COVID-19 — Up-to-date information about National Library services, exhibition hours and events

Services to Schools

The Wairau Affray 1843

This brief, New Zealand Wars | ngā pakanga o Aotearoa affray was also known as the 'Wairau incident’ and earlier, 'Wairau Massacre'. The fatal fight between Māori and British settlers in Marlborough was the first after the signing of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi. SCIS no. 1965908

Filter by media type

Display as

Gold, Charles Emilius, 1809-1871 :Wairau April 1851.

Gold, Charles Emilius, 1809-1871 :Wairau April 1851.

Shows a view looking west over the Wairau Plain with the Tuamarina Stream winding across it. In the foreground is a fenced grave, that of the Pakeha participants of the 'Wairau Affray' of 17 June 1...

This information panel at Tuamarina explains the background to the confrontation between settlers and Māori which took place there on 17 June 1843. At least 26 people died in the incident.

Site of Wairau affray

Site of Wairau affray

This benign pastoral setting at Tuamarina was the site of a bloody episode in June 1843 when a law enforcement posse from the year-old Nelson settlement clashed with Ngāti Toa leader Te Rauparaha a...

WAIRAU AFFRAY. (From the London "Spectator," Dec. 16.) (Daily Southern Cross, 15 June 1844)

[Gold, Charles Emilius] 1809-1871 :Scene of the Wairau Massacre, New Zealand [April 1851]

[Gold, Charles Emilius] 1809-1871 :Scene of the Wairau Massacre, New Zealand [April 1851]

Shows a Maori warrior in the centre foreground, walking in a partly crouched position through low bushy growth, towards the right. He wears a feather cloak and carries a spear. To the left is a str...

WAIRAU AFFRAY. (Daily Southern Cross, 23 March 1844)

Te Rauparaha’s Account of the Wairau Affray

Te Rauparaha, a Ngati Toa chief, was one of the key figures of the Wairau Affray. Blamed by the Europeans for a massacre, Te Rauparaha provides the Maori story of the incident.

The Wairau incident

Also known as the 'Wairau Affray' and 'Wairau Massacre', this was the first serious clash of arms between Māori and British settlers after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. Four Māori and 22 E...

Liardet, Wilbraham Frederick Evelyn 1799-1878 :[Scene of the Wairau Massacre at Tuamarina, Blenheim. 1866?]

Liardet, Wilbraham Frederick Evelyn 1799-1878 :[Scene of the Wairau Massacre at Tuamarina, Blenheim. 1866?]

Flax and toitoi in the foreground, a group of Pakeha and Maori to the right, the Tuamarina Hotel with verandah and a shed in the middle ground, the Picton-Blenheim road with horse-drawn carriage, t...

WAIRAU—THE GRAVES. (New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, 12 September 1849)

ACCOUNT OF THE MASSACRE OF WAIRAU, AND SUBSEQUFNT EVENTS. (New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator, 02 September 1843)

Samuel Ironside

Samuel Ironside

Samuel Ironside

Nelson Haven, November 1841

Nelson Haven, November 1841

This watercolour by Charles Heaphy shows the three ships of the New Zealand Company's expedition to chose a site for its second settlement, Will Watch, Whitby and Arrow, anchored in Nelson Haven. P...

Charles Heaphy, 'Part of Lambton Harbour'

Charles Heaphy, 'Part of Lambton Harbour'

Charles Heaphy was employed by the New Zealand Company as a draughtsman. He drew this image of Lambton Quay and Wellington Harbour in April 1841, and it was published by the company the following y...

Hall, R :Rangihaeta, Raparaha's fighting general and chief actor in the Wairau Massacre [After Isaac Coates, painted after 1843]

Hall, R :Rangihaeta, Raparaha's fighting general and chief actor in the Wairau Massacre [After Isaac Coates, painted after 1843]

Shows head and shoulders profile of left side of this Maori chief, with hair pulled back and with decorative rolls. He wears feathers including a peacock feather in his hair, and wears large albatr...

William Wakefield

William Wakefield

William Wakefield was responsible for a number of pre-Treaty purchases by the New Zealand Company which were drawn up at Port Nicholson (Wellington Harbour). This sketch shows him at his 1826 trial...

Edward Gibbon Wakefield, 1823

Edward Gibbon Wakefield, 1823

Etching of Edward Gibbon Wakefield

Story: FitzRoy, Robert -

Robert FitzRoy was born at Ampton Hall, Suffolk, England, on 5 July 1805. Through both parents he was connected with the upper echelons of the aristocracy. His father, Lord Charles FitzRoy, was a s...

Wairau affray: Arthur Wakefield

Captain Arthur Wakefield

Captain Arthur Wakefield was the New Zealand Company's Nelson agent. He was also the brother of Colonel William Wakefield, Principal Agent for the New Zealand Company. Shortly before Capt. Wakefie...

Robert Fitzroy

Governor Fitzroy

Arriving in New Zealand on 9 December 1843 the new Governor, Fitzroy wasted no time in determining the truth around the Wairau Affray (or massacre as it quickly became known). In early February 184...

Saxton, John Waring 1806-1866 :The town and part of the harbour of Nelson in 1842, about a year after its first foundation / drawn by John Saxton Esqr; Day & Haghe lithrs. London, Smith Elder & Co., [1845]. [Central section]

A plan for more land

It seems extraordinary but by 1843 settlers in Nelson were running out of flat arable land to take up as farm lots. However, Captain Arthur Wakefield had a solution. There was plenty of, fertile la...

At Fitzroy’s Waikanae inquiry in 1844, the Ngati Toa leader, Te Rauparaha told Fitzroy. “It is not our custom in war to save the chiefs of our enemies. We do not consider our victory complete unles...

Captain Fitzroy leaves New Zealand

“No other man could have demolished a character and the remains of a colony, in so short a time as Captain Fitzroy has done. The prestige of a new Governor vanished in a fortnight, or rather prostr...

Wairau Plain.

New Zealand governor, Robert Fitzroy, had a lot on his plate when he arrived in Aotearoa New Zealand late 1843. Barely 5 months earlier the Wairau Affray had left 22 Pakeha settlers dead. The new c...

Wairau incident memorial

A memorial at the Tuamarina cemetery was erected in 1869 to commemorate the 1843 Wairau incident.

Trouble at Tuamarina – roadside stories

Today a sleepy settlement between Picton and Blenheim, Tuamarina was the site of bloody conflict in June 1843.

In New Zealand history, the Wairau Affray on June 17, 1843, was the first serious clash of arms between the Māori natives and the British settlers after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi.

Te Rauparaha Part 3: Wairau

Although the first settlers to arrive at Wellington in 1840 were favourably received by the Māori, some of the chiefs soon realized with feelings of apprehension that these ever increasing Pakeha w...

The Tua marina tragedy 1843

A detailed Pakeha account of the Wairau affray taken from, ‘History of New Zealand [Vol. I to 1861]’ by Alfred Saunders.

Pivotal piece of colonial history explored in a moving and sensitive way

Like much of our nation's history, the Wairau massacre either draws a blank for many New Zealanders or is retold as a one-sided and unprovoked attack on innocent settlers

Original correspondence

A letter to the editor commenting on the events of the ‘Wairau massacre’ that notes “justice to those who have so few friends to plead their cause, demands, that the Māori statement of the case, sh...

Find more information about the Wairau Affray using EPIC databases like New Zealand Geographic, Australia New Zealand Reference Plus centre and The New Zealand History Collection. School login requ...

Te Rauparaha’s account of the Wairau Affray

An account of the Wairau Affray proceedings at the Waikanae hui between Fitzroy, Ngai Toa and its chiefs Rauparaha and Rangihaeata.

Waitangi Tribunal Wai 207 Wai 785 Report

Part Two: The Wairau, the Cook Strait Crisis of 1843 and the Crown’s Coercion of Ngati Toa, 1843-1847.

Time to look back at the Wairau Affray with 'compassionate mindset.'

Sally Burton's rendition of the notorious Wairau Incident

Nelson artist Sally Burton has re-created the moment when a shot was fired, killing a member of Te Rauparaha's family, which in turn led to the death of another 25 people.

The New Zealand Company

Edward Jerningham Wakefields book about his time (1839 – 1844) with the New Zealand Company in New Zealand.

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

The driving force in Edward Gibbon Wakefield's life was his appetite for power and influence.

The New Zealand Company

The New Zealand Company, a commercial enterprise formed in Britain, dispatched an expedition to establish its second New Zealand settlement, to be named Nelson, in 1841.

The Blenkinsop Indenture

The story of the 1832 deed for the purchase of the Wairau valley from Ngāti Toa by Captain John William Dundas Blenkinsop.

Dirty deeds done dirt cheap! part two

The 1832 deed for the purchase of the Wairau valley from Ngāti Toa by Captain John William Dundas Blenkinsop.

The Wairau Affray of 1843 was the first of many land wars in New Zealand

Exemplar for internal assessment resource: History for Achievement Standard 91435.

Te Rangihaeata, born probably in the 1780s in the Kawhia district, was a leader of Ngati Toa.

Te Rauparaha was the son of Werawera, of Ngati Toa, and his second wife, Parekowhatu (Parekohatu), of Ngati Raukawa. He is said to have been a boy when Captain James Cook was in New Zealand.

Wairau Incident

This record is from a Colonial Secretary's file of depositions given by witnesses of the event. It is the front page of the deposition given by George White Bennett, manager of a whaling station at...

An Alistair Paterson poem

A poem titled Bend of the river about the Wairau incident, 17 June 1843.

The Wairau massacre, the story of a survivor. Part 1

A detailed account by Mr. Eugene Bellairs, one of the survivors of the Wairau massacre, of 1843.

Notes on early life in New Zealand

George Clarke junior was an interpreter and from 1842 Sub‐Protector of Aborigines (his father being the Protector). He went to Wairau immediately following the affray and gives his account in these...

Te Rauparaha

In this 1840s image of Ngāti Toa leader Te Rauparaha, he wears a feather in his hair and a pōhoi (feather-ball earring). Te Rauparaha is famous for the role he played during the musket wars. His br...

New Zealand Company expedition

New Zealand Company expedition

From the late 1830s the British-based New Zealand Company actively recruited settlers to colonise New Zealand. Their first settlement was at Port Nicholson (later Wellington) in January 1840. This ...

Top results for The Wairau Affray 1843 from AnyQuestions

See all 0 related entries on AnyQuestions