In 1879 John Sheehan appointed Gill as Under Secretary in charge of the Land Purchase Department. It is evident from Sheehan’s comments that Gill possessed valuable skills that were needed in the Department. In his letter of appointment, Gill was told by Sheehan that:

The experience you have gained and the energy and ability you have always displayed in connection with land purchasing administration ensures the Government that every effort will be used [by yourself] to bring outstanding negotiations to a successful issue and to maintain the efficiency of the Department.⁶⁵

Historian Alan Ward has commented on the creation of this sub-department of the Native Department in March 1879, ‘with R. J. Gill its de facto head since 1873, as first Under-Secretary’.⁶⁶ Ward observes that:

this meant that land-purchase operations were once again not within the regular purview of the Under-Secretary of the Native Department and no longer so closely related to Maori policy as a whole. At the same time private buyers stepped up their activities.⁶⁷

When Gill died in 1910, having been appointed a Native Land Court Judge in the 1880s, the New Zealand Herald expressed a sentiment similar to that of Sheehan: ‘Judge Gill, in his connection with the Native Land Purchase Office, which extended over many years, was a very successful purchaser of Maori land’.⁶⁸

As an employee of the Native Land Purchase Department in Wellington, Gill’s official and private connections with Tauranga were not severed. Roimata Minhinnick has noted Gill’s involvement in the removal of restrictions placed on Mauao in 1880.⁶⁹ Robyn Anderson has also shown that Gill was instrumental in the piecemeal extinguishment of freehold interests in the nearby Ohinemuri block.⁷⁰ Initially Gill also kept many of his Tauranga properties. However, at the end of December 1876 he sold some of his land at Te Puna, and assigned the leases to Tice

⁶⁵ J M Sheehan to R. J. Gill, 10 March 1879, MS 61, TDL.

⁶⁶ Ward, p. 279.

⁶⁷ Ward, p. 279.

⁶⁸ New Zealand Herald, 24 December 1910, p. 8.

⁶⁹ Roimata Minhinnick, ‘A Report on Mauao / Mount Maunganui’, Wai 215 #A49, Waitangi Tribunal, no date, pp. 61-8.

⁷⁰ Robyn Anderson, The Crown, the Treaty and the Hauraki Tribes, vol. 4, Paeroa, 1997, pp. 266-272