By: Barry Thomson17th Mar 2021 10:21AMFor the record the mounted officers are at left, Constable Ted Banks and at right Constable Willis Brown. Willis Spencer Brown MVO b. 26.3.1902 d. 8.12.1988 was NZ Police Commissioner from 1958 to 1961.

By: Barry Thomson22nd Jan 2021 7:51PMI don't in any way wish to challenge the good intent of this contribution to such a worthy project but there is a serious lack of credibility around this image.
I have seen it published on more than one occasion in the past. It is a composite and not a very good one.

The image of the two policemen and their horses has been cut from a photo of Wellington mounted policemen on duty at a formal occasion at Parliament in Wellington between 1927 and 1930 and overlaid on a less metropolitan background.

The evidence of this convenient activity is apparent around the two officers where the angle of the cut is quite obvious. Sorry to burst the bubble here but photo shopping was not very well advanced back in the 1970s.

I'm quite familiar with the original image and this adjustment is an unfortunate corruption of history even if it was created with the best of intent, no doubt in the absence of a genuine local image which I might add are as rare as the droppings of the two horses equine rocking cousins. Sadly the result has no connection with Hokitika or anywhere else but Wellington.