33 Facts About Theodore Haultain

Theodore Minet Haultain was a 19th-century New Zealand politician and Minister of Colonial Defence.

Theodore Haultain came to New Zealand as a soldier and farmed in south Auckland.

Theodore Minet Haultain was born according to family information on 27 May 1817 at Stony Stratford, Buckinghamshire, England, the son of Second Captain Francis Haultain, Royal Artillery, and his wife, Eliza Ann Dean.

Theodore Haultain went to Sandhurst from 1831 to 1834 and after being commissioned on 27 June spent ten years with the 39th Regiment of Foot in India.

Theodore Haultain took part in the Gwalior campaign and saw action at the battle of Maharajpur on 29 December 1843.

On 7 November 1844, Haultain married Jane Alison Bell, daughter of William Bell, at Agra, India.

Theodore Haultain returned to England in June 1847 and was appointed staff officer of pensioners on 14 March 1849, and captain on 30 March.

On 16 May 1849, as a family man without notable career prospects, Theodore Haultain emigrated to Auckland, New Zealand, on the Oriental Queen, in charge of the 8th Detachment of the Royal New Zealand Fencible Corps, military pensioners who were settled in villages to protect the southern approaches to Auckland.

Theodore Haultain commanded first at Onehunga, and then at Panmure.

Theodore Haultain took a number of public positions, becoming a member of Auckland's first borough council on 18 November 1851 and resident magistrate at Onehunga in 1855 and at Howick in 1856.

Theodore Haultain resigned from the army in March 1857 and devoted himself to farming at Mangere.

Theodore Haultain contested a by-election in the electorate of the Southern Division on 8 May 1858 against David Graham and was elected.

Theodore Haultain represented the electorate until the end of the term in 1860, when he was defeated for the Raglan electorate by Charles John Taylor.

Theodore Haultain's life had settled into the easy domesticity of the retired soldier but the outbreak of fighting in Taranaki in 1860 changed all that.

Theodore Haultain was asked by the Stafford government to help organise a defence force and he became on 26 April 1860 lieutenant colonel of the 1st Battalion, Auckland Militia.

Four regiments of Waikato Militia were raised on this basis and Theodore Haultain recruited and took command of the 2nd Regiment.

In March 1864, while garrisoning the redoubt at Kihikihi, Theodore Haultain was informed that Maori entrenching parties were building fortifications at Orakau.

Theodore Haultain turned his administrative talents to settling the militia on the lands promised to them.

Theodore Haultain was looking for defensive strengths, but in setting the surveyors to work at Kirikiriroa he became the founder of the town that two months later became Hamilton.

Theodore Haultain declined to take up the 400 acres to which he was entitled, perhaps to avoid any suspicion of partiality in making the allotments.

In February 1865, the new Weld government instructed Theodore Haultain to remove all the remaining soldiers from the pay and ration lists.

In October 1864, Theodore Haultain was returned to the House of Representatives for Franklin.

Theodore Haultain resigned his commission in mid-1865 to free himself for politics, and in particular to express his opposition to Weld's policy of seeking the withdrawal of the imperial regiments.

On 7 September 1868, Titokowaru roundly defeated the colonial forces at Te Ngutu-o-te-manu and Theodore Haultain went immediately to the front to shore up the demoralised forces.

Theodore Haultain sent all the liquor back to Wanganui, disbanded a mutinous division of the Armed Constabulary and ordered the defensive line to be pulled back to Patea.

Theodore Haultain ordered the remaining forces on the west coast withdrawn to a defensive line on the outskirts of Wanganui, and Whitmore and the Armed Constabulary were shipped to Napier.

Theodore Haultain did not stand again in the general election in early 1871.

Theodore Haultain was a member of the Auckland University College council from 1882 and of the board of governors of Auckland Grammar School from 1878 until 1898.

Theodore Haultain was on the Board of St John's Theological College and was made a Canon of Holy Trinity Cathedral in Auckland where he still has a Canon's seat named after him to this day.

Theodore Haultain died in Parnell, Auckland, on 18 October 1902 and was buried at St John's College.

Theodore Haultain never distinguished himself as a field commander and had no pretensions as a strategist.

Theodore Haultain avoided interference with his commanders, backed up Whitmore and concentrated on providing the practical support that would enable him to succeed.

Theodore Haultain collected plant samples in India, Japan, the Solomon Islands and New Zealand, which the website Bionomia shows are deposited in the Auckland War Memorial Museum collection.