Otago Sculpture Trust

In Site Library - Greater Dunedin: Memorial Arch (Palmerston) (1922)

InSite

Soldier's Memorial                       Palmerston

There were generally as many as three Protestant ministers invited to the unveiling of a war memorial after the 1914-18 war. In fact, failure to respond to such an invitation could bring strong social censure on a minister. It can have come as no great surprise, then, to the Reverend H.G. Gilbert, the minister of St Paul's Presbyterian Church in Invercargill, that he should have his holiday in Kakanui interrupted by a request that he replace the Honourable W. Downie Stewart as the principal speaker at the unveiling of the Palmerston Soldier's Memorial.

Perhaps those making the invitation knew something more for the Reverend Gilbert, who had served as a chaplain during The Great War and previously in South Africa, gave a powerful and moving oration. He painted a vivid and memorable picture of the soldiers he had seen on the Western Front.

"I can see them standing to arms, cigarette to lips, in the cold grey dawn of many a battle morn, then with a grim smile, going over the top to answer the last great call of all."

He was loudly applauded by the large crowd of more than a thousand who had turned out that day in February 1923.

As was usual on such occasions in other speeches there was mention of the great sacrifice of those men who had died and of the particular contribution of the Waihemo region to the great cause. The hope that this would be a war that would make future generations safe from war was underlined by the decision of the Waihemo County Council to erect their memorial arch at the gates of gates of the District High School. The Mayor of the council, when laying the foundation stone had expressed the moral succinctly when she said that he hoped that the boys and girls who passed through the arch would remember what had been done by the boys who had left the district to serve in the war. The arch was an emblem of an action which all the boys in the district should emulate.

The arch is made of grey Timaru stone which was gifted by the Timaru Borough. It is topped with a white marble figure of a soldier standing to arms rather as the Reverend Gilbert remembered his men. The statue itself is probably Italian in origin. Below the figure in gold letters is written "The Great War 1914 - 18" and on each side of the arch at the front is a marble tablet bearing the names of the forty-nine local men who died.

As Chris McLean and Jock Phillips note in their important book on New Zealand war memorials "The Sorrow and the Pride":

"From conception to unveiling, the New Zealand memorials to the Great War had to tread a fine line between the sorrow and the pride, between sad memories and inspiration for the future."

Richard Dingwall

31 May, 2004

Text Copyright Richard Dingwall