Dugald Matheson ended WW1 under some controversy, with a reputation for harsh treatment of foreigners interned on Somes Island.
Born in 1868, Dugald became a teacher but had an early interest in the military. He served in a volunteer corps in the Manawatu and while at Wellington College ran its cadet force.
With the outbreak of the First World War he was appointed as superintendent of the internment camp on Somes Island in Wellington harbour, with rank of Major. Here ‘enemy aliens’, mostly German or with German heritage, were confined because they were seen as a security threat — despite the fact that some were born in New Zealand and had families, businesses and established lives here.
Accounts of regular beatings, verbal abuse, humiliation and poor quality rations forced the government in 1918 to undertake a Royal Commission into alleged ill treatment on the island. The war was still under way. Though the camp authorities were cleared of any wrongdoing, the report made clear that a great deal of animosity and bitterness had developed between the two communities, largely due to the regular drunkenness and misbehaviour of the guards.
Dugald Matheson seated on left, with one officer and five NCOs on Somes Island.
Dugald Matheson comes across as an authoritarian schoolmaster and cadet forces officer, who was appointed to the Somes Island position with no professional military training and inadequate knowledge of New Zealand’s international obligations around the treatment of detainees.
After WW1 he wanted to continue in the military but was demobilised when his tenure at the camp ended in March 1919 and he was transferred (as was normal) to the army reserve. He did not have a regimental number. He returned to teaching and died in Tauranga in 1944.
Three of his sons served in the First World War: Donald (8/2795), (Donald) William (59404) and Norman Murdoch (71360). William also served in the Second World War.
