Kete New Plymouth :War Memorials Taranaki Wars

Topic: Lieuts Brooke, Jackson and 40th Regiment Memorial

Topic type:

• Topic
• » Place

Military Cemetery, McLean Street, Waitara.

Lieut. Brooke and 40^th Regiment, Waitara 1860

Horizontal sandstone block cenotaph (empty grave). Lettering almost completely eroded but text copied to a later (1915?) black granite tablet let into the sandstone top.

Brooke's body and many of the other 40^th Regiment soldiers were not recovered from the Puketakauere battlefield. A number were buried by Maori and a few others retrieved later in 1860 after the military occupied the site and erected a blockhouse..

Note: Contemporary newspapers and Hart's Army List 1861  give the name as "Brooke" not "Brooks" as on the 1915 memorial.

IN MEMORY OF

CHARLES FRANCIS BROOKE

FOR SOME TIME AIDE-DE-CAMP TO

MAJOR GENERAL SIR THOMAS PRATT K.C.B.

COMMANDING THE FORCES.

ALSO OF THE NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICERS

AND MEN OF THE 40^TH REGT WHO FELL BRAVELY

PERFORMING THEIR DUTY DURING THE WAR OF

1860-61 SOME OF WHOM LIE INTERRED IN THIS

SPOT AND OTHERS IN THE WAITARA DISTRICT,

ALSO OF LIEUT DENIS JACKSON 40^TH REGT

WHO FELL IN ACTION IN FRONT OF HUIRANGI

25^TH  JAN. 1861

(Jackson is buried at St Mary's Cathedral, New Plymouth.)

 [For other memorials in the cemetery see Topics below]

In a letter to the Taranaki Herald 1882 (See Documents below) the writer notes the unkempt appearance of the cemetery and records two additional burials.

"ALFRED BROME, Naval Brigade, 23 December 1861 , Who fell mortally wounded whilst attacking the enemy's rifle pits at Matarikoriko, Aged 22 years"

and

"In Memory of MATT CORBETT, No 10 Company, 65th Regiment, Who fell mortally wounded at the attack on the Waitara Pah, [Te Kohia]Waitara 1860. Aged 32 years."