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Overview
Horatio Gordon Robley (1840-1930) arrived in Aotearoa New Zealand on the 8th of January, 1864, as part of the 68th regiment of the British Army sent as reinforcements for the Crown in the New Zealand Wars. Three months after landing in Auckland, the 68th were dispatched to Tauranga, where they were involved in the Battle of Gate Pā on April 29th. Following the battle, Robley remained stationed in the Bay of Plenty on garrison duty for almost two years, during which time he continued to produce a vast array of watercolours and sketches. The bulk of these works were related to Māori, a subject particularly favoured by Robley and revisited by him many times after his return to the United Kingdom on the 28th of June, 1866. For this reason it can be difficult to determine whether many of Robley’s works were executed in New Zealand, or abroad, despite their importance to New Zealand history.
The scene depicted captures the second of two group surrenders at Camp Te Papa following the Battle of Te Ranga on the 21st of June. The surrenders and negotiations took place a month later, from the 24th to the 29th of July. The central standing figure has been identified as Hori Ngatai, a Ngāi te Rangi orator who spoke at the July 25th surrender. The outcomes of these negotiations led, among other things, to a cessation of fighting in the area and the handing over of a small portion of Ngāi te Rangi weapons, composed of firearms, taiaha, tewhatewha, tomahawks, and kit bags which are pictured on the ground in this work. Though this version was probably done after the event, Robley made many versions both during and after, one of which was reproduced as an engraving in the July-December Illustrated London News, 1864.
There is an interesting tension between truth and invention in Robley’s watercolours of historical events. Based on his more immediate sketches of the scene (listed below) it is likely that Robley would not have seen the grouping from the front as it's pictured here. He probably therefore reconstructed this frontal scene based on his other sketches and memories of the proceedings. Robley was also known to back-date his paintings. So can this watercolour be considered an honest representation, or is it an imagined re-construction? The answer lies somewhere in between. The fact that Robley was actually in attendance at the surrender means that he was aware of the key elements of the event, and these stay consistent across each version: the piles of weapons at the foot of the house; the seated figures with Hori Ngatai standing at their center; a flag flying. In the absence of photography, this kind of observational sketch is the closest we can come to an actual image of the event— and it is these keenly observed elements, faithfully rendered across each version, which can offer a lens into the past.
Sources:
Belich, James. The New Zealand Wars. Auckland: Penguin Books,1986, pp 194-5.
Melvin, L.W. Soldier Artist in the Bay of Plenty, 1864-1866. Ed. R.W. Melvin. Tauranga: Tauranga Historical Society, 1990, pp 32.
Rice, Rebecca. Unsettling: Art and the New Zealand Wars. Wellington: School of Art history, VUW, 2016.
Other versions of work:
Image of the Illustrated London News engraving:
“The War in New Zealand.” The Illustrated London News, Vol 45, July-Dec 1864, 429.
H.G Robley, Surrender of the Ngāi Te Rangi at Te Papa – coming in with arms. Dated 25th July, 1864. Alexander Turnbull Library Collection, Wellington.
H.G Robley, Surrender of the Tauranga Natives at Te Papa. 1864. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington.
Text by Florence Esson, intern, June 2018.