Surveyors in the 1880s letter book (Ms 18)

The first District Surveyor was Frederick Utting.

The second was Horatio Warner who was a Royal Engineer and had been a Senior Sergeant in the Auckland Rifles Volunteers during the Taranaki Wars.

The third was Henry L. Skeet, who in 1866, when the outward letter book of the Tauranga Survey Office was created (Ms 18), had just formed the Auckland Volunteer Engineers Corp and been voted in as Captain and Commanding Officer.

Names within Skeet’s Paramilitary group who also worked as surveyors include Edward Tregear, Henry Graham, Thomas E. Jordan, Henry Rowe, G.T. Wilkinson and William Gundry. 

William Gundry, had both Pākehā and Māori tupuna. He was at Rangiriri and Ōrākau, and later made Captain, and  becoming part of the Armed Constabulary, a precursor to the New Zealand Police Service.

Below are some sample pages from the outward letter book of the Tauranga Survey Office, 1866-1868, Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Ms 18