Beschreibung:

The Richard Magor Collection of Medals Relating to India and Africa, and other Fine Awards The extremely rare New Zealand Cross pair awarded to the noted Bushman and Scout Private Thomas Adamson, Corps of Guides and Wanganui Rangers New Zealand Cross, silver, with gold crown and appliqué decoration, the reverse centre inscribed ‘Private Thomas Adamson, Corps of Guides’, the reverse of the suspension bar with Phillips, Cockspur St. oval cartouche, complete with original gold ribbon buckle; New Zealand 1845-66, undated reverse (T. Adamson, Wanganui Rangs.) correct locally engraved naming, fitted with silver ribbon buckle, good very fine and extremely rare (2) £20000-25000 Footnote New Zealand Cross New Zealand Gazette No. 27 of 11th May 1876: Private Thomas Adamson, Corps of Guides: ‘For good and gallant services as a scout and guide throughout the campaign of 1868-69, continually undertaking hazardous and laborious reconnoitring expeditions almost alone in advance of the force. And for personal gallantry when attacked, with other guides, in advance of the column beyond Ahikereru, on the 7th May 1869, where they unmasked an ambuscade, and Adamson, with others, was severely wounded, and the guide Hemi killed.’ A total of only 23 New Zealand Crosses were awarded, all for services in the Second Maori War of 1860-72. This pair was formerly in the collection of Mr J. J. Barnett and was sold at Glendining in December 1969 for £1,700. In the same sale a Great War V.C. group achieved £1,200. Thomas Adamson was a pakeha Maori [a man of European descent who had adopted the Maori way of life], the most distinguished of three stalwart brothers who joined the Colonial Forces at Wanganui. He was celebrated for his skill and hardihood in bush scouting and warfare after the Maori manner, and was awarded the New Zealand Cross in recognition of several daring expeditions in Hauhau country. He served in Kepa’s Wanganui Maori Contingent and in Whitmore’s Corps of Guides, 1869-70, and was wounded at Manawa-hiwi on 7 May 1869. In the course of the bush chase of Titokowaru and his men, in March 1869, after the capture of Whakamara in Taranaki, Colonel Whitmore’s offer of £10 ‘a head’ for a captured Hauhau chief and £5 for a warrior was taken literally by the scouts. When Whitmore came up to Taiporohenui, he was horrified when the Wanganui warriors and the pakeha-Maoris Tom Adamson and Donald Sutherland came into his tent and emptied eleven Hauhau heads on his floor. According to one eye-witness, ‘We followed the fugitives through the forest. On the top of a hill we came suddenly upon a man and two women and some children resting. When the man saw us he ran and crouched down between the two root-buttresses of a pukatea tree. One of our Maoris shot him and he fell. A European [Tom Adamson] rushed forward, and, lifting up the fallen man’s head, he stretched the neck across one of the root-flanges of the tree, and snatching out a short-handled tomahawk from his belt just behind his right hip he chopped the Hauhau’s head off... The Maori thus killed and beheaded was Matangi-o-Rupe, a chief of the Ngati-Ruanui.’ Tom Adamson was invariably accompanied by his brother Steve, an equally experienced and hardy bushman. Steve had lost his right arm in an accident but was nevertheless very smart with either carbine or revolver. They marched barefoot. Steve’s bush uniform consisted of a blue jumper and a pair of trousers cut short at the knees. Another scout was a Taranaki Maori named Hemi te Waka, usually called ‘Taranaki Jim’ or ‘Big Jim’; he was a tall athletic fellow, wearing the forage cap of the 43rd Regiment perched on his curly hair and proudly carried a presentation revolver, given to him by the officers of the 57th Regiment for his services after the ambush at Te Ahuahu in 1864. Describing the ambuscade at Manawa-hiwi on the 7th of May, 1869, Steve Adamson said: ‘We came to a very narrow part where a big landslip had come down and dammed up part of the cre