1919: Wiremu Pere Monument Unwanted

July 9, 2025

By AHNZ

William Halbert (aka Wi Pere) was the son of an Anglo father with many Maori wives including Wi’s mother. Halbert Snr. was compared to Henry VIII in that sense for the chain of women he worked through.¹ Curiously enough, the Wi Pere Trust doesn’t mention the father at all but the maternal history of Riria Mauaranui is biased extensively.

Their son, Wi, was a Te Kooti apologist and joined his terrorist organisation after the Poverty Bay Massacre. But he was not a loyal friend, sometimes opposing the warlord when it suited. Next, he collaborated with The State to sell off East Coast Maori land to Settlers but it was plagued with corruption and eventually found out and put a stop to. Meanwhile, Pere was making himself rich and became a Maori Electorate MP himself. However, under Wi’s administration the Maori land he hoarded for his own good became bankrupt and handed over to The State for statutory management.

James Carroll, another part-Maori, defeated William at the polls but carried on helping sell the Waikato and Ureweras as he had on the East Coast. As a Maori MP he foreshadowed the Maori Party by being light on debating skills but offering instead hostility and violence to other Members, eg. threatening “I will break your nose” if he didn’t get his own way. Also like the modern Maori Party he wanted to set up an apartheid state with one parliament for Maoris and another for everyone else. Ironically, Pere was one of the South Africa war mongers even though he acknowledged their justification and the hypocrisy of attacking the Boers for having the same policy as New Zealand against the Chinese. Yet, his Empire-for-right-or-wrong policy mattered more to the point where he offered to lead 500 Maori fighters to shoot the Boer. So much for a moral conscience! Ref. 1899: Boer War, AHNZ

Later, Wi was also instrumental in recruiting young Maori men for the Great Wrong War;  Maori Pioneer Battalion, WW1.

“When Te Kooti and his forces occupied Poverty Bay in July 1868, killing officials, settlers and Māori whom they considered pro-government, Wī Pere…deemed it expedient to join Te Kooti’s people at Pātūtahi and accompany them in their withdrawal…Wī Pere was one of four Waikohu district leaders who invited Te Kooti, now amnestied, to return to his home district.” – Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, Te Ara

Rees and Pere…launched the East Coast Native Land and Settlement Company…floundered and Pere was reckless in persuading more hapū to vest their land to support it…The company was wound up, and the land placed in the trusteeship of Pere and a reluctant James Carroll. All this stood in contrast to the burgeoning success of Pere’s own family estates. He had rescued most of his family’s land from the wreckage of the settlement company and put it under his own name…He kept control away from his younger kin, he claimed, lest they became greedy..The Wī Pere Trust Estate was to become one of the most successful family estates in New Zealand.” – ibid

“…he had joined the Kotahitanga movement’s drive for a Māori parliament,.. he lacked command of legal and administrative detail and political subtlety….Pere was defeated by the young Apirana Ngata in 1905….” – ibid

“Controversy followed his death, too, when the granting of a site in Gisborne for a memorial to him was challenged…James Carroll saw the petition refused and the monument erected.” – ibid

“We’ve just completed a restoration project on the historic Wi Pere Memorial,…a visionary Māori leader, politician, and landowner who played a key role in recruiting East Coast Māori for military service in 1914.” – Ministry for Culture and Heritage, Facebook (July 2025)

When the old man died in 1915 the Government overruled the borough council in Gisborne to erect this fine monument the locals did not want. As a State monument it is preserved, protected, and kept tidy. In 2025 the Ministry for Culture and Heritage gave Wi’s monument another spruce up, polishing it up brightly again. Meanwhile, less infamous historical figures have their names and monuments removed from our history books.

Good going once again, The State!

—
1. Thomas Halbert, Dictionary of New Zealand Biography

Image ref. Members of the House of Representatives c.1901, Alexander Turnbull Library. AHNZ enhanced (20205)

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