Barracks Assemblage
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Albert Barracks assemblage AR7644
Between 1848 and 1871 the main base for the British military in New Zealand was the Albert Barracks, a large area occupying part of what is now recognised as Albert Park and the University of Auckland. Part of the 3 metre high, loop-holed stone wall has survived and can still be seen in the university grounds near the library. As more than 10,000 men were mobilised during the Waikato War in the early 1860’s many soldiers would have passed through these barracks and left behind bits and pieces of things that broke or got lost while they lived there. Many of these items had washed into a drain near a well within the barracks area.
An archaeological excavation uncovered the drain with its array of military items and soldiers belongings. There is a 58th regiment cap badge, or ‘shako plate’ from the shako style of tall military hat fashionable with European armies at the time. The 40th, 58th and 65th regiments, commissariat staff, military train, Royal Artillery and Royal Sappers and Miners, and the Royal Engineers, are represented in the buttons found in the excavation.
Also in the assemblage are glass and earthenware bottles, pieces of plates, cups and bowls, clay pipes, knife and spoon handles inscribed with soldiers’ names, non-military buttons stamped out of cattle bone, dice, a crib board and dominoes made of bone, lead musket balls and .577 bullets from the ‘1853 pattern ”Enfield rifled musket.
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