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Pipiwharauroa He Maumahara
Ko Horouta te Waka Ko Te Arai me Waipaoa ngā Awa Ko Papatū me Maungahaumi ngā Maunga Ko Ruapani te Tangata Ko Rongowhakaata me Te Aitanga ā Māhaki ngā Iwi
Thomas Halbert arrived in Gisborne from Newcastle on Tyne in 1832. Amongst other things he was a whaler, trader Adrian Clarke and farmer and is considered one of the founding fathers of modern day Gisborne. "Thomas's six alliances with Māori women of high standing made him famous locally earning him, among Europeans, the nickname of Henry VIII” (Te Ara – Encyclopaedia of NZ). However Tūranga Māori called him Tame Poto due to his short stature. He was the first person to appear in court in Poverty Bay on charges of selling gun powder to Māori which was subsequently returned and the 20 pound fine imposed, largely paid for by the men he had been selling it to. Of his six wives, his last union was with Maora Pani of Rongowhakaata and Rakaipaaka Iwi who lived to a hundred years. They had two children one being Thomas Halbert Junior.
was injured with a bullet in the shoulder, “a blighty one” resulting in him being shipped out from Gallipoli to England and relative safety. He told my mother as a little girl that “when your number was up, your number was up. If that bullet had your name on it, that was it. There was no point in ducking.”
He was sent to an infirmary in Birmingham to recover and there met and courted Emmeline Young. They fell in love and decided to marry. He was required to get permission from the Kaumātua, Sir James Carroll who was in England at the time as part of the war effort which permission he received and, as Sir James and his wife Heni Materoa were closely aligned with the Halbert and Brown families, he took the time to write William a letter about the virtues of marriage and the responsibilities of a good husband. After he recovered William went on to fight in France and he and his two brothers, Thomas and Rangi, all survived the First World War. Thomas stayed on in London never to return home until after his death. He became a well known BBC journalist and correspondent going under the name of Tawera Moana and acted in a number of films including a very small part in the Laurence Olivier film, ‘The 49th Parallel’ as ‘George the Indian.’ The film won an Oscar for “best writing, original story.” During the Second World War Thomas cooked boil-ups for the soldiers on leave in London. Had he had his way, one of them could have been his little brother William, who, at the respectable age of 48, arrived at the recruitment office in Gisborne attempting to re-enlist but was respectfully told, “Go home old boy, you have done your bit”.
The Halbert Family - L/R Rangi, Hone, Matahaere (seated), Huia, Heni (seated), Thomas Snr (seated) and my Great-Grandfather William
Thomas Junior married Ripeka Matehaere Brown of Te Aitanga ā Māhaki iwi and they had two daughters and four sons. They share owned, with Sir James Carroll, Te Wera station beyond Matawai. When they heard the news of the outbreak of the First World War William and Thomas the 3rd jumped on their horses and promptly rode into Gisborne to enlist. They were amongst the first from the district to sign up for the Great War, the family story being that they swapped the hard life working on the station for the allure of fighting in a foreign land, which seemed an appealing reprieve. Rangi joined the following year. Thomas was 30, Rangi was 25 and my great grandfather William was 22. Thomas was a Private eventually being promoted to 2nd Lieutenant and William started as a Bugler and was later promoted to Corporal. They were shipped out to Egypt as part of the Native contingent that evolved into the Pioneer Battalion. Worthy of note is that “Pioneer” is reference to that fact that they were there as “labourers.” Their initial role was to dig the Sap which was a large communications trench, eight feet deep with the width to accommodate two men on stretchers to go either way. Once necessity prevailed they had combat roles at Gallipoli. We believe Thomas and William fought in the battle of Chunuk Bair. Four months after he landed at Gallipoli, William
At the end of the war, Rangi and William returned to New Zealand. Rangi went to Rotorua while William came back to Gisborne with his wife Emmeline and baby daughter Eirene, he had a timber contracting business and was a horticulturist bringing chrysanthemums to Gisborne. He owned the corner of the block where Clarence Street is today much of which he planted in flowers for the market and grew more cut flowers at Makaraka on what is now known as Halbert Road.
Thomas died at the age of 60 and his ashes were brought back to Gisborne by Henare Ngata and Arnold Reedy to be presented to his mother and buried at Manutuke. Eirene married Harry Johansen from Wellington who was the son of a Norwegian Sea Captain, Victor Johansen. Harry trained in the Fleet Air Arm which was the Air Force branch of the Navy, he was unfortunately injured in an accident leaving him with a badly broken ankle and was therefore ruled out for active duty in the Second World War. At that time, although rarely said out loud, there was a certain level of disappointment for any man who did not serve his country and, to a certain extent, Harry lived with the thought that he had not gone to war. During the war he and Eirene lived in Palmerston North where he was a salesman for National Cash Registers, well, that was what Eirene was led to believe but three months prior to
William & Emmeline
Thomas aka Tawera Moana in the movie 'The 49th Parallel' as George The Indian
Harry's death in the year 2000, a remarkable story came to light. It turns out that Harry had indeed played his part during war time. In times of war a man’s word was his life. “For God, for King and for Country” were more than motto or words to a song, men followed this mantra to their death. In 1944 Harry had sworn a 50 year oath that he would not reveal his true role during the war. He had been involved in counter- intelligence for the Navy. It turns out that his civilian boss was also his Naval Commander and he had been involved in surveillance and information gathering for the duration of the war in New Zealand. Prior to the battle of the Coral Sea, he was airlifted to an unspecified Pacific island with instructions to eliminate an enemy radio operator. It was physically and mentally arduous and failure at any level would have resulted in his demise. His recollections of the events were clear and profound, as though it had been the week prior. It was the story of this mission and his life at that time which he revealed to his daughters and his grandchildren. After some 55 years he felt he could finally get this off his chest. I can only imagine how this must have haunted him. How incredibly difficult it would have been, to go through life under the shadow of the belief by others that he had not “done his bit.” More so, to keep up the charade of his day to day civilian life at the time, it must have been even more difficult to keep up this pretence for his wife. She died not knowing any of it. These are my stories passed down to me and are probably similar to a lot of stories of men from this district who fought in the various theatres of war.
Weaving Patterns With Carpet Tiles The C Company Memorial House as a concept and a project was therefore something I was particularly interested in. William Halbert, as part of his gardening life, played a part in the formation of Kelvin Park on which the C Company Memorial House is situated and there were many other connections for me personally with this project. Whilst Gisborne Carpets had installed a bespoke flooring at Rangiwaho Marae, being the replication of a traditional whariki design (woven mat) using carpet tiles, I knew we had the experience and expertise to offer something special for the C Company Memorial House and was therefore delighted when Mayor Meng Foon approached me to work on the floor. Steve Gibbs and Derek Lardelli came up with the conceptual design of the building which is based on what you would expect to see in a Marae. The concept is Kaokao Niho, a tribute