Scene in the pits, Gate Pah

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.

This graphic scene depicts Pukehinahina or Gate Pā after it was vacated by Māori forces, following the battle which took place on the 29th of April 1864. The fight was between 1700 British troops, mainly of the 43rd and 68th regiments, and Ngāi te Rangi forces numbering 200, supported by thirty-five from Ngāti Koheriki. Despite the odds, the Battle of Gate Pā was a victory for Ngāi te Rangi.
 
After the battle, Māori forces retreated to the neighbouring Te Ranga Pā, leaving only the dead or badly injured. One injured occupant was Te Reweti Manotini, or Rewiti (Te Matewaitai), who may be the central figure in this work. With one kneecap exposed, and the calf of the other leg shredded, he offers a grisly sight. According to Captain Gilbert Mair’s account of the battle, Te Reweti fell with “seven bullet wounds and both legs broken.” Reweti is identified in a second Robley watercolour of the aftermath of Gate Pā, leaning against a wall as described in Hori Ngatai’s account of the battle:

He had six or seven bullets in his body, and being shot through both thighs was quite helpless. He was leaning against the remains of the parapet, had taken out his pipe and was wanting to have a consoling smoke, but could not find a light. So he kept calling out “Give me a light.” He was not, as you may imagine, attended to, for everyone was fighting for dear life.

Te Rewiti was taken to Te Papa for medical care, where he later died of his wounds. This scene of a battle’s aftermath conveys an intimate sense of the violence of the conflict, very different from the glorified, mid-combat images of war so often associated with battles. It is very different, also, from idealised engravings made by the Illustrated London News from Robley’s more truthful originals of the scene. Works such as Scene in the Pits are a necessary foil to these idealisations, which capture with immediacy the human cost of the conflict.

Sources:

Cowan, James. The New Zealand Wars: A History of the Maori Campaigns and the Pioneering Period: Volume I: 1845–1864. Wellington: R.E.Owen, 1955, pp 433.

Primary descriptions of Te Reweti at Gate Pā:
Mair, Gilbert. The Story of Gate Pā, April 29th 1864. Tauranga: Bay of Plenty Times, 1937, pp16, 27.

Similar ‘pit scenes’ by Robley:
H.G Robley, Sketch in Trenches, Gate Pā. 30 April 1864. Alexander Turnbull Library Collections, Wellington. http://mp.natlib.govt.nz/detail/?id=23350&l=en   

H.G. Robley, Rewiti and Another Maori Wounded. 30 April 1864. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington.
 
Text by Florence Esson, intern, June 2018.