18th: The 18th (Royal Irish) Regiment served here between 1863–70 under the command of Lt.-Cols. A. A. Chapman and G. A. Elliott. “New Zealand” was worn as a battle honour. The regiment was disbanded in 1922 as a result of the formation of the Irish Free State.

43rd: The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (“The Light Bobs”) was in New Zealand between 1863–66 and was known as the 43rd (Monmouthshire Light Infantry) Regiment. It was commanded by Lt.-Col. H. J. P. Booth (killed, 30 April 1864) and Lt.-Col. F. H. Synge. “New Zealand” is worn on the battle honours of the regiment. The Hauraki Regiment is allied. Now redesignated 1st Green Jackets, 43rd and 52nd.

50th: The Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment (“The Dirty Half Hundred”) had a detachment of two companies in New Zealand in 1834 and was in New Zealand between 1863–67 as the 50th (West Kent) Regiment under the command of Lt.-Cols. N. Wodehouse, H. E. Weare, C.B., R. Waddy, C.B. “New Zealand” is worn on the battle honours of the regiment. The Canterbury Regiment is allied.

57th: The Middlesex Regiment (Duke of Cambridge's Own)—“Die Hards”—had its first recorded association with New Zealand in 1830, when a detachment on convict guard was overpowered, and brought to New Zealand where the ship was recaptured by whalers. The detachment returned to Sydney with the convicts. 1st Battalion, known as the 57th (West Middlesex) Regiment, in New Zealand in 1860–66 under the command of Lt.-Col. H. J. Warre, C.B., and Major R. A. Logan. “New Zealand” worn on battle honours. The Wellington West Coast and Taranaki Regiment is allied.

65th: The York and Lancaster Regiment (“Royal Tigers”) or better known in New Zealand as the “Hickety Pips” which was the nearest the Maoris could get to 65th, was in New Zealand for just over 18 years, between 1846–65, as the 65th (2nd Yorkshire North Riding) Regiment. The regiment arrived in three detachments. The first under the command of Major Wyatt, with about 550 all ranks, landed on 19 November 1846 at Russell; the second, under the command of Capt. O'Connell, on 1 August 1846, at Wellington; the third, under the command of Lt.-Col. Gold, mainly wives and children, on 14 January 1847, at Auckland. Commanded by Lt.-Col. C. E. Gold, and later by Col. A. F. W. Wyatt, C.B. “New Zealand” worn on battle honours. The Wellington Regiment (City of Wellington's Own) is allied.

68th: The Durham Light Infantry was in New Zealand in 1864–66. Known as “The Faithful Durhams”. The 1st Battalion was in New Zealand as the 68th (Durham Light Infantry) Regiment, under the command of Lt.-Col. H. H. Greer. “New Zealand” worn on battle honours. The Canterbury Regiment and the Nelson, Marlborough, and West Coast Regiment are allied.

(In 1964 all remaining New Zealand infantry regiments were amalgamated to form the Royal New Zealand Infantry regiment. In due course the alliances of the old Infantry regiments with British Army units will be realigned under the designations of the new units of the Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment.)

by Richard Ainslie Barber, N.Z.L.A.CERT., Librarian, Army Department, Wellington.

• The Records and Badges of Every Regiment and Corps of the British Army, Chichester, H. M., and Burges-Short, G. (1899)
• The New Zealand Wars and the Pioneering Period, Cowan, J. (1955)
• The New Zealand Army – A Bibliography, Dornbusch, C. E. (1961)
• A History of the British Army, Vols. 12 and 13, Fortescue, J. W. (1910–30). Regiments at a Glance, Wilson, F. (1957).

12th: The Suffolk Regiment (“The Old Dozen”) was in New Zealand from 1860 to 1866 as the 12th (Suffolk) Regiment, under the command of Lt.-Col. H. M. Hamilton, C.B. “New Zealand” is worn on the regiment's battle honours. The Auckland Regiment (Countess of Ranfurly's Own) is allied. Now amalgamated with The Royal Norfolk Regiment as the 1st East Anglian Regiment (Royal Norfolk and Suffolk).

14th: The West Yorkshire Regiment (The Prince of Wales's Own)—“Lord Wellington's Bodyguard”—was in New Zealand in 1860–61 and again in 1863–67 as the 14th (Buckinghamshire) Regiment under the command of Lt.-Col. W. C. Trevor, C.B. “New Zealand” is worn on the regiment's battle honours. The Waikato Regiment, Royal New Zealand Armoured Corps, is allied. Now amalgamated with The East Yorkshire Regiment (The Duke of York's Own) as The Prince of Wales's Own Regiment of Yorkshire.

40th: The South Lancashire Regiment (The Prince of Wales's Volunteers)—“The Excellers”—was in New Zealand between 1860 and 1866 as the 40th (2nd Somersetshire) Regiment under the command of Lt.-Col. A. Leslie. “New Zealand” is worn on the regiment's battle honours. The Hawke's Bay Regiment is allied. Now amalgamated with The East Lancashire Regiment as The Lancashire Regiment (Prince of Wales's Volunteers).

58th: The Northamptonshire Regiment was in New Zealand in 1845–46 and again in 1847 as the 58th (Rutlandshire) Regiment under the command of Lt.-Cols. E. B. and R. H. Wynyard. The regiment remained in New Zealand until November 1858, when it was under the command of Lt.-Col. C. Bridge. “New Zealand” is worn on the regiment's battle honours. The Northland Regiment is allied. Now amalgamated with The Royal Lincolnshire Regiment as the 2nd East Anglian Regiment (Duchess of Gloucester's Own Royal Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire).

70th: The East Surrey Regiment (“70th Glasgow Greys”) was in New Zealand in 1863–66 as the 70th (Surrey) Regiment under the command of Lt.-Cols. T. J. Galloway, T. Chute, and T. E. Malock. “New Zealand” is worn on the regiment's battle honours. The Otago Regiment was allied. Now amalgamated with The Queen's Royal Regiment (West Surrey) to form The Queen's Royal Surrey Regiment.

80th: The South Staffordshire Regiment was known in New Zealand as the 80th (South Staffordshire) Regiment. A detachment under Major T. Bunbury made up the first British troops in New Zealand after British sovereignty was proclaimed. Detachment was in New Zealand between 1840–45. “New Zealand” is not worn on the regiment's battle honours and there is no New Zealand regimental alliance. Now amalgamated with the North Staffordshire Regiment to form the Staffordshire Regiment (Prince of Wales's).

96th: The Manchester Regiment (“The Bendovers”) had a detachment in New Zealand in 1843 and between 1845–47 most of the 2nd Battalion served here as the 96th (Manchester) Regiment under the command of Lt.-Col. W. Hulme, who in 1845 had relieved Major Bunbury as Commander, British Troops in New Zealand. “New Zealand” is worn on the regiment's battle honours. The Otago and Southland Regiment is allied. Now amalgamated with The King's Regiment (Liverpool) to form The King's Regiment (Manchester and Liverpool).

99th: The Wiltshire Regiment (Duke of Edinburgh's)—“The Moonrakers”—provided a detachment of 100 which was in New Zealand waters on the Emerald Isle in 1843 after the Wairau affray. Headquarters and two companies, known as the 99th (Wiltshire) Regiment, were in New Zealand in 1845–47 under the command of Lt.-Col. H. Despard, who relieved Hulme as Commander in New Zealand. “New Zealand” is worn on the regiment's battle honours. The Otago Regiment was allied. Now amalgamated with The Royal Berkshire Regiment (Princess Charlotte of Wales's) as The Duke of Edinburgh's Royal Regiment (Berkshire and Wiltshire) to which is allied the Hawke's Bay Regiment.

(When a New Zealand regiment has been allied to a British regiment subsequently amalgamated, the alliance has been continued with the amalgamated regiment.)

After the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, British troops were stationed in New Zealand in varying numbers from 1840 to 1870 and, until the middle sixties, provided the chief protection for the colonists and bore the brunt of the fighting against the Maoris. The first troops to land in New Zealand were a detachment of the 80th Regiment which arrived from Sydney in April 1840, and 30 years later the last of the Imperial troops to depart were the main body of the 18th (Royal Irish Regiment), in February 1870. Throughout this period of New Zealand's history, British forces other than regiments of the line, served here. These consisted of naval detachments, Royal Marines, Royal Engineers, Royal Artillery, and the Commissariat and the Waggoners (the predecessors of the Royal Army Service Corps).

From a strength of a few hundred men in the early 1840s, the Imperial Government decided in 1847 to maintain, for the time being, 2,000 regular troops in the colony. Over the next 12 or 13 years this number varied, and in 1860 about the time of the outbreak of the first of the later Maori Wars, the strength of the British forces was down to approximately a thousand men. These troops, consisting of the 65th Regiment and detachments of artillery and engineers, were scattered in five different stations, at Auckland, Wellington, Napier, Wanganui, and New Plymouth. By the end of 1865, the Imperial forces in the colony totalled about 10,000 men, consisting of the 12th, 14th, 18th, 40th, 43rd, 50th, 57th, 65th, 68th, and 70th Regiments, two batteries of Field Artillery, and Royal Engineers and Military Train.

The presence of these troops in New Zealand became a problem for the British and New Zealand Governments. On the one hand, the Imperial Government was extremely critical of various aspects of the New Zealand Government's attitude towards the Maoris, especially over the matter of confiscation of land. On the other hand, differences of opinion developed over the tardy conduct of operations, for the colonists – in theory – were paying £40 per annum for an infantryman and £70 per annum for a gunner. These circumstances led to the adoption by the New Zealand Government, late in 1864, of its “self reliant” policy, the substance of which was to dispense with the services of Imperial troops and to trust to local forces and Maori auxiliaries to carry on the war. For its part, the Imperial Government welcomed the proposal, for it considered the colony with its growing population should be able to fend for itself. From 1866 onwards the gradual withdrawal of Imperial troops commenced, and after Chute's vigorous campaign in Taranaki, early in 1866, with mixed forces. Imperial and colonial, operations against hostile Maoris were conducted by colonial forces.

During this year the following regiments departed from New Zealand – the 70th, 43rd, 68th, 40th, 14th, and half of the 50th. Four more departed in 1867, leaving only the 18th. Early in 1869 this regiment was under orders to depart, but because of alarm felt by colonists about the guerilla war waged by the elusive Te Kooti in the Poverty Bay and Bay of Plenty areas, General Chute, on his own responsibility, detained the 18th, which did not finally depart until February 1870.

The following list of regiments that served in or sent detachments to New Zealand is divided into two sections. In the first group are those regiments which have lost their identity since the 1957 amalgamation plan, and in the second group are those which retained their identity.

(1905– ).

Professor of chemistry, the University of Auckland.

Lindsay Heathcote Briggs was born in Hastings on 3 January 1905 and, after graduation in science at Auckland Univ. College, he undertook postgraduate studies at Oxford where he came under the influence of Sir Robert Robinson, at that time carrying on, in the Dyson Perrins Laboratory, the great tradition established by W. H. Perkin, Jun. There he took part in the investigation of the extraordinarily difficult problem of establishing the structure of strychnine. On his return to New Zealand Briggs established at Auckland perhaps the first recognisable New Zealand national research school of chemistry, devoted largely to the study of the constituents of native plants and trees. These studies have centred mainly on colouring matters, the terpenoid constituents of trees and shrubs, and alkaloids, particularly the steroidal alkaloids of the solanum species. An integral feature of this work has been the fine training given to an impressive number of doctoral candidates, many of whom have since made highly successful careers in the Commonwealth.

Amongst his many distinctions, Briggs has been a Hector medallist of the Royal Society of New Zealand (1943), president of that body and of the New Zealand Institute of Chemistry, Liversidge lecturer of the Royal Society of New South Wales, and, more recently, a visiting prestige fellow under the Commonwealth scheme at Aberdeen. He is also a member of the Honorary Editorial Advisory Board of Tetrahedron, the international journal of organic chemistry.

A recent decade of bridging, 1955–64, for motorways, State and main highways, roads and streets, based on official records for bridges over 25 ft in length.

New Zealand has constructed approximately 56,000 miles of roading in the form of motorways, State and main highways, county roads, and municipal streets. Capital investment amounts to some £500 million; and the annual expenditure on maintenance and improvement is approximately £28 million, of which an approximate £2 million is expended per year on bridging.

by Bruce William Spooner, B.E.(CIVIL), M.I.C.E., Chief Design Engineer (General), Ministry of Works, Wellington.

Though road construction – and hence bridge building – is governed by the need to increase national production, it often opens up large areas to the tourist trade, now a not unimportant source of overseas funds. For example, the Haast Pass Road, which will connect the Southern Lakes with the West Coast glaciers, requires the building of 30 bridges between Haast and Paringa. When this is completed 74 miles of magnificently beautiful country will be opened up to visitors. The most notable bridge will be that over the wide mouth of the Haast River; it is 2,417 ft long.

1. Foundation materials and conditions are extremely variable. Designers must investigate all bridge sites by careful boring and testing. In big bridges it is considered desirable to test by drilling every proposed pier position.

2. Earthquake risk affects the design. Monolithic construction is probably most effective against earthquakes, but it is not practicable nor economic to make all bridges in this way. Simply supported precast and cast-in-place concrete, or simply supported steel spans are often the most economical. It is now general practice to link together by some means all spans of a multi-span bridge to ensure synchronous movement of all spans in an earthquake and to prevent the ends of individual spans from coming off the tops of piers and abutments.

3. Prestressed concrete was virtually unknown in New Zealand before 1952. In the 1960s it has become one of the foremost bridge-building materials. The longest prestressed-concrete motorway bridge is the recently constructed Victoria Park Viaduct connecting Auckland Harbour Bridge approaches with Auckland urban motorways – a four-lane bridge, 2,520 ft long. Prestressing techniques have been mainly used in precasting components (largely beams) in the factory. The Ministry of Works has produced many standard plans to make factory manufacture easier. But designers are making intensive efforts to apply prestressing to continuous-span, cast-in-place superstructures; for example, in the Wanganui Motorway bridge.

4. New Zealand must now build one new bridge a day to keep pace with the demand.

Each of the various districts has its own peculiar bridging problems. These are set out as follows:

Southland and Otago: There are some large rivers in these provinces. Many of the early bridges spanning the deep rocky gorges in which these rivers flow were finely proportioned suspension bridges. The towers from which the steel cables were suspended were usually made of attractive local stone, and deck and stiffening trusses were usually of timber. The Kawarau River Suspension Bridge is a fine example, with a span of 300 ft and a deck some 160 ft above river level. This bridge, built 80 years ago, has only recently been replaced by an all-welded steel-box girder arch structure. Deep wrought-iron and timber trusses were also built; for example, the bridges across the Clutha River at Cromwell and the lower Shotover River. The wrought iron used (even unpainted) has hardly corroded in the dry air of Central Otago. Steel is therefore the chosen material for the new bridges to replace the old; for example, the new tied-steel-arch bridge over the Clutha River at Alexandra.

Canterbury: The bridging of the many wide gravel beds of the rivers in the Canterbury Plains has posed quite different bridging problems. In normal flows the river channels are braided and sweep in serpentine courses across the gravel beds, which are up to a mile wide. During summer floods, fed by the melting snow, the waters reach from bank to bank and flow swiftly on an average slope on one in 200 for some 40 miles across the plains. Long multispan structures are thus needed to bridge these river courses.

At all times (but particularly during floods) there is much movement of gravel in these rivers with heavy scour, or build up, at obstructions in the channels. Bridge piers therefore have to be founded either on piles driven deep into the beds or else on cylinders. The superstructures of the early bridges were of timber or of wrought-iron trusses and girders. Later bridges have been built of reinforced concrete or, more recently, of prestressed concrete. The beams are simply supported and the spans are up to 100 ft; for example, the Waitaki River highway bridge has 30 spans.

Westland, Nelson, Marlborough: In general, the many large and often wild rivers in these districts are rather short and steep and subject to severe flooding from heavy rainfall in the mountainous catchments. Many of the early bridges were washed away by floods which scoured the foundations, for the problems of design were not then appreciated. The difficulties were immense. For example, the Buller River, which enters the sea at Westport, has the greatest estimated flood flow of any river in New Zealand—600,000 cu. ft. a second. The bed material of the rivers in these districts varies from sand to coarse gravels and large boulders. This makes foundations generally difficult to construct. Often the only possible solution is to sink cylinders up to 10 ft in diameter, under compressed air, down to 40–70 ft. Such foundations were necessary for the Blackwater and Big Grey River bridges. These rivers flow through heavily forested country. During floods trees are washed downstream to catch on piers and block up waterways unless the spans are long enough and the decks high enough above flood level (about 8 ft) to clear the biggest probable flood.

North Island: The general topography of the North Island differs considerably from that of the South. Alluvial plains are built up of volcanic muds, silts, and fine pumiceous material. Large blocks of rock boulders and ash accumulate alluvially on the concave slopes of volcanic cones and there are also lava flows. These materials produce difficulties in connection with foundations.

The special problems facing New Zealand bridging engineers were well illustrated in the construction of the North Island Main Trunk railways. Many deep river gorges had to be spanned in the high central country. On the east coast a number of notable steel viaducts were designed and built, the longest and largest being the Mohaka Viaduct, 911 ft long and 312 ft above river level. Later viaducts have been built of reinforced concrete; for example, the Waiau Stream bridge on the Gisborne-Napier railway. Bridges in New Zealand are built to withstand moderately severe earthquakes and heavy floods. The Tangiwai disaster of Christmas Eve, 1953, shows what exceptional stresses bridges may be exposed to. The rail and road bridges over the Whangaehu River at Tangiwai gave way under a “lahar” (or high flood) which originated from a breaking away of part of the lip of Mount Ruapehu's crater lake. The released water, very heavily surcharged with ash and coarser materials, swept down the Whangaehu River bed and completely demolished these two bridges. A passenger train crashed into the gap and 154 people were killed. Any future high flood is now predicted by up-stream monitoring equipment which is connected to the Railways Departments' signalling and manning system. New bridges have now been built at Tangiwai.

Two Auckland city bridges deserve special mention. The first, the Grafton Bridge which was built in 1910, was for many years the largest reinforced-concrete arch span in the Southern Hemisphere (main arch span, 320 ft; overall length, 973 ft; width, 24ft of road, plus two 6-ft footpaths). The second is the recently completed Auckland Harbour Bridge, with a central span of 800 ft and overall length in the main spans of 3,348 ft. The minimum clearance under the main span is 142 ft. The piers of the main harbour spans are built on caissons founded in the Waitemata sandstones at depths of up to 110 ft below high-water level. The southern approach spans are steel; the 1,660 ft approach spans at the northern end are steel and reinforced concrete. The deck is 42 ft wide and has four traffic lanes.

Motorway Bridges: The development of some 35 miles of limited-access motorways in New Zealand has included the designing of many grade-separation bridges. Pains have been taken to design attractive bridges; for example, the pleasing designs of those at Johnsonville, Royal Road, and Alfriston Road, and the Number 3 Bridge on the northern approaches to the Auckland Harbour Bridge.

Tasman, the first white man to discover New Zealand, saw what he called a “land uplifted high”. The country's mountains, the narrow width from coast to coast, and a copious rainfall combined to make the planning and building of a communication system among the scattered settlements a most difficult task. There are very few navigable waterways, for most of the rivers fall quickly to the sea, with shallow rapids and frequent waterfalls. The 6,000–10,000 ft mountain sources lie always less than 100 miles from the nearest sea coast, and many rivers from 6,000 ft to sea level are less than 20 miles long.

Construction of roads and railways was put in hand very shortly after the first permanent settlers arrived in 1840. By 1880 most of the main lines of communication were completed. Between 1870 and 1880 Sir Julius Vogel carried out a large and vigorous public works and immigration programme to develop the country. This was the busiest bridge-building period New Zealand has ever seen. The early builders had to use untried materials and, very often, inexperienced staff and workmen. They did not at first realise the magnitude of floods and the scour and bank erosion which resulted. But despite these difficulties, the standard of workmanship in some of the early bridges – generally of timber – was very high. Some are still used to carry heavy modern vehicles. But with recent changes in transport loading, many of the bridges built in the energetic Vogel era have reached the end of their useful life. Strengthening and replacing them has become a major problem of the 1960s. It is worth noting that the durable but somewhat brittle totara timber became by the 1870s the only native timber used in bridging. Nowadays modern preservative treatments have made it possible to use locally grown Radiata species, at least experimentally, for bridges.

Some idea of the constant need for bridge building may be seen from the fact that, without including innumerable culverts and bridges under 25 ft long, there is now an average of 14 ft of bridging for every mile of formed road in New Zealand.

Bridge as played socially is either auction or contract. Auction bridge differs from contract only in the bidding. In auction the highest bidder plays the hand, there being no necessity to bid a game or slam to score the points for making such a contract. But in contract bridge to score a game or slam the contract must be bid. For example, three no trump constitutes a game. A player bids one no trump and in play makes three no trump. If playing auction bridge he would score a game, whereas in contract bridge he would get only his part score contracted for (one no trump).

Competitive bridge is contract bridge, but is known as duplicate. Hands for a contest are dealt once only and each hand is played by all players in the competition. In other words, the hands are duplicated. Players in turn try to make a better score on each hand and the winners of a contest are the pair with the best aggregate result of all hands played. These are usually 25 per session.

Bridge has for many years been a popular social game in New Zealand, and until the late 1920s was confined to the club or the home. In the 1920s the American, Ely Culbertson, fostered the game competitively. Clubs were formed in America, then in England and the Continent, and at length in the Southern Hemisphere. Late in 1933 a meeting was held in Wellington, the outcome being the formation of the first bridge club in New Zealand. Play began in 1934 in this, The Wellington Bridge Club. Within a year the New Zealand Bridge Association was formed and clubs in Auckland (Northern club), Christchurch (Crockfords) and Dunedin (Otago) started play.

The first contest, of teams of four, was played in 1936 and was won by a Christchurch team. This contest has been held annually since. The other main event held annually is the New Zealand pairs championship. A North Island pairs and a South Island pairs and provincial pairs are now regular yearly events. Many clubs also hold open yearly tournaments.

New Zealand bridge is controlled by the New Zealand Bridge Council; Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin control provincial bridge. Three systems are played in New Zealand – Acol, Culbertson, and Goren, with the addition of the Gladiator System, which originated in Auckland. This system is recognised overseas, as well as being used here. Text books on these systems are readily obtainable. t.c.