Francis Dillon Bell: The Bell Block

Born in 1822, Francis Dillon Bell was a slightly chubby man with thick side whiskers who, by all accounts, was a complete paradox. Quick, clever and hard-working, he was also vain, superficial and unreliable. A tall, good-looking man, his face was apparently flawed by drooping eyelids. And after several liaisons with both Pākehā and Māori women, he did seem to settle down once he married.

Bell was also a sycophant, a yes-man, who could shift his political stance in a heartbeat, talk in circles and dodge any important decision making. It's written that he seemed unable to say anything in a clear, concise way. People who met him found him hard to trust, yet he kept a systematic record of reports, despatches and letters - all in a beautiful hand because his father had paid him as a boy to make his handwriting perfect.

Always called Dillon, he knew Latin, Greek and German, and could speak French as fluently as any Frenchman. He took painting and music lessons, but by the age of 14, when his family faced financial ruins, all further chance of an elite education vanished.

At 17, Bell found himself employed by his first cousin, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, as a clerk in the London office of the New Zealand Company. He became involved in New Zealand affairs when he began making arrangements for the settlement of Nelson. As secretary to Arthur Wakefield, his brother Angelo set sail for Nelson, only to die of typhoid within a year.

On the promise of a good salary of £2000, Bell was sent to New Zealand to buy more land for the company, and to act for absentee land buyers and as an immigration agent. He arrived in September 1843. But Bell became disillusioned when his large salary didn't eventuate, and neither did promotion. In February 1847, he picked up a commission for Governor George Grey to negotiate with Māori over land purchases in the Wairarapa.

When negotiations failed Bell had no choice but to take up the post of company resident agent at New Plymouth, where his role was to acquire land as well as distributing that already purchased by Donald McLean.

Governor George Grey travelled to New Plymouth to aid negotiations and Bell managed to buy a block of 1500 acres from the Puketapu hapū, which came to be known as the Bell Block, as well as 12,000 acres at Ōmata.

In 1849, Bell married Margaret Hort in a civil union. The daughter of a Jewish banker, the couple was refused permission to marry in Bell's Anglican Church. They would go on to have six sons and one daughter.

In 1851, Grey appointed Bell to the Legislative Council. Three years later, he joined the four members of the lower house on the Executive Committee only to be forced by his wife's ill health to resign after two weeks.

The sale of the Bell Block land divided the Puketapu people. While Rāwiri Waiaua, chief of the Hua division of the Puketapu hapū was happy to sell land to the Pākehā, chief Katatore was not. Katatore had Rāwiri Waiaua shot and killed, plunging Māori into civil war until the area around The Bell Block became a bloody battlefield.

From James Cowan's book The New Zealand Wars and the pioneering period: “Both these settlement areas were to become famous in after-years, when the settlers built fortifications thereon and prepared by force of arms to maintain their rights to land upon which they had made their homes.

 “Katatore, a tragic figure in Taranaki history, stoutly opposed the sale of the Bell Block by Rāwiri Waiaua and others in 1848, and he had a singular pole carved and erected on the right bank of the Waiwhakaiho River, alongside the track, as a symbol of protest against the encroachment of the Pākehā.”

Its purpose was to show that no Pākehā, according to Katatore, was to own land between that place and Auckland. It was 1853 before setters were allowed on the land. Known as the Fitzroy Pole, a replica still stands on the main road north, though not in its original position. It was replaced after the first pole was accidentally burnt down by a farmer burning gorse.

Ātiawa people further complicated things. After selling much of the land around Wellington to the New Zealand Company, Wiremu Kīngi Te Rangitāke and his people decided to return to their ancestral home of Waitara. Despite threats from Governor George Grey, 587 Ātiawa people arrived in April 1848, in a flotilla of canoes and boats, with some riding horses overland.

At Waitara, they set about cultivating their lands and in a few years had built comfortable settlements, with large crops of wheat, maize and potatoes, and herds of horses and cows. These people would be at the centre of the 1860 conflict over the purchase of the Pekapeka block at Waitara which pitted Māori against European and launched the Taranaki Wars.

In 1857, Katatore was shot down by Ihaia Te Kirikumara, who was on the Government's side. In retaliation, Katatore's men sacked and burned his pā. The period 1858 to 1859 was one of ongoing strife between Bell Block and Waitara and settlers in the field ploughing sometimes found themselves in the middle of a battle.

It was during this time that William Fox resigned from his Nelson-based job as company agent, so Bell left New Plymouth to take his place. On his way through Wellington, he found William Wakefield, the company's New Zealand director, suffering from a stroke. He postponed his journey to help manage company affairs, and was recommended as Wakefield's successor. But Bell was out-manoeuvred by William Fox, missed out on the higher position and went on to Nelson as planned. But he was left feeling so bitter that he became a staunch supporter of Fox's enemy, Governor Grey.

In return, Grey put Bell on the Legislative Council of the Province of New Munster. Bell's reputation was damaged by the association and he eventually returned to his Nelson post, though the New Zealand Company folded not long after Wakefield's death.

When Henry Sewell became this country's first Premier, Bell became Colonial Treasurer - the forerunner to today's Minister of Finance. Sewell lasted less than a month and Bell lost his position, and resigned from Parliament in 1856.

His eyesight failing, he moved to Otago and by 1874 had accumulated more than 226,000 acres and 80,000 sheep - though he was more interested in his garden than his animals and left farm management to hired men until son Alfred took over.

In Otago, he was elected MP for Mataura, and began actively campaigning for Southland to become an independent province, which it did in 1861.

In 1862 Alfred Domett became Premier, and Bell became Colonial Treasurer once again, as well as being Minister of Native Affairs. By this time he was quite experienced in negotiating with Māori and spoke the language well, but he believed that the Governor, not Parliament, should be responsible for Māori relations and wasn't active in his role. When Domett lost his Premiership to William Fox, Bell lost both roles, and became a minister without a portfolio. After the elections in 1871, he was appointed Speaker of the House. Two years later he was knighted.

In 1880, Bell and Fox were both appointed members of a Royal Commission to investigate the question of confiscated lands in Taranaki which had drawn national attention due to the passive resistance of Te Whiti at Parihaka. The commission ruled that the Māori had not been badly treated but insisted that the reserves promised to them must be handed over. The working out of these recommendations was left to Fox, as Bell went to London in 1880 to succeed Sir Julius Vogel as Agent-General.

He continued to be involved in activities to promote New Zealand, including negotiating with the French over Pacific territories but he was growing old and tired. After his wife died in 1892, he returned to New Zealand and died in 1898, at Shag Valley, Otago.

Alexander, A.C. (1979). Waitara: a record past and present. New Plymouth: Taranaki Newspapers.

Belich, J. (1988). The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict. Auckland: Penguin.

Browne, H. (1965). Narrative of the Waitara Purchase and the Taranaki War. Dunedin: University of Otago Press.

Cowan, J. (1955). The New Zealand wars: a History of the Maori Campaigns and the Pioneering Period. Wellington: Government Printer.