Irish Constabulary as Model.

It was in 1867–68 that the N.Z.A.C. Field Force was organised for war service under a Government scheme which paradoxically sought to demilitarise the fighting forces. That brilliant idea the Government owed chiefly to Mr. St. John Branigan, a good Irish policeman from the Victoria and Otago diggings, fields which attracted many an excellent officer. The Royal Irish Constabulary were taken as the model, and Mr. Branigan was given wide powers as Commissioner in command. The veterans of the various companies of Rangers and Rifles and military settlers who did all the rough bush work after the Imperial troops had been withdrawn, found themselves under a system of control which was sometimes very distasteful.

First-rate policeman, but no military man, Mr. Commissioner St. John Branigan was totally out of sympathy with the soldierly aspirations of the officers and men who had already seen service. The inspectors and sub-inspectors preferred the military equivalents of their rank, major and captain; and it must have been rather confusing at first to find a company described as a “division.”

Mr. Branigan always tried to impress on his subordinates the fact that they were not soldiers but constabulary, but when these “constables” marched into action under such leaders as Whitmore and McDonnell, Von Tempsky and Roberts, Newland and Northcroft, Goring and Gudgeon, they quickly forgot that they were police, and fought as hard as any Ranger or other rifleman. It is to the Commissioner's credit that he worked hard to provide the force with the most efficient arms procurable; he knew that police must possess up-to-date weapons and equipment.

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