Charles Heaphy

He held his ground under gunfire to rescue a wounded soldier

On the afternoon of 11 February 1864, along the banks of the Mangapiko Stream near Paterangi, a bathing party from the 40th Regiment of Foot came under fire from concealed Māori forces. Captain Charles Heaphy, an officer in the Auckland Volunteer Rifles attached to the staff of Lieutenant Colonel Sir Henry Havelock, led twelve men directly toward the engagement. When a British soldier fell wounded into a brush-filled hollow occupied by enemy warriors, Heaphy entered the depression to assist him. Volleys fired from a range of a few feet struck his cap and clothing in five places, causing wounds to his arm, hip, and ribs. Despite his injuries, he held the position alongside a surviving soldier, providing covering fire to protect the casualties until imperial reinforcements arrived late in the day.

The path that brought Heaphy to the Waikato campaign was shaped by drafting tools rather than weapons. Born in London probably in 1820 to the watercolorist Thomas Heaphy, he received instruction at the Royal Academy before taking employment as a draughtsman with the New Zealand Company in May 1839. Arriving at Ship Cove aboard the Tory that August, his primary duty was producing visual surveys and topographical views to facilitate colonial settlement. These duties expanded into wilderness expeditions across the South Island, including an inland journey with William Fox, Thomas Brunner and Kehu, followed by a West Coast expedition with Brunner and guides Kehu and Tau. By the late 1850s, he had settled in Auckland as a government surveyor, joining the local volunteer militia as conflict over land ownership escalated.

When imperial and colonial forces initiated the invasion of the Waikato in 1863, Heaphy’s technical background was applied directly to military operations. He surveyed the road constructed for troop movements and served as pilot aboard the paddle-steamer gunboat Pioneer, charting the Waikato River and reconnoitering Māori positions at Meremere. Present during the assault at Rangiriri, he produced pen-and-ink sketches documenting the engagement, including representations of British casualties. His field expertise led to his assignment to Havelock’s staff before the operations around Paterangi.

Following the action at Mangapiko River, Major General Thomas Galloway and Governor Sir George Grey recommended Heaphy for the Victoria Cross. The War Office initially rejected the recommendation because royal regulations restricted the decoration to regular imperial military personnel, excluding local colonial militiamen. Persistent representations by Grey, Havelock, and General Duncan Cameron forced a revision of imperial policy. On 1 January 1867, Queen Victoria issued a Royal Warrant extending eligibility to colonial local forces serving under British command, enabling Heaphy’s award to be gazetted as the first conferred upon a colonial volunteer soldier.

After his military service ended, Heaphy entered colonial politics, representing Parnell in the House of Representatives from 1867 to 1869. He held administrative roles as Commissioner of Native Reserves and was appointed a judge of the Native Land Court in 1878. His health collapsed in May 1881, and he sailed for Queensland in June, where he died in Brisbane on 3 August 1881 and was buried in Toowong Cemetery.

The official citation for his Victoria Cross was published in The London Gazette on 8 February 1867:

"For his gallant conduct at the skirmish on the banks of the Mangapiko River, in New Zealand, on the 11th of February, 1864, in assisting a wounded soldier of the 40th Regiment, who had fallen into a hollow among the thickest of the concealed Maories. Whilst doing so, he became the target for a volley at a few feet distant. Five balls pierced his clothes and cap, and he was wounded in three places. Although hurt, he continued to aid the wounded until the end of the day. Major Heaphy was at the time in charge of a party of soldiers of the 40th and 50th Regiments, under the orders of Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Henry Marshman Havelock, Bart., C.B., V.C., the Senior Officer on the spot, who had moved rapidly down to the place where the troops were hotly engaged and pressed."