PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Auckland Purchased by the present owner from Important, Early & Rare International Art Centre, 28 July, 2009

The Albert Barracks housed nine hundred Imperial Troops during the New Zealand Wars. They were demolished in 1871 and the land handed to the city to be used as a public reserve, with the Auckland City Council developing it into Albert Park in 1882. The only remnant of the Barracks is a portion of wall that survives today in the grounds of the University of Auckland.

Robert Henry Wynyard was born 1802, at Windsor Castle, England. He followed family tradition in choosing a military career. After serving in England for many years, it was in Malta, in August 1826, that he married Anne Catherine McDonell. They later had four sons. From 1828 to 1841 Robert Wynyard served in Ireland, and was promoted to Major in 1841. He was recalled to England in 1842 and promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. During 1844, Wynyard, with his two hundred strong troops, was ordered to New Zealand to augment the forces deployed in the Bay of Islands against Hone Heke and Kawiti. Wynyard was one of the party who stormed Ruapekapeka on 11th January 1846. In recognition of his services in the Northern War he was created CB then in December 1846 he returned to New South Wales, Australia.

Robert Wynyard returned to New Zealand in 1847. Over the next eleven years they entertained lavishly in their home at Official Bay, Auckland. It is during this period that Paihia looking across to Kororareka, Paihia Bay of Islands & Auckland Barracks were produced.

In 1851 he was appointed, on the death of Major General G. D. Pitt, to command the forces in New Zealand, amounting to some one thousand imperial troops and the five hundred Fencibles in the Auckland pensioner settlements. He held this command until 1858, being promoted to Colonel in 1854. From April 1851 to March 1853 Wynyard held the position of Lieutenant Governor of New Ulster, a position he was appointed by Governor Sir George Grey. Aided by Bishop George Selwyn and Chief Justice William Martin, he also successfully obtained consent from Ngati Tama-te-ra and Ngati Raupunga to gold mining in the Coromandel area, and later the Thames, Karangahake, Waihi and Te Aroha fields.

When Sir George Grey departed for England at the end of 1853, Wynyard, as the senior military officer in the colony, became acting governor, assuming office on 3rd January 1854. In spite of his earlier lack of confidence in Wynyard's political expertise, Governor Grey had left to his stand-in the daunting task of completing the implementation of the New Zealand Constitution Act 1852. When he addressed the first General Assembly in the hastily erected parliament building in Auckland on 27th May 1854, Wynyard emphasised that his powers were circumscribed and his responsibility was to the Crown.

In September 1855 newly appointed governor Thomas Gore Browne arrived to take over from Wynyard. After 20 stormy months as acting governor, Wynyard resumed his military duties. In 1858 the 58th Regiment was recalled to England, where Wynyard was promoted to Major General. The following year he was sent to South Africa as officer commanding and lieutenant governor of Cape Colony. In 1863 he returned with Anne Wynyard to England in ill health. On his retirement he was promoted to Lieutenant General and appointed Colonel of the 98th Regiment of Foot. He died in London on 6th January 1864. Anne Wynyard returned to Auckland, where she remained a prominent social figure until her death in 1881.

Robert Wynyard was a tall, handsome man with charismatic charm and style. A military writer described him as undoubtedly the most popular man who ever came to New Zealand. The Honourable Henry Sewell was less complimentary: He was a weak but well-meaning man who might have done better had he fallen into better hands. Thrust into the maelstrom of politics, Wynyard was forced to wield executive power at a juncture unique in New Zealand history. However inept and ill advised, he was nevertheless the prime mover in the constitutional changes in the period of transition from colonial to parliamentary government.

The troops in Auckland Barracks represent the 58th, Wynyard's own regiment who accompanied him to New Zealand. He commanded them whilst on garrison duty in Auckland and Heke's war in the Bay of Islands. Another version titled Parade of the 58th Regiment.