Personnel from the Royal Navy ship Spey pay their respects at St Michael’s Anglican Church in Ngāwhā. Photo / supplied
Serving personnel from a Royal Navy ship have for the first time visited a battle site where 42 of their compatriots died almost 180 years ago.
The sailors from the HMS Spey, a British offshore patrol vessel currently in Auckland, travelled to the Far North on Monday to pay their
respects at St Michael’s Anglican Church in Ngāwhā, just east of Kaikohe.
Raima Redden, who coordinated the church’s recent restoration, said it was the first time since the Battle of Ōhaeawai in 1845 that a Royal Navy ship had sent a group to the memorial site.
The dead British troops were originally buried in a mass grave by their campsite, near the old Ōhaeawai School, after the battle. Years later, in 1872, Ngāti Rangi chief Heta Te Haara had them exhumed so they could be given a Christian burial in the grounds of the then newly built church.
Redden said the sailors joined members of the local hapū Ngāti Rangi in the church as the names of the dead were read out in a ceremony she said was a poignant reminder of the area’s history and deeply moving for all involved.
