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The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Wellington Provincial District]
Colonel the Hon. Theodore Minet Haultain
Colonel the Hon. Theodore Minet Haultain, M.L.C., took office in the second Stafford Ministry as a member of the Executive Council without portfolio in the middle of October, 1865. On the 31st of October in the same year he became Minister for Colonial Defence, and continued in office till the 28th of June, 1869. Colonel Haultain was born in 1817 at Stony Stratford, England, and went through a course of military training at Sandhurst. Entering the army in 1834 he served for ten years in India, being at Ferozepore and Maharajpore in 1842 and 1843. Colonel Haultain was staff-officer of Pensioners for New Zealand, and had charge of the 8th Division of New Zealand Fencibles. Retiring from the army in 1856 he settled at Mangere, and three years later was returned to the House of Representatives. In the following year he was employed by the Government to organise the New Zealand Militia with the rank of lieutenant-colonel of the first battalion. During the Waikato War he commanded the 2nd Waikato Regiment, and was present at the taking of Orakau. He afterwards had charge of the 4th Waikato Regiment, but resigned in 1865. He was soon after elected member for Franklin, but retired in 1869. At the time when Te Kooti and Titokowaru were making trouble Colonel Haultain personally conducted the Whakamarama campaign. In 1872 he was appointed to pay Imperial Pensions and became Trust Commissioner under the Native Lands Fraud Prevention Act. Colonel Haultain took an interest in educational matters, being a governor of St. John's College and of the Auckland College. In 1885 he went to Sydney as the representative from New Zealand to welcome back the Soudan contingent.