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History - The Wellington Regiment:
Wellington's military history dates back to 1840, the year the city was founded by
settlers from the Wellington Company. Nervous about the British Government's seeming
reluctance to formalise its sovereignty over New Zealand, the settlers formed a militia of
their own. The Treaty of Waitangi having only recently been signed, the Governor Hobson's
response was to dispatch Imperial troops to Wellington to deal with this
"treason". The Governor had mistakenly presumed that the settlers were
attempting to establish their own state in defiance of the Crown. The misunderstanding was
quickly resolved, but only after armed troops had landed on the Petone foreshore! (The
incident is related in the diary of Ensign Abel Best, one of the officers who landed at
"Pito One", as it was then known).In 1845
fighting broke out in the Hutt Valley and Porirua. At issue, of course, was land. Spurred
on by the much more serious conflict in the Bay of Islands, the redoubtable Te Rauparaha,
chief of Ngati Toa, claimed that he had been duped in land sales by the Wellington
Company, although his claim to much of this area was itself unclear and based
largely on conquest. Te Rauparaha's control of the region stemmed from the bloody
inter-tribal "Musket Wars" of the 1820s, and he ruled from his stronghold on
Kapiti Island, which dominated the approaches to Cook Strait. However it was his
son-in-law, Te Rangahiata, who had also been involved in the Wairau Massacre of 1843, that
led the fighting. Te Rauparaha remained on the sidelines. |
| Some contemporaries (notably Wakefield, a
Director of the Wellington Company) have suggested that Te Rauparaha did not believe that
Europeans would arrive in the numbers he had been told, but when they did he saw his
authority ("mana") in the region diminish, as well as his revenues, and may have
sought to revisit the terms of the original contracts. A number of skirmishes took place,
the first at Boulcott's farm in the Hutt Valley, and settlements were burnt. The
Governor's response was to begin the building of military roads to secure the region and
to take the battle "to the Maoris". This is the present Old |
Helmet plate of the York and Lancaster Regiment, late 19th
century.
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| Ngaio Gorge road, the main roads through Khandallah and
Johnsonville, and the Old Porirua Road. "Box Hill" in Khandallah is the site of
one of the redoubts built to protect the road, and parts of the Paramata Barracks still
remain in the Ngati Toa Domain in Mana. Fortunately the conflict was localised and small
in scale. After the abortive fight at Battle Hill in Pauatahanui (the entrenchments are
now part of the Battle Hill Reserve) the conflict subsided. Te Rauparaha himself was
seized by Marines in a daring night time raid on his Pa and he was placed under house
arrest in Auckland (without trial) for two years . Te Rangihiata fled to the Manawatu. By this time the 65th Regiment of Light Infantry, the "Royal
Tigers", arrived in Wellington, beginning a long association with the City, and with
the Wellington Regiment. The 65th later became the York and Lancaster Regiment and was
allied with the Wellington Regiment until the former was disbanded in the 1960s. The Royal
Tigers remained in Wellington until 1858, when their head-quarters was moved to Auckland.
Companies of the Regiment were soon back in Wellington when, in 1860, a more serious war
broke out in Taranaki which was to engulf the North Island for 10 years. |
NCOs of the 65th "Royal Tigers" photographed in
Wellington circa 1860
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The 65th fought in many of these battles, but
left New Zealand in 1865 before the War was over. By this time the Imperial Government had
grown weary of fighting wars in a country of only marginal economic importance in the
Empire, and so it put more responsibility onto the Colony's Government. The increasing
involvement of colonial units, |
| prepared to use less orthodox fighting tactics in response
to Maori patterns of warfare, led to a greater animosity between Maori and
"Pakeha" than had existed between Maori and Imperial Troops. The colonials'
methods were ultimately more effective however. The
Wellington Regiment had its genesis in the Volunteer Militia established during the these
land wars. The Wellington Rangers, and the Wellington Veteran Volunteer Corps formed in
1867, fought against the great Maori prophet/general Titokowaru at the disastrous battle
of Te Ngatu-o-tu-Manu in 1868. Captain George Buck, formerly of the 65th, served in the
Wellington Rangers and was killed in this battle. The Wellington Volunteers continued as a
unit when the wars finished in 1871, and after the visit of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh in
1872 the unit changed its name to The Wellington City Rifles. Further Volunteer Companies
were formed in Wellington in this period, including the Wellington Guards, Te Aro Rifles,
College Rifles, Karori Rifles, and others.
During the "Russian scare" of the 1880s
(precipitated by events at Pandjeh in Afghanistan - See background to Heights of Dargai), all the Volunteer
Companies in Wellington were formed into The Wellington Rifle Volunteer Battalion. Until
this time New Zealand's defence forces were directed primarily to matters of internal
security. Over the next few decades the Battalion underwent several further changes in the
process of building an effective external defence force. In 1887 colours were presented to
the Battalion by the Mayoress of Wellington, Mrs Samual Brown, on the occasion of HM Queen
Victoria's Jubilee celebrations. |
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From 1871 there had actually been a Wellington
Highlanders volunteer unit which wore the tartan of the Black Watch. In 1874 this unit
changed its name to the Wellington Scottish, and it was for a time even mounted! However
it disbanded the following year, presumably for want of support. A Scottish company was
again formed in 1900, taking the name of Wellington Highlanders, but this time on foot. At
the time each Company of the Battalion wore its own dress uniform, which for the
Wellington Highlanders was the full dress uniform of the Seaforth Highlanders. Another
company wore the full dress uniform of the Grenadier Guards! |
| Many members of the Battalion and other Wellingtonians
served in the Wellington Companies of the South African Contingents during the Boer War,
and their Honours passed to the Wellington Rifle Volunteers. In 1910 the Wellington Rifle
Volunteers was formed into the 5th (Wellington Rifles) Regiment as part of Lord
Kitchener’s suggested reforms of the New Zealand Army. Four Territorial Districts
were established in Auckland, Wellington, Canterbury and Otago. The 5th
(Wellington Rifles) Regiment was a Territorial (ie "army reserve") battalion
drawn from Wellington City itself, and should not be confused with the Wellington Regiment
of the Regular Army that served at Gallipoli and which was drawn from the other parts of
the Province. |
The "Black Blaze"
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The Wellington Rifles was part of the first
New Zealand contingent to see active service in the Great War, being mobilised
immediately to secure the German wireless station at Samoa. After returning in April 1915
a large portion of the Regiment enlisted in the New Zealand Rifle Brigade for service in
Europe. The NZRB was a national regiment, but, of the four Territorial |
| Districts, the greatest proportion of the Regiment was
from Wellington. Each battalion of the NZRB wore blackened buttons and a distinctive black
"blaze" on the the shoulder and on the puggeree of the "lemon
squeezer" hat. Different companies wore different shapes of blaze. |
| After training in Egypt the NZRB's first
engagements were skirmishes with Senussi tribesmen in Egypt who, incited by the Turks,
threatened a holy war against Imperial Egypt. It was in this campaign that the NZRB earned
its nick-name of the "Dinks". A NZRB soldier |
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| had been relating his adventures in this
"punch-up" to a recuperating New Zealand soldier from Gallipoli. When the story
had finished the Gallipoli veteran remarked "that must have been a fair dinkum
scrap", and the name stuck. The NZRB later proved its worth in more serious
engagements and its Honours include The Somme, Messines, Ypres, Bapaume, The Hindenburg
Line, and Sambre (Le Quesnoy) for the famous storming, with scaling ladders, of the
fortified town in France during the last days of the War. |
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After the War the NZRB was disbanded and its
Honours passed to the 5th (Wellington Rifles) Regiment from whence so many of
its soldiers came. These Honours are proudly emblazoned on the old drums of the band which
WSPD still possesses. |
| The Wellington Rifles likewise adopted the black blaze,
and the present day Wellington (CWO) and Hakews Bay Regiment is the only New Zealand Army
unit to wear the black blaze. In 1921 the Wellington Regiment lost its title of Wellington
Rifles and absorbed three other Regiments from the lower half of the North Island. The
Wellington Rifles became the 1st Battalion of this new Wellington
Regiment. However by 1923 the other three battalions were re-instated as Regiments
with their original titles leaving only the 1st Battalion in the Wellington
Regiment. In 1938 a Civic Charter gave the Wellington Regiment the Freedom of the City of
Wellington and the right to call itself The City of Wellington’s Own - the
first New Zealand regiment to receive such an Honour. The Wellington Regiment did not see overseas service in the Second World War,
although the Regiment was mobilised as Wellington's "fortress" garrison after
the attack on Pearl Harbour. The Regiment was stood down after the battle of the Coral Sea
and Midway. In keeping with the practice adopted in the First World War the New Zealand
Government did not send existing units of the standing army (whether regular or
territorial) overseas for service, but rather established the "Second" New
Zealand Expeditionary Force. The "First" New Zealand Expeditionary Force had
mirrored the organisation of the standing army regiments, with Auckland, Wellington,
Canterbury, and Otago Regiments, being initially formed, and later supplemented with
additional units such as the NZRB. |
| The 2NZEF was modelled on different lines. It
embarked in three echelons, each consisting of an infantry brigade of three battalions.
Many members of the Wellington Regiment enlisted in the "Wellington" companies
of the 19th, 22nd, and 25th Battalions (battalions in the
first, second, and third echelons of the 2NZEF respectively). During the course of the War
the 2NZEF was periodically topped-up with contingents of "reinforcements". After
the War the Honours won by these Companies, including Greece, Crete, El Alamein, and
Casino, passed to the Wellington Regiment. |
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| In 1964, the year New Zealand entered the Vietnam War, the
Government determined that the New Zealand Army should comprise only one infantry regiment
which would consist of seven battalions. The Wellington Regiment (City of Wellington's
Own) amalgamated with the Hawkes Bay Regiment to form the 7th Battalion, Royal
New Zealand Infantry Regiment. In a recent
reorganisation of the Army the 7th Battalion RNZIR has changed its name to
become The Wellington (City
of Wellington's Own) and Hawkes Bay Regiment to better preserve its territorial
identity. The Regiment still has a close association with Wellington City, and the former Military Band of the
Wellington Regiment is preserved in the present day Regiment. |
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