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This extract originally appeared in Te Ata o Tū The Shadow of Tūmatauenga: The New Zealand Wars Collections of Te Papa (Te Papa Press, 2024) on pages 256-257.
This extract was authored by Caitlyn Lynch.
Nineteen-year-old Frederick Rowan arrived in New Zealand in December 1864, joining the 43rd Regiment as it returned from the Tauranga campaign to fight the ‘Hauhau threat’ in the Second Taranaki War, 1865–66. Rather than leave New Zealand with his regiment in 1866, Rowan stayed on in Taranaki, joining the settler militia. When news came of rising trouble in the south, Rowan led a group of 26 Taranaki Rifle Volunteers down to Camp Waihī.
On 7 September 1866, under the command of von Tempsky, Rowan and the Volunteers ventured inland towards Te Ngutu o Te Manu. Rowan had experienced some bush warfare in his time with the 43rd, but many of his Volunteers had not. They were provoked into premature attack by Tītokowaru’s guerrilla tactics before they had time to complete the training McDonnell had intended. They fared better in the thick forest of rātā, tōtara, ongaonga and fern than the Wellington Volunteers, but were no match for the Māori forces. Ngāruahine fired from hidden positions, killing nine of Rowan’s 26 men. The injured lay fallen among the trees, the able doing their best to help them.
In an account of the battle written to William Francis Gordon, Private John Walker described how ‘Lieut. Rowan then came to assist me, just as the brave Officer and I were stooping to pick the wounded man up, he [Rowan] was shot through the jaw, and fell backwards on the ground.’1 McDonnell ordered a retreat and Rowan made it back to Camp Waihī. The encounter had been a disaster: a third of Rowan’s Volunteers were dead, as was the commander of his division – the seemingly invincible von Tempsky – and he himself had a serious facial wound.
Rowan’s photograph was taken at David Thompson’s studio in Whanganui on 7 January 1869, four months after the battle. Arms crossed, shoulders hunched, head bandaged with a surly expression, the 23-year-old Rowan looks very reluctant to have his photo taken. Rowan returned to England for reconstructive surgery in 1869. Pleased with his repaired jaw, he posed for another series of portraits at the famous Mayall studio in London. He then went on to woo Ellis Ryan, who later became a renowned botanical artist. Rowan’s injury did not deter him from returning to New Zealand, nor to the armed service. He came back to Taranaki with Ellis in 1871 and was appointed a sub-inspector in the Armed Constabulary. He served at Te Wairoa and White Cliffs until 1877, when he resigned his commission and left the colony, settling in Melbourne, where he lived until his death in 1892.2
1 ‘The defeat at Te Ngutu O Te Manu’, Letter from John Walker to WF Gordon, about 1890, Te Papa Archives, CA000162/001/0003.
2 Untitled, Evening Post, 13 December 1892, p. 2.