Hēnare Wiremu Taratoa was the leader of Ngāi Te Rangi. He became a Christian and was taught by Henry Williams in the Bay of Islands, adopting his name, Henare Wiremu (Henry Williams), at his baptism. He attended St. John's College and married there on 3 April 1850 with Bishop Selwyn officiating. Sadly in 1852, his wife and newborn daughter both died, and were buried in the grounds of St John's College, Auckland.

Taratoa accompanied Bishop Selwyn on several of his journeys, including a voyage to Melanesia, and spent some months working with William Nihill at Nengone in the Loyalty Islands. After graduation he became schoolmaster and Lay Reader at Otaki, where he remarried on 11 October 1854. Bishop Selwyn thought him clever and thoughtful but too excitable, so was unwilling to offer him ordination.

Taratoa and his family returned to Tauranga in 1861, where he set up a Christian school and organised a local system of Maori councils. When War began in the Waikato, he was pulled into events. At Poteriwhi Pā, Taratoa at the request of Chief Rawiri Puhirake wrote and delivered the Challenge to Colonel Greer, along with a Code of Conduct for the coming battle. He gave as the reason for war, aggression by the British troops. His Code of Conduct helped inspire the compassionate actions of Heni Te Kiri Karamu at the defence of Gate Pa. The Code was prefaced by a prayer, with a bible verse at the bottom:

To the Colonel,
Friend, salutations to you. The end of that, friend, do you heed our laws for (regulating) the fight.

• Rule 1 If wounded or (captured) whole, and butt of the musket or hilt of the sword be turned to me (he) will be saved.
• Rule 2 If any Pakeha being a soldier by name, shall be travelling unarmed and meet me, he will be captured, and handed over to the direction of the law.
• Rule 3 The soldier who flees, being carried away by his fears, and goes to the house of the priest with his gun (even though carrying arms) will be saved; I will not go there.
• Rule 4 The unarmed Pakeha, women and children will be spared.

The end. These are binding laws for Tauranga.

“If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink” - Romans 12:20.

Gate Pa was a humiliating defeat for the British who in revenge attacked an unfinished Pa at Te Ranga nearly a month later. Henare Wiremu Taratoa died in the battle at Te Ranga. On his body was found his code, along with pages from his Bible. Taratoa was initially buried where he fell, but later moved to the mission cemetery at Otamataha pa, Tauranga. A monument erected by Maori and Pakeha in 1914 to Rawiri Puhirake, who led the Maori forces at Gate Pa, has on it a plaque, commemorating the compassion advocated by Taratoa. Bishop Selwyn had a stained glass window made dedicated to Henare Taratoa in the private chapel of the Bishop in Lichfield Cathedral, England.

BORN: 1830, Opounui on Rangiwaea Island, Tauranga

DIED: 21 June 1864, Te Ranga, Tauranga.