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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 13, Issue 7 (October 1, 1938)

The A. C. Field Force — Story of New Zealand's Soldier-Police

page 9

The A. C. Field Force
Story of New Zealand's Soldier-Police

[All Rights Reserved.]

Colonel J. M. Roberts, N.Z.C., the last officer of the N.Z. Armed Constabulary. (Died at Rotorua, 1928.)

Colonel J. M. Roberts, N.Z.C., the last officer of the N.Z. Armed Constabulary. (Died at Rotorua, 1928.)

Redoubts and blockhouses, garrisoned by detachments of New Zealand Armed Constabulary, stood sentry on strategic sites, often a commanding hill or a round mound above a river bend, along our borders of settlement until the early ‘Eighties. There were chains of these posts, guarding communications and protecting outlying settlements. A redoubt was built at Kawhia as late as 1883, long after the Maori wars had ended, for there were inter-racial disagreements and the Kingite national feeling was strong. But there cannot be many survivors of the active-service period, when hundreds of blue uniformed A.C's., though officially styled constables, served through hard-fought campaigns, and performed all the duties of regular soldiers.

An association of old comrades of the Permanent Force, the lineal descendants of the N.Z.A.C., was formed in Wellington about two years ago, but its oldest members' services did not extend back to the founding of the corps in 1867–68. In Auckland and Taranaki and the Bay of Plenty enquiries no doubt can still bring forward some with war service, although sixty-six years have passed since the last shots were fired. Old campaigners sometimes keep the last enemy at bay for a century. There will be Maoris among the long-lived few, for many lads of the Arawa and other tribes enlisted as Constabulary in 1869–70.

It was not until 1884–85 that the Armed Constabulary were finally demobilised as a corps, and most of the members who did not go into the civil police became artillerymen for the new forts constructed at the chief ports of the colony.

Irish Constabulary as Model.

It was in 1867–68 that the N.Z.A.C. Field Force was organised for war service under a Government scheme which paradoxically sought to demilitarise the fighting forces. That brilliant idea the Government owed chiefly to Mr. St. John Branigan, a good Irish policeman from the Victoria and Otago diggings, fields which attracted many an excellent officer. The Royal Irish Constabulary were taken as the model, and Mr. Branigan was given wide powers as Commissioner in command. The veterans of the various companies of Rangers and Rifles and military settlers who did all the rough bush work after the Imperial troops had been withdrawn, found themselves under a system of control which was sometimes very distasteful.

First-rate policeman, but no military man, Mr. Commissioner St. John Branigan was totally out of sympathy with the soldierly aspirations of the officers and men who had already seen service. The inspectors and sub-inspectors preferred the military equivalents of their rank, major and captain; and it must have been rather confusing at first to find a company described as a “division.”

The A.C. Redoubt at Opunake, Taranaki, in 1881. (From a drawing.)

The A.C. Redoubt at Opunake, Taranaki, in 1881. (From a drawing.)

Mr. Branigan always tried to impress on his subordinates the fact that they were not soldiers but constabulary, but when these “constables” marched into action under such leaders as Whitmore and McDonnell, Von Tempsky and Roberts, Newland and Northcroft, Goring and Gudgeon, they quickly forgot that they were police, and fought as hard as any Ranger or other rifleman. It is to the Commissioner's credit that he worked hard to provide the force with the most efficient arms procurable; he knew that police must possess up-to-date weapons and equipment.

* * *

Fighters and Road-makers.

There is no need here to recapitulate the bush-warfare services of the Constabulary. That is in the histories. It was at its best, probably, in the Urewera Country campaign of 1869, a very difficult and all but unknown region in which the Maoris had all the natural advantage, for they were defending their native wilds.

After that invasion of the mountain land, Colonel Whitmore wrote of his men that six months of continuous drilling and campaigning had made page 10 page 11
The Constabulary Redoubt at Onepoto, Lake Waikaremoana. (From a photo., 1874.)

The Constabulary Redoubt at Onepoto, Lake Waikaremoana. (From a photo., 1874.)

them a first-rate fighting corps, better than their opponents in every way except that they could not run as fast. In that period, 1868–70, several of the soldier-policemen won the New Zealand Cross for distinguished valour in action.

Then in the period when peace had been restored, but when the various frontiers were still guarded by the A.C. in their earthworks and stockades, the force entered another field of usefulness. Sir Donald Maclean, the Minister of Defence and Native Affairs, remembering the lesson of the military road through the Highlands of his native land after the “Forty-Five” set the force to work at road-making into the interior. He believed that the pick and shovel were as necessary as the rifle in assuring peace, by opening up the country for military movements and for settlement.

So everywhere on the frontier we saw road-making parties at work in the ‘Seventies and early ‘Eighties. Many of the Upper Waikato and West and East Coast roads then laid out and formed by the grey-shirted workers are now the main highways. One is the road from Tauranga to Rotorua, Atiamuri and Taupo; others are the Cambridge-Rotorua road, and the present mountain road from Taupo to Napier.

Thus the soldier-policemen became navvies. The extra pay for this field work did not prevent some grumbling, and the Defence Minister deemed it necessary to issue a memorandum to officers commanding explaining the necessity for this strategic road-making and enjoining upon all members of the Force cheerful and loyal obedience to the new dispensation in frontier control. There are on record, following upon this, reports from numerous officers describing the excellent progress of their roading duties, and the good and willing work done by the various parties.

In my young days in the Upper Waikato the bell tents of the Constabulary road camps and the parties of stalwart whiskered campaigners who laid down the Snider for the pick and spade and shovel were a familiar sight. The Government roading served the needs of travellers and far-out farmers in many places at a time when it was badly needed, and it was not the least of the national duties faithfully discharged for which the old Field Force should be remembered.

(Rly. Publicity photo.) The Whakaheke Rapids on the Waikato River, North Island, New Zealand.

(Rly. Publicity photo.)
The Whakaheke Rapids on the Waikato River, North Island, New Zealand.

Swindley's Little Joke.

Naturally the old hands who had served with regular troops in the Wars of the ‘Sixties did not relish the Constabulary organisation at first. One of these veterans was Captain Swindley, afterwards a settler at Te Puapua, near Whakatane. Swindley being a cheerful soul and incorrigible joker, realised the humorous side of it all. Capital soldier, skilled bushman and scout, he was a popular man with his comrades in the field. But his special aversion was his superior officer, Commissioner Branigan.

Swindley amused some of his friends with pen-and-ink drawings depicting himself in the uniform of a London policeman with a lantern at his belt and a baton in his hand. This illustrated the fate he professed to believe would overtake the A.C. Field Force. He had his photograph taken in that costume. The caricatures were circulated from field post to post, and at last the story came to the ears of Mr. Branigan.

The rest of the story is told in a MS. diary of the service period kept by the late Captain G. A. Preece, N.Z.C., who sent me a copy of it.

Swindley, he wrote, was at the Constabulary Depot on Mt. Cook, in Wellington (where the Dominion Museum and Art Gallery now stand), when he was sent for by Mr. Branigan.

“I understand, Captain Swindley,” he said, “that you have been caricaturing the Force by exhibiting some pictures showing what you were and what you expected you would become, the last in page 12
(Rly. Publicity photo.) The new standard railcar, “Aotea,” which, in a recent trial run from Napier to Wellington (200 miles) covered the distance in 4 hours 36 minutes running time.

(Rly. Publicity photo.)
The new standard railcar, “Aotea,” which, in a recent trial run from Napier to Wellington (200 miles) covered the distance in 4 hours 36 minutes running time.

the uniform of a London policeman with a baton.”

Captain Swindley, who was never at a loss, replied: “Oh, no sir. In my various occupations I have had my photograph taken”; and he took a packet of small photo-cards from his pocket.

“Here is one showing me as a digger on the West Coast. Here is another as a surveyor's chainman. The third shows me in A.C. officer's uniform. The fourth is as I found myself in the field, with a shawl around my loins, a carbine over my shoulder, a revolver in my belt, and a haversack on my back. I heard that you were going to demilitarise the Force, so I thought I would make my collection complete. These are very old, so you can see that it was with no intention of bringing the Force into ridicule.”

Mr. Branigan took it in good part, Preece continued, and no more was said about it at the time. Probably the Captain agreeably entertained the Commissioner with some of his funny stories. But Swindley could not leave well alone.

The Commissioner's official life was brought to an unfortunate close about the beginning of 1871; his mind became deranged, the effects of an old sunstroke. Preece wrote in his diary (July 14th, 1871), after recounting the incident just related:—

“I am afraid Swindley must be held partly accountable for poor Branigan's condition. Some time after the Wellington interview, he sent the Commissioner the following extract from Mark Twain's ‘Innocents Abroad’:

“‘But perhaps the most poetical thing Pompeii has yielded to modern research was that grand figure of a Roman soldier, clad in complete armour, who, true to his duty and full of that stern courage which has given to that name its glory, stood to his post by the city gate, erect and unflinching, till the hell that raged around him burned out the dauntless spirit it could not conquer. We never read of Pompeii without the natural impulse to grant to him the mention he so well deserves. Let us remember he was a soldier, not a policeman, and so praise him. Being a soldier, he stayed, because the warrior instinct forbade him to fly. Had he been a policeman he would have stayed also, because he would have been asleep’.”

(Rly. Publicity photo.) Interior view of the signal cabin at Wellington, New Zealand.

(Rly. Publicity photo.)
Interior view of the signal cabin at Wellington, New Zealand.

“This quotation,” said Captain Preece, “was sent to Branigan shortly before he went off. Swindley said he thought it might have been this that finally sent him off his head.”

An Appreciation.

On the occasion of his retirement from the Railway Service, Mr. W. A. Williams, Auckland, writes to the General Manager of Railways, Mr. G. H. Mackley, in the following appreciative terms:—

“Having recently retired from the Railway Service on account of ill-health, I take this opportunity to express my deep appreciation of the courtesy and kindness always accorded me by the officers of the Department, particularly the Maintenance Staff of the District Engineer's Office, Christchurch.

“My period of service with the Railway Department was a most happy one, and it is with feelings of sincere regret that I have to terminate such pleasant associations.

“I assure you that I shall continue to do my utmost to further the interests of the Department, and again express my appreciation for the happy years I spent in the Service.”

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