Waitangi Day Circle Line Pub Crawl

Waitangi Day Circle Line Pub Crawl Feb 9th 2008

Waitangi Day is a New Zealand public holiday remembering the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi on the 6th of February 1840 by Captain William Hobson RN as consul for the British Crown and Māori chiefs. Copies of the treaty were then taken around the country with over 500 chiefs signing.

It was an unusual treaty, and perhaps not entirely above board, with significant differences between the English version and the Māori translation. Few of the Māories signed the English version and the differences that granted greater powers to the Crown in the English version led to the New Zealand Wars of 1845 to 1872 and to legal differences only finally settled in the 1990s.

But the treaty did give the Māori people full rights and protections as British subjects and enabled the British to fight off French attempts to establish colonial settlements in New Zealand. In practice however settlers stole land from the Māori people and after the New Zealand wars ended much was confiscated and the treaty largely ignored and declared void.

In the 1950s, Māori campaigners began efforts to reinstate the treaty and reclaim stolen land, and a series of government actions and legislation have brought the treaty again to be increasingly important in land disputes and other issues. The treaty is now widely regarded as the founding document of New Zealand and in 1974 Waitangi Day became a national holiday for New Zealand.

Its celebrations in New Zealand have often been occasions where Māoris have expressed their anger, sometimes physically) at the way they have been treated in the country, and although most agree that their position has improved over the past years there is also agreement that their is still a long way to go to acheive equality. Some protests are directed at the British monarchy (a wet t-shirt was thrown at the Queen when she went there.)

In London in 2008 and on previous years since some time in the 1970s the occasion was marked by many resident Kiwis by a unique pub crawl, incorporating the Circle Line. Some 5000 of them began at 10am at Paddington, doubtless for a drink before boarding the train to the next stop, Bayswater and visiting pubs close by that station. The next refreshment stop was Notting Hill Gate, then High Steet Kensington, and on to Gloucester Road where I met them, one of the very few around still sober.

By this time police had closed Gloucester Road Station and we had to walk to South Kensington to board the tube. I travelled with them – where many were still drinking from cans to Sloane Square – a great disappointment as it has no pubs and no loos – and then on to Victoria, which has plenty of pubs around.

The Haka in Parliament Square

From their I walked – along with many on the pub crawl to get to Parliament Square for in time for the haka – familiar to many from rugby matches. It’s a particular part of the pub crawl that upsets some Māoris as those taking part are mainly descendents of European settlers – but the same is probably true of the more staid celebrations of the the Waitangi Day Ball and church service.

The grass of Parliament Square was out of bounds to the public, but there was no chance of stopping a large and largely drunken crowd. The haka was the usual confused maul with few of those taking part seeming to know many of the words, just a huge mass of sprawling bodies, as much rugby scrum as haka. I managed to hold my camera up high and angle it down to take pictures only guessing at what might be in the field of view.

Since 2008 the police and TfL have very much clamped down on the pub crawl and the last time I saw the haka the crowd was much smaller. This year in New Zealand the celebrations were largely virtual, but there was still a London pub crawl. I was in Parliament Square earlier last Saturday but could’t be bothered to wait around for the haka.

More from the 2008 Waitangi Day: Circle Line Pub Crawl on My London Diary.


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Peter Marshall

Photographer, Writer, etc.

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