HEAPHY, CHARLES (1822-81) was born in London, the son of Thomas Heaphy (1775-1835), who was attached to the Duke of Wellington's staff as an artist and founded the Society of British Artists. As a youth he studied for five years in the schools of the Royal Academy, and he gained bronze and silver medals and entered for the gold medal. He appears to have exhibited at the Royal Institute in 1835. Heaphy was for 18 months in the works of the London and Birmingham railway. In 1839 he received an appointment for three years as artist and draughtsman to the New Zealand Company and left with the first expedition in the Tory (Apr 1839). He spent 12 years sketching and writing descriptive matter for the Company's publications, studying, surveying, and exploring. In 1841 he accompanied the expedition to fix the site of Nelson. In 1842 he visited England and published his Residence in Various Parts of New Zealand, one of the most authoritative accounts of the colony and the Chatham Islands. Some of his sketches were lithographed for this publication.

On returning he took up land in the Nelson settlement, but was obliged to withdraw from it on account of the hostility of the natives. Heaphy took part in several explorations from Nelson to the headwaters of the Buller (1843-46) and accompanied Brunner on his arduous journey down the West Coast. In 1848 he was appointed draughtsman at Auckland. In 1852 he was located at the Coromandel goldfields, being the first goldfields commissioner in New Zealand. On the abandonment of the field (1853), he returned to Auckland, and was appointed district surveyor at Mahurangi early in 1854. In 1858 he became district surveyor for Auckland and in 1859 he assisted Hochstetter in his geological survey of Auckland.

In 1859 also Heaphy joined the Auckland City Volunteer company, of which he became lieutenant, and he was afterwards captain of the Parnell company. On the outbreak of the Waikato war (Jul 1863) he took one detachment and erected St John's redoubt at Papatoetoe. In Nov, by reason of his intimacy with the country, he was attached to flying columns as guide. In Dec, as a justice of the peace, he committed for trial in Auckland the natives concerned in murders at Kaipara. On 11 Feb 1864, with a flying column under Sir Henry Havelock reconnoitring near Waiari, he was placed in charge of a detachment when a bathing party of the 40th Regiment was fired upon. Heaphy, having some knowledge of surgery, went to the rescue of a wounded soldier, tended him under fire and eventually with some assistance brought him off the field, being three times slightly wounded himself. He was promoted major in the militia and recommended for the Victoria Cross. As he did not belong to a unit of the regular army, and such an award had not previously been made, he did not receive the Cross until 1867.

On the termination of the war Heaphy was appointed chief surveyor in Auckland (1865). In 1867 he was elected M.H.R. for Parnell, which he represented until 1870, when he resigned to accept the post of commissioner of native reserves. In 1878 he was appointed a judge of the native land court, a position he held until his retirement in 1880. He died in Brisbane on 3 Aug 1881.

Besides the publications already mentioned Heaphy contributed in 1855 to the quarterly journal of the Geological Society a paper on the goldfields of Coromandel. In 1863, when he was waste lands commissioner, he prepared a pamphlet on New Zealand in support of the Auckland provincial loan of £500,000.

Heaphy married (1851) Catherine Letitia, daughter of the Rev John Churton.

N.Z.C. papers and reports; D.N.B.; Heaphy, op. cit.; Cowan (p); Jourdain; Gudgeon (p); Harrop, Westland; Thomson; Buick, First War; unpublished thesis by O. S. Meads; Southern Cross, 13 May 1867; London Gaz., 14 May 1864, 8 Feb 1867; Annual Register, 1881.

Reference: Volume 1, page 203

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