Defending Auckland: Local Perceptions of the Coastal Defences of the Waitematā, 1870-1910

Abstract

Historians traditionally frame the history of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland’s nineteenthcentury coastal defences as a national story, related primarily to the defence needs of the New Zealand state. This thesis argues that there was a strong local dimension to Auckland’s defence story, reflected in substantial public discussion within the city and local media. Using a local lens, it analyses this discourse and examines public perceptions of the establishment and operation of coastal defences on the Waitematā between 1870 and 1910. In doing so it challenges an orthodoxy that the story of the city’s defences is of interest only to military historians concerned with the defence of the colony and its place in the British Empire. Instead, the thesis reframes Waitematā’s defence history prioritising narratives relevant to Auckland and its people. Split into four chapters this thesis investigates the fortified gun batteries built at five sites around the Waitematā between 1885 and 1899 and the naval (later artillery) volunteers tasked with coastal defence from 1860. Firstly, it examines Aucklanders’ perceptions of vulnerability following the New Zealand Wars and analyses the increasing calls for improved protection in the 1870s and 1880s. Secondly, it sets the fortifications within the geographical and historical landscape of the Waitematā and considers the impact the construction and operation of the gun batteries had on the communities in which they were built. Thirdly, in analysing the naval and artillery volunteers in Auckland it traces the relevant corps from their harbour patrol origins during the New Zealand Wars to their eventual metamorphosis as garrison artillery providing the essential manpower for the guns at the fortifications. It examines the degree to which the force was shaped by the military authorities and how much was a result of circumstances pertinent to the city and its residents. Lastly, this thesis considers the relationship between the volunteers and the Auckland community. It examines how the moral and material support provided by the public to the volunteers was essential to their efficiency and looks at how public perceptions of volunteer behaviour threatened that support.