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Kōrero: Farmer and grower organisations

‘Massey’s cossacks’

Image
Large group of men on horseback riding down suburban street

This squadron of Prime Minister William Massey’s mounted special constables are in Hanson Street, Wellington, near the Basin Reserve, during the 1913 waterfront strike. Most of these men were farmers and farm workers, and their participation in this exercise was organised by the Farmers’ Union. The violence with which they broke the strike earned them the name, ‘Massey’s cossacks’.

Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi

Alexander Turnbull Library, Sydney Charles Smith Collection (PA-Group-00242)

Reference: 1/2-048777; G

by Sydney Charles Smith

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

Ngā whakaahua me ngā rauemi katoa o tēnei kōrero

Me pēnei te tohu i te whārang

Willie Smith rāua ko Steven Kelly, Farmer and grower organisations – Political organisations, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/mi/photograph/18671/masseys-cossacks (accessed 4 June 2026).

He kōrero nā Willie Smith rāua ko Steven Kelly, i tāngia i te 1 March 2009.