The pensioner settlements: a thesis presented for the degree of Master of Arts in History

Abstract

This thesis is the history of an experiment in colonisation which was also an experiment in colonial defence - the settlement of the Royal New Zealand Fencibles in a series of villages just south of the city of Auckland, then the seat of government of this country. It does not attempt to cover any clearly delineated period, for it is the history of the fencible corps from the tine it was envisaged until the time when the pensioners had become absorbed into colonial society; and although the inception can be dated accurately enough - at 1846 - the process of absorption cannot be said to have ended at any given time. Nor does the writer claim for it any particular line of approach or point of view. It is simply a study of the settlements over a decade or so at the end of which certain conclusions emerge on the importance of the scheme and the degree of its success.