He arrived in New Zealand later that year and was commissioned to make a visual record of the company's work which was used to advertise the country to potential English migrants.

During the invasion of the Waikato, his militia unit was mobilised and it was his conduct at Paterangi, where he rescued British soldiers under fire, that saw him awarded the VC.

[1][2] Thomas Heaphy earned painting commissions from high society and in 1812 accompanied Arthur Wellesley, who was later to become the Duke of Wellington, as staff artist during the Peninsular War.

[3] The Heaphy family lived in St John's Wood in north-west London and enjoyed a comfortable, middle-class existence although his mother died sometime during his early childhood.

Heaphy sailed with William Wakefield, Edward's brother, aboard the Tory on an expedition to purchase land suitable for settlement.

[7] Heaphy was at times exposed to some danger; on an expedition to the Chatham Islands, his party intervened in a skirmish between two warring tribes and he was wounded in the leg.

As an example of how Heaphy manipulated his work for commercial appeal, this painting depicted several ships anchored in the harbour and deliberately overstated their number, to give an impression of a busy port.

[1][12] The New Zealand Company regularly published Heaphy's work as lithographs, often having extra details added when being redrawn for printing purposes.

[13] By late 1841, his services as an artist were no longer required, given the number of works that he had produced, and Wakefield decided to send him to London to make a report to the company directors.

The directors were impressed with his report and it was published as a book entitled Narrative of a Residence in Various Parts of New Zealand and included several lithographs prepared from Heaphy's art.

[15] Although no longer employed by the New Zealand Company, Heaphy, emboldened by the success of his report and the public reception to his paintings, sought further opportunities for similar work.

[20] In February 1846, Heaphy, accompanied by Fox and Thomas Brunner, another employee of the New Zealand Company, as well as a Ngāti Tūmatakōkiri tohunga named Kehu, undertook another expedition to the south-west.

[21] Difficult terrain faced them; high mountain ranges topped with snow and ice, steep bush, numerous rivers and gorges.

[23] Heaphy and Brunner were keen for further exploration and with Kehu, left Nelson on 17 March 1846, to scout along the West Coast to the mouth of the Buller.

In early May, they sighted the Southern Alps and at the Arahura River, the southernmost point of the expedition, they were hosted by the local Ngāi Tahu tribe at Taramakau Pā.

[34] In November 1853, Sir George Grey ended his first term as Governor of New Zealand and sailed to the islands around New Caledonia, to indulge his interest in languages.

[35] Heaphy and his wife moved north of Auckland to what is now known as Warkworth in early 1854, following his appointment as district surveyor for the Mahurangi Peninsula, which was being opened for settlement.

Unable to extricate themselves, Heaphy and the remaining fit soldier provided cover to prevent the wounded men from being killed by the Māori.

[42] Following the action at Mangapiko Stream, Heaphy was promoted to major; a month later, with the end of the war in the Waikato, he ceased active duty and returned to civilian life.

[40][43] In late 1864, Major General Thomas Galloway, the commander of the New Zealand colonial forces, recommended Heaphy for the Victoria Cross (VC) for his actions at Mangapiko Stream.

[40] The citation read: For his gallant conduct at the skirmish on the banks of the Mangapiko River, in New Zealand, on the 11th of February, 1864, in assisting a wounded soldier of the 40th Regiment, who had fallen into a hollow among the thickest of the concealed Maories.

Major Heaphy was at the time in charge of a party of soldiers of the 40th and 50th Regiments, under the orders of Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Henry Marshman Havelock, Bart., V.C., G.C.B, D.L.

the Senior Officer on the spot, who had moved rapidly down to the place where the troops were hotly engaged and pressed.Heaphy was presented with his VC at a parade at Albert Barracks in Auckland on 11 May 1867.

[40][46] After the cessation of hostilities, Heaphy was contracted as the "Chief Surveyor to the General Government of New Zealand" and surveyed much of the land seized from the Waikato Māori by the British, which included that on which the towns of Hamilton and Cambridge were established.

The publicity around his award of the VC helped raise his profile and when the nomination meeting for the 1867 by-election was held at the Parnell Hall on 6 June, he was returned unopposed as the electorate's representative in the New Zealand Parliament.

An added stress in Heaphy's first year as commissioner was an enquiry into his conduct during the period he was "Chief Surveyor to the General Government of New Zealand" and working in the Waikato.

The enquiry, headed by an acquaintance from his days in Nelson, Alfred Domett, cleared Heaphy of corruption, although he was criticised for taking payments from young trainee surveyors in return for work.

[55] By 1875, Heaphy, beginning to suffer from rheumatism, had reduced the amount of time he spent in the field determining ownership of Māori land and its availability for colonial settlement and the work ended altogether in 1880.

In the interim, he picked up more civil service duties; he became a justice of the peace and presided over cases of petty crime brought to the Resident Magistrates Court in Wellington.

Prints of Heaphy's paintings began to be produced in 1953 and on the hundred year anniversary of his death, a limited edition portfolio of his watercolours was published.