Dashing charmer with a dark side: Von Tempsky sign gives way to history

Friday, 20 May 2022

Dustbin of history: An iconic image of Gustavus von Tempsky, stashed in a storeroom.

The moustachioed soldier, resplendent in knee-high boots, sabre at his side, hair flowing, stares back at you. This guy cuts a dash.

Gustavus Ferdinand von Tempsky, handsome and fearless, a charmer. And here’s his photo, black and white, almost lifesize, making a connection across the ages.

Ian McMichael successfully applied to council to change Von Tempsky St to Putikitiki St.

* Hamilton street names potential signposts to the past

* Historian Vincent O'Malley paints Captain Hamilton as a 'very minor figure'

It’s not what it once was, though. The image used to adorn the lobby of a building on the Hamilton street that carries his name. Seemingly, there was no place for the man himself when the lobby and building of Von Tempsky Chambers, as it was known, were redecorated some years ago; either that or he was shifted out of the way and forgotten about altogether. Today he is propped against a wall in a locked storeroom behind the covered car park.

Soon the street will go the same way. It will be renamed Putikitiki and the von Tempsky name will be a marker no more, 154 years after his death in battle during the New Zealand Wars. History moves on.

Huntly kaumātua Taitimu Maipi damaged the Captain Hamilton statue in 2018 using red paint and a claw hammer (file photo).

Prussian-born Gustavus Ferdinand von Tempsky fought in Waikato and elsewhere during the mid-19th century. A Forest Ranger, he was said to be known as Manu Rau (100 birds) by Māori thanks to his fighting prowess. He was also a one-time goldminer, a newspaper correspondent, an Auckland socialite and a watercolourist of some renown.

Historian Vincent O’Malley says he was virtually a folk hero by the time he died in battle at Titokowaru’s stronghold Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu, in 1868, aged 40.

The legend only grew. In the words of the song: “Brave von Tempsky died with a sword in his hand.” It is, in short, not hard to see why the street was named after him in 1906.

Moule’s Redoubt once occupied the corner of Von Tempsky St and Anzac Pde. Before that, it was a pā site.

And then the legend stopped growing. In recent years, von Tempsky has been described as a bloodthirsty mercenary, glory hunter, and terrorist, according to researcher Andrew Moffat.

In the more moderate words of Hamilton man Ian McMichael, whose name change application to the city council carried the day: “Von Tempsky did seem to have an unpleasant side to him; all the things which happened while he was in command seemed to be unpleasant.”

In his application, he took that a step further, saying von Tempsky’s activities were considered by many to be war crimes.

It has been a painstaking process for McMichael, working with mana whenua to ensure the authenticity of the new name, contacting property owners on the street for their support, filling in forms, presenting to council. Paying costs, currently $800-plus and set to rise. And adding to the mix a name change for the neighbouring park, from Dawson to Te Wehenga.

The immediate backdrop to McMichael’s campaign included a 2018 attack on the Captain Hamilton statue which stood in Civic Square and commemorated the man the city was named after. Kaumātua Taitimu Maipi took to the statue with red paint and a hammer, describing Hamilton, who was killed at the Battle of Gate Pā during the New Zealand wars, as a murderer. The statue was later removed by the council after Maipi threatened to tear it down during a Black Lives Matter march.

Ngāti Wairere researcher Wiremu Puke at Dawson Park, soon to be renamed Te Wehenga after a nearby urupā.

The council, alongside Waikato Tainui, commissioned a report from O’Malley into the origins of three street names, Von Tempsky, Bryce and Grey, and the name of the city itself.

For McMichael, who owns property on Von Tempsky St, there was more than enough evidence. “If Māori are saying we find this culturally insensitive, and the city council has gone through a process with Vincent O'Malley report, it just seems to me that it was the right thing to do. Why argue the toss if you can make it all happen?” he asks.

His background as a business owner and pharmacist came into play, with a focus on diligently following process. The criteria for a street name change are agreement of 90% of property owners, cultural sensitivity and demonstrated community desire. So he swung into action. He knew many of the property owners, and could demonstrate cultural and community support through his work with mana whenua and others, including Hamilton East School.

About two years after he set out, the council voted, on April 26, to change the name.

The colours are turning on tree-lined Von Tempsky St.

McMichael pays tribute to Timi Maipi, and Timi’s daughter Joyce, who he says encouraged him to contact Ngāti Wairere historian Wiremu Puke to come up with an appropriate new name.

“I've got no problems with radicals,” McMichael says. “Sometimes you need to have people to highlight it all.”

And you also need people to move things along.

“I think what we've been able to show is just by following the process, and by getting people all on board, that you can get a good outcome.”

His own family history happens to have a link to von Tempsky. He says his great great grandfather, who founded the Manawatu Evening Standard, came to New Zealand to report on the wars, and McMichael has discovered that a great great granduncle, Edward McMinn, was a Forest Ranger who was at the battle where von Tempsky lost his life. But times have moved on from what he describes as a colonist culture. He cites futurist Peter Ellyard in describing an alternative “spaceship” culture, essentially a substituting of colonist elements his forebears might have recognised, such as individualism, autocracy, and confrontation, with interdependence, democracy and negotiation. “We’re on the spaceship together.”

History at our feet: Hamilton East School pupils and staff on Putikitiki field. Front, from left, Magenta Singh, Nessie Rennie, Radian Islam, Xiran Yu, Clayde Stafford. Middle, Perrine Rennie and Tessie Silverton. Back, from left, Lucas Gregory, associate principal Jude O'Neil, principal Pippa Wright, Isayah Hansen, Ali Ali, Zaion Williams, Alice Buseleand Luca Reti-Davis

There’s another point to be made about von Tempsky, says Wiremu Puke: he never lived in Hamilton. Like Grey, like Queen Victoria, whose name is “plastered” throughout the British Empire.

Then, by contrast, you’ve got names that speak directly and uniquely to the area. Like Putikitiki. Like Te Wehenga.

Puke says the word tikitiki refers to the topknots worn by chiefs, and Putikitiki was the ancient name of a block of land which extended to the university hill. A Ngāti Wairere subtribe called Ngāti Parekirangi lived there, he says. The gullies were forested in trees including kahikatea, tawa and hinau, and birds such as kererū, huia, kōtuku (herons) and kākā congregated in the area. “The tail feathers that were gathered from those birds, particularly the huia, were used to adorn the topknot. So it's a place of adornment because of the birds.”

A place name, then, can speak to history and to a topography and landscape.

More history: from the direct line of Parekirangi came a chief called Te Pirihi Tomonui, who lived at Waipahihi pa, overlooking what is now known as Seeley’s Gully, and he was responsible for planting the first peach trees from which Peachgrove Rd got its name. He also fought against the British, including at Rangiriri and Ōrākau, Puke says.

“They [our ancestors] lived here, they cultivated here, they fought in battles as well, and the richness of that history is now something that we want to share with our city and our community,” he says.

Von Tempsky St has a deep meaning for resident John Pike.

“As a hapū, we need to share that history so our schools, our community, can get a better appreciation of Kirikiriroa, and what the land was like, and to do that in a non-threatening way.”

Nearby Te Wehenga, which means the departing, was a burial site which was heedlessly destroyed in the 1870s by a road cutting – now part of Grey St – beside Hamilton East School. It was a matter of pure luck whether Ngāti Wairere found out about such destruction; in this case a sympathetic settler must have mentioned it. When the bones were exhumed, they included a large number from children.

Puke notes the irony of history; a primary school now stands beside an urupā that included the bones of many children.

“The destruction of the urupā was an unfortunate event, but at least now we can talk about it and we can commemorate what it was. But also, it's about going forward with our history, not going backwards with it.”

As for suggestions the street name change is an example of cancel culture, removing unpalatable history from public view, Puke is dismissive. “Talk to any Māori, how they feel what a cancel culture is like,” he says. “It’s ours that has been cancelled out the most.”

Bring on the change, says Hamilton East principal Pippa Wright, whose students have all this living history right on their doorstep.

The school has itself been part of the settlement’s history since it was built in 1872, 150 years ago, on what is now the corner of Dawson and Grey Sts. With celebrations of that notable milestone made difficult during Covid times, Wright welcomes the name change. “To be able to just be part of something really important like name changes is a great thing to do in the same year.”

The school actually got in well ahead of the city leaders. For a long time, its lower field was known as Bottom Flat, but that changed within the last 10 years. “When the teachers and students investigated the history, that became Putikitiki,” Wright says.

The name has quickly gained currency. “There's no living memory amongst the students of it being called anything else, so that's fantastic. They'll quickly adapt to Von Tempsky being changed as well.”

Te Wehenga, in a field across Dawson St from the school, will likewise be quickly taken on board by the children, she says. “To have a much more meaningful name is fantastic. And I think they'll be quick adoptees, actually.”

It’s a case of job done for Ian McMichael.

The school wrote to the council supporting the name changes. “I certainly was strongly advocating for a name change, it just seemed really appropriate to me as long as it was okay with the local iwi.”

Dawson St, however, will remain Dawson St. How does she feel about that? “Well, just little steps.”

Von Tempsky St is attractively tree lined when viewed from Hamilton East school. It is also lined with businesses – the Southern Cross hospital takes a fair chunk, and there are other health organisations, along with a lawyer and an electrical engineering business.

There are also a few residents towards the Anzac Parade end. One of those is John Pike, and he’s deeply unhappy with the change.

No matter what the existing name was, he would have objected. “But Von Tempsky St has a sort of a deeper meaning for me.” He takes down a photo from a living room wall. It shows rows of young men lined up for the camera, dated 1973. “One Ranger Squadron SAS,” he says. “Named after Von Tempsky's Rangers.” There is his younger self, in amongst the others.

He shows another photo, B Company in Malaya, 61-63. “My father was the commanding officer of B company. He got mentioned in dispatches in Italy during the Second World War. Before that my grandfather was a soldier,” says Pike, who has lived on the street for 16 years.

“So to me, it's not about race. It's about, you know, this is my street. I live on this street. I'm happy on this street. It could have been any name. But this one has a deeper meaning,” he says.

“I just can't see any reason for changing history. The history has already been written.” He points out Von Tempsky St is the only change, and mentions Grey, Beale and Dawson. Why not them as well; at least that would be fair. “It seems this was the street of least resistance.” He suggests a further potential inconsistency. Now they’ve got rid of the name, what about the von Tempsky artworks in the Waikato Museum, he wonders. Will they offload them?

As for von Tempsky, the man and soldier, Pike believes O’Malley’s account is one-sided.

That report briefly traverses von Tempsky’s life with emphasis on his involvement in the Waikato War. Where the report gets perhaps most troubling is with the assault on Rangiaowhia, near Te Awamutu, on February 21, 1864. The settlement was mostly populated with women, children and elderly men, sent there for sanctuary in the belief the British would respect its status. In the words of O’Malley, however: “They found themselves under attack, at first by cavalry, followed by foot soldiers, including von Tempsky and his men. Von Tempsky recorded that ‘our blood was up’.”

Some whare were set alight, and O’Malley writes that von Tempsky later described an “old looking man” emerging from one with his hands in the air in a gesture of surrender and cries of “Spare him!” ringing around. “He [von Tempsky] noted that some of the men, ‘blinded by rage, at the loss of comrades perhaps’, ignored these pleas, firing at and killing the man. None of the other occupants of the whare dared come out after this incident. All, including a young boy, were torched to death. In all seven people died in the burning whare.”

Pike believes von Tempsky was a much more rounded person than O’Malley gives credit for. What about the artist and musician, the man who founded a gymnastic club for young men?

And what about the cannibalism of Titokowaru and his fighters, which he referred to in his submission? “I don't think you can write off von Tempsky and then not look at what the other team did as well.”

That said, as a soldier himself, he acknowledges Māori were “fantastic soldiers”.

McMichael, for his part, can reflect on a job well done. “It felt very satisfying for it all to go through.”

He says businesses including the health organisations on the street didn’t want to be associated with controversy over someone whose reputation is tarnished. “He maybe had a good rap in 1906. But he doesn't have a good rap nowadays.”

Then there was the spelling – it needed to be easy to say and spell. That was a sticking point when they first saw the name, but once it was broken down – “tiki” twice, with a “p u” in front – they relaxed, he says.

McMichael is hellbent on a proper celebration when the new street names go up, likely to be in three months or more once street residents and property owners have had time to prepare for the change.

He expects the changes will include an information board that will deal with issues around von Tempsky and explain the area’s original names.

“People speak about cancel culture. I don’t believe there's cancel culture. It’s never going to go away – our colonist past is our colonist past. But the information board should be saying what the original names were, what they were called.”

In his name change application, he pointed out the area is packed with references to early settler history, from Beale Cottage to the Rangiriri gunboat, from a plaque noting the site of Moule’s Redoubt to cut-out reliefs of early settlers. “There is a real need to start recognising the local tangata whenua, who had occupied these areas for up to the last seven hundred years,” he wrote.

The anguish caused by the exploits of Von Tempsky, Bryce and others is expressed by Tukoroirangi Morgan, chair of Waikato Tainui executive committee Te Arataura, who supported the name change application.

“I'm so appreciative for the work, the commitment by Ian McMichael to correct an injustice. It's a part of history that just invokes a whole lot of memories of despair,” he says.

“The land wars does that to people like me because we were raised on stories of Rangiriri, of Ōrākau, of Rangiaowhia where families were locked in the church and then burnt to their death. All of those invoke those sorts of memories.

“So when I think about von Tempsky, I think immediately about the killing fields of Rangiriri when women and children were shot as they swam. They tried to swim, tried to make their escape through Te Kopuera lake at the foot of Rangiriri, they tried to swim across to the other side. They were shot, they were killed. So you can imagine how these feelings of anxiety, of despair, is a natural reaction for someone like me who has been raised on those sorts of narrative, because it was an indelible part of my childhood.”