared that they were all tired and would go to bed. No sooner had Spencer said prayers and left, however, than Patara and Skidmore departed in their cab for a new comedy called The Twins at the Olympic Theatre and 'a very recherche champagne supper with the lessee, Mrs Conover'. 30 Another morning, when Spencer decided that all should visit the Tower of London, Te Wheoro openly rebelled and told Mrs Saintsbury that 'he was not going to be pulled about here, there and everywhere without his wishes being consulted, and should stay at home'. 31 Except for the display of armour and the colourful beefeaters, the group remained steadfastly unimpressed by the Tower. In reality, they were desperate to return to Montague Place for a planned lunch with Mrs Conover. When Mrs Conover hosted another festive gathering for the group on the following Sunday, Spencer was fortunately

away on clerical duties. It was New Zealand's former governor, Sir George Grey, who convinced Tawhiao to take the vow of temperance, symbolised by the blue ribbon evident in the Negretti and Zambra photograph. It was widely known that Tawhiao had issues around alcohol consumption, and the prospect of abstinence prompted a general sigh of relief. In Melbourne, Tawhiao dashed the hopes of a group proffering Creme de Bouzy, a rare vintage champagne, but in London the fizz proved irresistible, just as it had for the Zulu king. 32 Spencer was nevertheless determined to induct the group into the mysteries of the Independent Order of Good Templars, to which Tawhiao, Te Wheoro and Turoa duly submitted. Professional photographer and leading temperance advocate John Deane Hilton documented the chiefs in their ritualistic costumes at his studio in Savoy Street. 33

Various visits to photographic studios are recorded, beginning with W. N. Tuttle's establishment in Sydney. 34 Apart from performing this duty as a celebrity and thereby satisfying a market for such images, Tawhiao made use of photography for his own purposes, such as when a Belgian capitalist in London was presented with an autographed photograph for transmission to the Belgian king. 35 Surviving photographs from London are relatively rare, but it was the Negretti and Zambra portrait in the Alexander Turnbull Library that raised my suspicions concerning the famous portrait attributed to Auckland photographer Josiah Martin. The hairstyle, and especially the tell-tale greying, corresponds very closely and it was through the newspaper coverage that I was finally able to pinpoint the date and authorship of the photograph. The visit to John Mayall's New Bond Street studio occurred on the evening of Monday 21 July when, under the 12,000-candle-power electric lighting that reduced the sitting time to a mere six seconds, Tawhiao and the chiefs were photographed singly and in a group. 36 It is unlikely that Mayall attended personally, for by then he was living in Brighton, but he was the celebrated royal photographer whose carte-de-visite portraits of Queen Victoria had earlier provoked a collecting craze. The attribution to Mayall - or at least to Mayall's studio - is confirmed by a published report concerning a 'life-size carbon portrait of Tawhiao, by Mayall, of Brighton ... coming out for the Auckland Museum. Presented by an old resident of Auckland'. 37 This must be the large-scale framed portrait recorded in Thomas Pringle's turn-of-the-century photograph, a print which likely facilitated Josiah Martin's appropriation of the image.

As richly evocative as the data may be, I am aware that the mass-media surveillance amounts to an entirely monocultural archive. This prompted my approach to Wiremu Puke, a friend who is a descendant of Patara Te Tuhi, to enquire about stories regarding this trip that had been handed down in their family. I was told of the sickness - mate Maori - from which Tawhiao suffered in London as a consequence of food passed over his head by waiters on the Sorota.

Serious symptoms are documented by the journalists, who surmise rheumatism and conjunctivitis. According to Wiremu, Patara and Tawhiao resolved the crisis by visiting the river at dawn to perform appropriate karakia. This brings to mind the central episode of Alfred Grace's story The King's Ngerengere', published in Tales of a Dying Race (1901), where a village policeman suspiciously observes a midnight ceremony undertaken by Maori visitors at a stream. In his biography of Grace,

Nelson Wattie assumes that the story simply documents the visit to the Graces' country residence by Tawhiao and Patara Te Tuhi. 38 Yet apart from the extreme unlikelihood that such a ceremony would take place in the dead of night, there is the evidence provided by a newspaper that, though Tawhiao indeed stayed the night at the Graces', Patara instead returned by train to London. 39 While the story contains elements of unmistakable realism, such as Tawhiao discovered sleeping on the parlour floor in preference to an upstairs bedroom, literary historians should remember that they are dealing with fiction. My guess is that, during the visit, Tawhiao recounted the event that had taken place at the river (presumably the Thames in London), which thereby became implanted in the story that evolved from the Grace family's recollections of the visit.

Another story handed down from Patara Te Tuhi records the placing of a makutu, or curse, on a statue of Queen Victoria - an intense response to the inexplicable absence of the Queen when Tawhiao and company visited Windsor Castle, equipped with the cloaks and greenstone mere that Seppings Wright would borrow back for the portrait sitting. In the period before the 1887 jubilee, public statues of Victoria were relatively uncommon, but one by J. G. Lough stood at the Royal Exchange. Intriguingly, by 1890 this statue was suffering disintegration and was soon to be replaced with one by Hamo Thornycroft. 40 Sceptical occidentals might attribute the statue's demise to London's air pollution; Patara Te Tuhi's descendants would undoubtedly assert the efficacy of the Maori curse. And while strict scholarship would dismiss these tales as little more than anecdotage, my point is that the Maori experience and memory of London necessarily differed from anything recounted by even the most vigilant of journalists.

Considering the time and energy invested in portraits, it is unfortunate that so few of them appear to be extant. Sepping Wright's 'Life Size Portrait of Tawhiao, the Maori King' was last sighted among the New Zealand pictures at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in 1886, where it was declared 'a far finer one' than Buller's exhibited portrait of Tawhiao by Gottfried Lindauer. 41 Watercolour and sculpted portraits were created by fellow boarders at Saintsbury's establishment, and when Philip Tennyson Cole offered to sell his watercolour to the King, 'His Majesty intimated that when he wished to gaze at himself he liked a looking-glass'. 42 Frederick S. Sheldon, who produced a life-size bust, found the representation of grooved tattoo lines challenging. By mid-1885 the bronze casting had been completed and the sculptor hoped to show it in that year's Royal Academy exhibition. 43 The portrait that most delighted Tawhiao was an unexpected loan from Robert Walker who, while touring New Zealand, had acquired an oil painting by the obscure Auckland artist E. Arnold that depicted Ngahuia, Tawhiao's favourite wife. Though purchased in New Zealand as 'a very pleasing picture of a Maori belle', in London the loan of the painting provoked tears and helped to console

the loneliness of the King's three-month sojourn in the metropolis. 44 Queen Victoria's refusal to meet Tawhiao and the chiefs cast a shadow over the visit and its subsequent histories. Nevertheless, while demonstrably failing in its objective to place Maori grievances before the Queen, the expedition undeniably achieved international celebrity status for King Tawhiao over the northern summer of 1884. The photographic portraits seem largely to be lost, along with the oil painting, watercolour and bronze bust, but the torrent of media coverage - the most valuable of which was engineered by an embedded Australian journalist working on behalf of New Zealand's evening newspapers - illuminates an astonishing range of activities that can scarcely be touched in this short essay. I have largely ignored the official engagements, and have paid scant attention to the British media and their narcissistic obsession with what one journalist called 'the first impressions made by a visit to the seat of a great empire, on men of intelligence but still in a tribal state of development'. 45 This is because I prefer the lengthy, vivid descriptions of shopping trips and zoo visits by day, and theatre outings and suppers by night, that were tailored for New Zealand consumption: accounts that reveal the enjoyment to be had by elite Maori visitors while undertaking research in the Pakeha heartland.

The most fun was had by Patara Te Tuhi, 'the shrewdest, cleverest, and most civilised of the party. He made friends wherever he went, and his quaint sayings and satirical remarks never failed to amuse'. 46 Patara usually sweetened his critiques of colonialism with a gentle humour, but in a valedictory comment he starkly emphasised the difference between how Maori were treated in the colony, and their reception in the metropolis: 'ln New Zealand the Europeans looked down on the Maoris, ill-treated them whenever they dare, and swore at them in the street. In London they had met thousands of people, and never received anything but kindness at their hands'. 47 While disporting himself around the Strand and Haymarket, Patara picked up a number of common expressions including one that - despite strong advice against doing so - he would use to address all females, irrespective of rank or occasion. However, the very grand Lady Brassey didn't turn a hair when, leaving a soiree at the South Kensington Museum, Patara benignly quipped: 'Good night, Ducky'. 48

ENDNOTES 1 'Painting Tawhiao's Portrait', New Zealand Herald, 1 November 1884 (supplement), p. 2. 2 See Claudia Orange, The Treaty of Waitangi (Wellington: Allen & Unwin in association with Port Nicholson Press, 1987), pp. 211-216. 3 For the media context of the 1882 visit of Cetshwayo and later African envoys, see Neil Parsons, '"No Longer Rare Birds in London": Zulu, Ndebele, Gaza, and Swazi Envoys to England, 1882-1894', in Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina (ed.), Black Victorians, Black Victoriana (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2003), pp. 110-141. 4 'A Newspaper Interviewer and Tawhiao', Taranaki Herald, 27 October 1894, p. 2: 'Those newspaper men are just like fleas, and you can't get rid of them easily, for they will not leave you alone'. Tawhiao's protest letter appeared in the Daily News, 18 July 1884, p. 6: 'I appeal to you on behalf of myself and brother chiefs to protect us against misrepresentation'. 5 'Yet another dusky Potentate has set foot on our shores': 'King Tawhiao', Standard, 3 June 1884, p. 3. 6 'Local & General', Otago Witness, 29 March 1884, p. 9. 7 'Letter from G. V. Stewart', Bay of Plenty Times, 31 July 1884, p. 2. 'Major Te Wheoro was the first of the party who recognised me, and in fact he spotted me out of the crowd'. 8 'Anglo-Colonial Notes', Auckland Evening Star, 22 July 1884, p. 2. These 'embedded' accounts by Edwin Preston of the Australasian Press Agency, syndicated to New Zealand's main evening newspapers, were widely reprinted throughout the colonial press. 9 'Tawhiao's Landlady Complains', Te Aroha News, 11 April 1885, p. 6. For Amy Saintsbury's subsequent career, see 'Theatrical People We Know', Star, 20 May 1886, p. 3. Saintsbury's allegations were contested in the New Zealand press by George Skidmore: 'Local and General', Wanganui Chronicle , 29 April 1885, p. 2.

10 Anglo-Colonial Notes', Auckland Evening Star, 22 July 1884, p. 2. 11 'Our London Letter', Evening Post, 24 July 1884, p. 2. The Savage Club was a gathering place for leading journalists. 12 'Tawhiao in London: The Adventures of the Maoris in the Great City', Auckland Evening Star, 28 July 1884, p. 4. 13 Ibid. 14 'The Maoris in London', Auckland Evening Star, 27 August 1884, p. 4. Caricatures titled londonising the Maori King', including one of Tawhiao viewing dancers at the Alhambra through opera glasses, appeared in Penny Illustrated Paper and Illustrated Times, 14 June 1884, p. 381. 15 letter from G. V. Stewart' (Bay of Plenty Times, 30 August 1884, p. 2) recounts an episode on the street outside Demetre House when, cheered by a crowd, Tawhiao experimented with an itinerant grinder's organ. He later received the gift of a 'full-powered piano-organ, of the same description as those played by Italians in the London streets' that became an 'instrument of torture' in the boarding house (Tawhiao in London', Evening Post, 23 August 1884, p. 1). 16 'New and Notes', Hawera and Normanby Star, 24 July 1884, p. 2. 17 'Tawhiao at the British Museum: Frightened by Egyptian Mummies', Te Aroha News, 23 August 1884, p. 3. 18 'Tawhiao in London: The Adventures of the Maoris in the Great City', Auckland Evening Star, 28 July 1884, p. 4.' As before, they were shown at once into the Royal box, and most hospitably entertained, the question of payment never being even mooted.' 19 Ibid.

20 Tawhiao in London', Star, 14 August 1884, p. 3. 21 'King Tawhiao at the Fireworks' [London Globe 20 June],A/e/son Evening Mail, 22 August 1884, p. 4. On Brock and Co's set pieces at the Crystal Palace, see George Plimpton, Fireworks: A History and Celebration, New York: Doubleday, 1984, pp. 201-203. 22 'King Tawhiao in London', Auckland Evening Star, 12 August 1884, p. 3. 23 Ibid. 'ln the finest parts of it, however, he would rise from his seat and gaze down upon the crowd, as though after all, that was to him the most wonderful sight.' 24 'King Tawhiao in London', Otago Daily Times, 8 August 1884, p. 3. 25 'Tawhiao in London', Star, 2 September 1884, p. 3; 'The Maori King in London', Auckland Evening Star, 25 August 1884, p. 4. 26 'Tawhiao in London', Star, 2 August 1884, p. 3. 27 'Tawhiao in London', Evening Post, 30 August 1884 (supplement), p. 2. 28 The Mayor of Reading and the top families of Berkshire met Patara impersonating the King on an outing to a country house near Reading: 'Personal and General', Auckland Evening Star, 22 September 1884, p. 2.

29 'The Maoris in London', Star, 26 September 1884, p. 3. 30 Ibid. 31 Ibid. 32 'The Maori Embassy to England', Argus, 16 April 1884, p. 6. Slippage is registered frequently in London: 'The King takes very kindly to the first-named beverage [champagne]. He may not know it is an intoxicant, but our general impression is that he does'. (Tawhiao in London', Star, 8 September 1884, p. 3). Indispositions that followed outings to the Alhambra were considered suspicious ('News and Notes', Hawera and Normanby Star, 27 August 1884, p. 2.)

33 Auckland Art Gallery holds Hilton's portraits of Te Wheoro and Turoa in their Good Templar dress (1995/29/1 and 1995/29/2). The exotic costumes were paraded at temperance meetings held in New Zealand on their return ('Arrival of Tawhiao: Grand Reception by the Blue Ribbon Army', Auckland Evening Star, 8 November 1884, p. 3). 34 Tuttle's photographs of Tawhiao and Te Wheoro, supplied by Te Wheoro, furnished the basis for the wood-engraved portraits published in Society (Star 20 August 1884, p. 2). 35 Bruce Herald, 16 September 1884, p. 3. 36 'Anglo-Colonial Notes', Auckland Evening Star, 9 September 1884, p. 2: 'Mayall, the famous Bond Street photographer, took portraits of Tawhiao and his chiefs, singly and in a group, on Monday'. 37 'English News Epitomised', Wanganui Chronicle, 11 February 1885, p. 2. Martin himself acknowledged Mayall's authorship in a four-page printed commentary, 'Maoridom, "The Old Order Changeth", Explanation of Group of Old Maori Weapons, Implements, Etc', p. 1: 'The original photograph was taken by Mayall, of London, when the Maori Monarch was on a visit to England' (Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford). 38 Nelson Wattie, 'Grace, Alfred Augustus', Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, Vol. 3, 1901-1920 (AucklandAA/ellington: Auckland University Press/Department of Internal Affairs, 1996), pp. 183-184. 39 The Maoris in London', Star, 26 September 1884, p. 3. 40 Philip Ward-Jackson, Public Sculpture of the City of London (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2003), pp. 327-329. Thanks to Mark Stocker for information on Queen Victoria statues. 41 'Our London Letter', Star, 17 November 1886, p. 2.

42 'Anglo-Colonial Notes', 43 'Tawhiao's Bust', Star, 11 May 1885, p. 3. The bust failed to appear at the Royal Academy exhibition. 44 Auckland Evening Star, 16 August 1884, p. 2. 45 Westminster Gazette, quoted by Neil Parsons in '"No Longer Rare Birds in London"', p. 112. 46 'Tawhiao in London', Auckland Evening Star, 10 October 1884, p. 2. 47 Ibid. 48 'The Maoris in London', Star, 26 September 1884, p. 3.