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                    [0] => The 'Maori War Series' was specially created by the Army Department from a miscellaneous collection of documents and papers. Papers included in the series do not necessarily date from the wars but merely relate to matters arising from that period.
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	1. This series description was compiled as part of a project to capture the finding aids created prior to 1987 into the GAIMS system. The dates of this series are based on the dates of the holdings.

	2. Provenance: All the archives of the Army Department described below were transferred directly at various times between 1928 and 1948 from the Department to the Dominion Archives. When it closed down, the archives of the Militia Branch, Colonial Secretary's Department, were transferred to the Deputy Adjutant-General's Office. They were then included in the archives of the Local Forces Headquarters which were transferred to the Colonial Defence Department in February 1865.

	Similarly the archives of the Waikato Force Headquarters were transferred to the Colonial Defence Department on the abolition of this Headquarters. The papers of the various units of the local forces (such as the Auckland Militia Regiment, etc.) were also deposited with the Army Department at various times. All these archives were included in the transfers from Army Department to the Dominion Archives.

	 
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	The 'Maori War Series' was specially created by the Army Department from a miscellaneous collection of documents and papers. A similiar series was created of South African (Boer) War period documentation (Series 8663).

	Papers included in this 'Maori War Series' do not necessarily date from the wars but merely relate to matters arising from that period. These matters include the establishment of claims for medals, pensions, backpay and land grants. The series was created in two parts: the first numbering to 4718, concerned with personnel and case records; the second numbering from 5000 related to various subjects, such as New Zealand Cross holders, Court Martials, Return of Maori prisoners, disbandment of Taranaki Military settlers, and others. The cover sheets of the files indicate that the sequence dates from 1912.

	

	The New Zealand War Medal 1845-47, 1861-72

	

	The New Zealand War Medal was issued by both the Colonial (i.e. New Zealand) Government, and the Imperial (i.e. British) Government between 1871 and c.1930. The medal was available to veterans of the New Zealand Wars of 1845-47 and 1861-72. Broadly speaking, any Imperial soldier serving in New Zealand was eligible for the medal, whereas Colonial soldiers had to prove they had been under enemy fire.

	

	The New Zealand Cross 1869-1910

	

	The New Zealand Cross was an award for members of locally raised forces during the New Zealand Wars. It was instituted by an Order in Council on 10 March 1869, by the Governor, Sir George Bowen. It was immediately conferred on five recipients. Bowen had decided that, because the locally raised fighting men had been ruled ineligible for the Victoria Cross, some major award was needed to keep morale up during the tiresome campaigns against rebellious Maori. The Governor was rebuked by the Colonial Office for making the decision without the approval of the British Government.

	

	The New Zealand Cross is now regarded as one of the rarest decorations in the world. Twenty-three were awarded and were gazetted between 1869 and 1910. Although some of the awards were not officially gazetted until many years later, all the actions took place between 1863 and 1876.

	The New Zealand War Medal Index 

	(Notes of a talk given by M.H.S. Stevens, National Archives Reference Archivist, at an unknown date)

	National Archives card indexes have been compiled of officers and men of the Imperial (i.e. British) and Colonial (i.e. New Zealand-raised) forces, including ‘’friendly maori’’ (sic), who appear on nominal rolls, or application forms, or other documentation relating to the New Zealand War Medal.

	Total cards in the index is 24,000+ and the date range covered is 1869-1923 (mainly to c.1912)

	Imperial Men:

	The medal rolls of Imperial army units (infantry, artillery, engineers, staff, hospital and commissariat corps) were acquired on Public Record Office, UK microfilm (PRO reference WO 100/18). This lists all the officers and men who served in New Zealand from 1845-47 and 1860-66, though the rolls appear to contain omissions, including the whole 96th, and parts of the 58th and 99th regiments. (See the journal Archifacts 1983/1 for an article with more details.)

	A number of names on the microfilm of WO 100/18, and its printout (Archives New Zealand REPRO 18) could not be read and have not been included in the card index.

	In total, over 11,000 officers and men of the Imperial army are entered into this index: whether eligible for the medal or not. Their index cards are distinguished from Colonial index cards by the use of a stamp “WO 100/18 p….”.

	Access from the index is, in the first instance via REPRO 18, and microfilm WO 100/18. (Note that when the former was paginated at National Archives, some errors were made, and page numbers between the two are slightly unsynchronised in a few places.) The page numbers on the index cards refer to the REPRO 18 page numbers.

	When consulting REPRO 18 generally, remember that for most of the Imperial units there are two lists, one of men still ‘effective’ i.e. still serving with the regiment when the lists were compiled, 1869-1872; and one of ‘non-effectives’ who had left the regiment for any reason whatever, including discharge, death or desertion. The cause of becoming ‘non-effective is usually stated.

	When tracing a man, remember that a key piece of corroborative evidence will be his regimental number (top right corner of the index cards). If a man transferred to another regiment, his number usually changed. Officers did not have numbers. Moving from the index to the WO 12 muster lists (held on microfilm) is possible, using the man’s regimental number as a double-check, and remembering the unavoidable omissions from the index, already referred to.

	Colonial Men:

	Men of the Commissariat Transport Corps, the Imperial army supply service in New Zealand (mainly Auckland and Waikato areas) were locally recruited – only a cadre of officers and NCOs were Imperial solders. All were eligible for the Imperial medal and a list in AJHR 1871 G1, of nearly 2000 names, has been indexed.

	Other sources indexes relate mainly to the Colonial-issue medal to colonially-raised troops, between 1869 and 1923. They include: AD32, medal application files: AD36/2,3: medal application and Medal Commissioners index-registers; the ‘Medal Papers’ AD 31/26,27; and AD1 Correspondence for the years 1877-1922. Also Police Department records, if a man was in the Armed Constabulary.

	The index includes all men who applied for the medal, whether successful or not. Unlike Imperial index entries, the index does not list all Colonial men who saw war service. War service could be between 1845-47 or 1860-72. 

	As far as I am aware, there does not remain, indeed my investigations suggest there cannot remain, very many undetected claimants for Colonial issue medals. The full story of Colonial medal research and documentation may be found in my two articles in Archifacts 20 ns (December 1981) and 1983/1.

	Index cards for colonial men show the initials CTC (for Commissariat Transport Corps) if applicable, otherwise (or additionally) the corps in which a man saw service, a summary of the actions in which he took part, and the dates relating to his service, and his medal application. References are provided on the right-hand side of the card.

	Systematic cross-referencing has been done where a man has been discovered in several records. Names have been cross-referenced where confusion might otherwise arise, especially with maori names.

	The total of colonial cards in the index is believed to be about 12,000+.

	The New Zealand War Medal Index at National Archives

	(Notes of a second talk given by M.H.S. Stevens, National Archives Reference Archivist, at an unknown date)

	...It is important to remember that, although there was only one New Zealand War Medal strictly speaking, both the Colonial and Imperial governments issued it to their own men, under different condition of award; and the Imperial government employed the Colonial government as distribution agents for a group of men who had served under Imperial control. Note that I use “men” to include officers and civilians, as well as other ranks. It is therefore convenient to consider the medal applications and issues as divided into three strands:

	(1) Men of the Imperial Army who served in the Colony whether discharged here or not.

	These men were eligible to receive Imperial-issue medals, the role of the Colonial government being to act as a conduit for (mainly late) applications to the War Office from New Zealand.

	(2) Men of the Colonial forces who were temporarily transferred into, or otherwise employed by the Imperial Army in the commissariat Transport Corps.

	These men were eligible to receive Imperial-issue medals, but the actual processing of applications and issuing of medals was placed in the hands of the Colonial government who checked the men and pre-inscribed medals off against a list supplied from the War Office.

	(3) Men of the Colonial Forces, who might include ex-Imperial men who applied solely on account of their service in Colonial corps.

	These men were eligible to receive the Colonial-issue medal, the Imperial government was not involved.

	National Archives holds, among the achives of the Colonial Defence Office and the Defence Office, a considerable quantity of records concerning the medal, primarily strands (2) and (3) as noted above. These surviving records do not form a homogeneous series; indeed their appearance in several series is a product of the lengthy period in which applications for the medal’s award was considered and changing administrative procedures coupled with apparently varying degrees of need to cite earlier records.

	The indexing project was therefore initialled primarily as a means of identifying and controlling a group of records widely dispersed within the Archives and disparate in form and content. It will, in addition, be useful to researchers as a means of access to a large body of records concerning the period of the Land Wars, and the genealogical implications are plain enough.

	To the records held in National Archives we have added microfilmed records from the Public Record Office, England, relating to the issue of the Imperial medal to Imperial men, WO 100/18. This has virtually doubled the number of cards in the index, to nearly 25,000. (The work has been largely accomplished by PEP [an employment scheme] workers under supervision, Peter Winsley and Edward Kurmann.)

	The index has been complied as a record of every discernible applicant for the medal, or man eligible for it where so listed by the authorities. It is not confined to successful applications, nor is it intended only as a record of medals issued. And it excludes men who will have fulfilled the necessary conditions, for whom no application has been traced. In such cases,

	Medals may turn up for which there is no index entry: the only way of discovering the extent of this is to collect as many medal inscriptions as possible for this reason, so if you have one, please write to National Archives.

	In the case of Colonial medals, an application by the man claiming the medal was a pre-condition for receiving it. In the case of Imperial medals, although similar applications do exist, the bulk of applications, for applications, for men still serving, are no more that lists of eligible men drawn up by the regiments. Such lists were also the basis of medal issues to the Commissariat men; the lists were gazetted in New Zealand, and a man mentioned therein could then apply for the medal sent out from England and held for him at the Colonial Defence Office.

	With regard to the index cards, apart from the man’s (rarely woman’s) name, and which is of course on all cards, cross-references are given whenever aliases, alternative spelling or mis-spellings have been positively identified. maori names have also been extensively cross-referenced, but inevitably there will be some undetected. It is not necessarily possible to tell from the card whether the man received a medal.

	1) For cards compiled from WO 100/18 a distinctive stamp has been utilized, and the information provided is regimental number, or the notation ‘officer’; regiment or corps; and a page reference to National Archives’ printout of the microfilm.

	2,3) For compiled from original sources held in National Archives, the information that may appear is more various, and may include:

	(a) rank and corps of the man;

	(b) the actions in which he took part;

	(c) the date of application and award of the medal, and/or the date range of the  application file;

	(d)  a notation that his medal (never received) was later re-engraved for another claimant; or the reverse notation indicating issue of such a re-engraved medal;

	(e) the Archives’ reference codes to the documents wherein the details may be found. The notation ‘CTC’ indicates the Commissariat medal lists printed in AJHR 1871, G-7, pp 1-9, originals in AD31/26 Medal Papers. The circled notations ‘BC’ and ‘WC’ indicate respectively blue or white covered files within the main group of surviving applications. (The prime significance of these different file series has yet to be determined.)

	The amount of documentation available, and the information it may contain, varied enormously for individual Colonial medal applications. It would range from no more  than a name on a list of unclaimed medals, to a substantial file. There may be several different places to search. Applications, or eligibility for Imperial men, as documented by WO 100/18 is naturally more uniform in character. (We have not explored the full range of documentation which might exist in the Public Record Office and elsewhere.)

	The original documents are the lists of men from the regiments and corps who served in the Colony between 1845-47 and 1861-66, forwarded to the Adjutant-General in 1869 and 1870. They include effectives, and non-effectives, and can be shown to have been used as a check on medal claims until at least 1911. There are variations in the information recorded but the rolls generally show:

	(a) For effectives, i.e., men still serving when the rolls were compiled: rank, regimental number for non-officers, and period of service in New Zealand. Sometimes the engagements in which the man took part are detailed.

	(b) For non-effectives, who had died or otherwise left the regiment, there is sometimes, additional, the date and reason for becoming non-effective. There is nearly always the date of discharge.

	The rolls carry a range of annotations, the significance of which cannot now be fully determined by the Public Record Office. However, a number of them – such as the letter R – almost certainly signify issue and receipt of the medal.

	The information provided by WO 100/18 can be used as a means of access to the major class of microfilmed records of Imperial troops in New Zealand held at National Archives: WO 12: Quarterly pay lists and muster books, Except for those men who submitted military land claims between 1882 and 1910, it has hitherto been impossible to locate an Imperial soldier without knowing his regiment, except by conducting a very time-consuming search. Now, the medal index will match a name with a regiment, and a regimental number that can be used to confirm an identity.

	It must be noted, however, that the medal index is not an index to WO 12. Not all the men in the latter source will be found in the index. It has not been possible to establish the pattern of omissions throughout WO 100/18 but some of them can be identified: notably the rolls of the 96th regiment (long missing) and the Staff. Neither Cameron nor Chute are in the index. And I suspect, but have not yet been able to confirm, that the rolls for the 58th regiment are incomplete.

	National Archives has not identified records of Royal Navy or Marine medals; it is hoped to obtain microfilm relating to these from the Public Record Office in due course. 

	        

	 

	 

	 

	 

	 

	 
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