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Overview
Revolver, Colt Navy Model 1851.calibre .36.
This weapon was given to the Dominion Museum by the Governor of the Wellington Jail in 1912. The original owner was Captain Henry Cole of the British Army's 12th Regiment; his name and regiment are inscribed on the butt strap. Cole saw active service in New Zealand; he survived the assault on Rangiriri in November 1863, but died of sunstroke at Ngaruawahia in December 1864.
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).
This extract was authored by Michael Fitzgerald.
This revolver belonged to Captain Henry Cole of the British Army’s 12th Regiment, which served in New Zealand from 1860 until 1867. At that time, officers were permitted to buy their own sidearms, such as revolvers and swords.
Cole was born in 1829 at Carlow, Ireland. He joined the 12th Regiment as an ensign (the most junior commissioned rank) in 1846. By 1863, he was a captain and commanded a detachment of 53 members of the regiment from Hobart to Auckland. They were soon sent to fight in the Waikato. At Rangiriri, Cole led a detachment of the 12th supporting the attacks of the 14th and 65th Regiments. He survived the hard-fought action, only to die a few weeks later of sunstroke in the army’s camp at Ngāruawāhia. Cole’s comrades took his body to Auckland, where he was given a military funeral.
Cole had married Rebecca Lord at Hobart in 1859. By the time of his death just four years later, he and Rebecca had three daughters, Mary, Anna and Charlotte. It is likely, as was the custom among military men in those days, that Cole’s revolver and other personal effects were auctioned to raise funds to support his family. Markings on the revolver indicate that it was bought by the New Zealand government, which needed as many modern firearms as possible to equip its own forces.
The revolver was later sent to the Wellington gaol for the use of warders in case of unrest among prisoners. In 1912, by which time it was obsolete, the governor of the gaol donated it to the Dominion Museum.