Button from the 50th Queen’s Own Regiment of Foot.
As we have a military guru on this forum, perhaps Lammerlaw will be kind enough to step in to tell us a little more on this regiment in NZ.
I bought a small tub of Treborius Artefact preservation & enhancement balm off Cleggy in Australia. Apparently touted as being better than the museum wax as this is acid free.
I am going to confess to having not known of them and all the research I have done in my histories of the Maori Wars has yet to turn up anything but I am as curious as you so a chance to find out so heres the cut and paste for us all to learn about the 50th.
50th: The Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment (“The Dirty Half Hundred”) had a detachment of two companies in New Zealand in 1834 and was in New Zealand between 1863–67 as the 50th (West Kent) Regiment under the command of Lt.-Cols. N. Wodehouse, H. E. Weare, C.B., R. Waddy, C.B. “New Zealand” is worn on the battle honours of the regiment. The Canterbury Regiment is allied.
This one is brilliant and well worth reading and their record in NZ is more extensive than I though considering in one of my books there is a long list of Regiments involved in the Maori Wars and yet the 50th isnt mentioned. I somehow think that book is not as definitive as I thought it was. This tells all you want to know!
http://ellott-postalhistorian.com/articles/50th-Regiment-In-NZ.pdf
Wow…Lammerlaw! Ive had a very interesting read. I was under the impression only a handful of the 50th came out here. I dont know why, but it is hard finding any information regarding id and history of forces in NZ during the Land Wars. Ive managed to ID some buttons off UK websites who seem to be more forthcoming on info. Maybe they appreciate history more than we do. There are so many arguments as to WHO was in NZ first, and so much has been covered up…AND they still want it covered up…by dirt!!!
Ilove it when you guys find something as it gives me a chance to learn as well and I did think I had a very very extensive knowledge of the Maori Wars and even have two guns from it but I never knew of the fiftieth. I h ave aminimum of 14 books on the Maori Wars (just counted one book shelf) and cant find mention of the 50th.
Well here is another…although info relatively easy to find on these.
The absolute crying shame is the degree of rot these buttons have suffered in our highly mineralised soil, along with the animal urine, lime, fertilisers etc. I myself think it is a crime to leave such history to rot away into oblivion. We should honour history…not destroy it or let it be destroyed. Anyway, I have done my best in amateur conservation efforts to halt this insidious degradation from going further.
“Lest we forget” is a phrase commonly used in war remembrance services and commemorative occasions in English speaking countries, in particular Remembrance Day and ANZAC Day.[1] Before the term was used in reference to soldiers and war, it was first used in an 1897 Christian poem written by Rudyard Kipling called “Recessional”. The phrase occurs eight times; and is repeated at the end of the first four stanzas in order to add particular emphasis regarding the dangers of failing to remember.
'God of our fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle line,
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!’
Lammerlaw…I think you should stand for a seat in the political circus…I can just see you changing laws and pulling them into line…well def on the history/relics subject. Instead of the Govt giving our money overseas, detectorists could benefit…as would NZ history.
My views are merely to see NZ revert to what it was when I was a kid but I wont go into that - it would take hours.
