Addresses:
The Point, 13 Broadway Street, Ngāruawāhia 3720, New Zealand
Cnr Roose & Riverbank Roads, Mercer 2474, New Zealand
A couple of weeks ago someone called Grant Newman posted the following information on Facebook:
Something out of the ordinary. These unusual structures are the turrets of the 19th Century paddle steamer PS Pioneer. Built in Sydney, Australia by the Australasian Steamship Company Ltd in 1863, the Pioneer was the first iron clad turret-equipped warship built in the Southern hemisphere. Said to have been designed in Auckland, New Zealand, the Pioneer was built as a river craft and had a structure entirely of iron, but its most novel feature was two Coles-type gun turrets on rotating barbettes. These were designed to house a 24-pound artillery gun firing through ports located around the circumference of the iron turrets. Slits for rifle fire were also interspersed around the turrets, which provided protection for the otherwise exposed soldiers. In New Zealand, the Pioneer was operated by government forces against native fortifications on the Waikato River between 1863 and 1864. Whilst a novel vessel in the government's skirmishes against their opposition, the technological advance the ship provided offered no real significant strategic advantage as it was primarily used as a bombardment ship in support of troop assaults against fortified positions inland. Two years following the Waikato War, PS Pioneer ran aground in Manukau Harbour, Auckland. In the 1920s its two turrets were removed and installed as Great War memorials in the Waikato towns of Mercer and Ngaruawahia, both of which were subject to the attentions of the Pioneer during the war. These are among the earliest surviving naval gun turret cupolas of the Cowper Coles type in the world. The top image shows the Pioneer with sailing rig, the turrets prominently placed, while the second shows the vessel in support of the government attack on the fortifications at Meremere in October 1863.
Accompanied by these pictures.
This came as a surprise to me because (1) I grew up in NZ and spent more than a third of my life in the RNZN, but had never heard of Pioneer, and (2) it appeared that I had been driving straight past these two turrets every time I visited my parents for more than 40 years without even knowing they existed!
Anyway, I was back in NZ this weekend so I decided to hunt them down.
The Ngaruawahia turret is in a park known as "The Point" at the confluence of the Waikato and Waipa rivers - about 2 minutes off the old SH1. The turret (I would probably have called it a Cupola rather than a Turret) is in reasonably good condition and being well looked after. The doors have all been removed and replaced with bars - presumably to keep kids/vandals/vagrants out. There was an information board there, but it had either weathered very badly or had been vandalised, and was unreadable.
The Mercer turret is next to the Mercer Museum, literally 30 seconds off the current SH1, and about 30 mins drive from the Ngaruawahia turret. It is also well looked after, and has been converted into a War Memorial for WW1 victims. This one still has all of the Doors intact, and they have been welded/locked shut. You can't see inside as it is too dark, however if you poke a camera up to the slits, it will adjust for the light so you can still photograph the insides.
It seems someone stuffed up the original plaque when this was converted to a war memorial, and rather oddly they decided that it was easier to add another plaque correcting the error rather than just fixing the original! One would have thought if they were correcting an error, they might have been more careful not to make a new one! This ship wasn't HMS Pioneer - there was an HMS Pioneer on the Australian Station at that time, but that was a different ship (a wooden screw gunvessel built in Pembroke Dock in 1856, and broken up in 1865). Interesting also the change in language - from "Maori War" to "Land Wars"!
Anyway, that was an interesting interlude to what would otherwise have been just another routine weekend in NZ.
Links:
Pioneer turret NZ Wars memorial, Ngāruawāhia | NZ History
Mercer First World War memorial | NZ History
Heritage New Zealand - 'Pioneer' Gun Turret and War Memorial