Imelda Bargas - New Zealand’s First World War Heritage

No battles were fought here, yet the First World War intruded into the daily life of every New Zealander who remained at home. This ground-breaking book provides vivid new insights into their experiences through exploring the places where they lived, worked, coped and mourned: army camps, fortifications, soldier-settler farms, town halls, wharves, convalescent homes and hospitals, cemeteries and war memorials, dairy factories and woollen mills.

From Northland to Stewart Island, our landscape is signposted with thousands of poignant memorials, and behind the faades of old buildings, beneath scrub and behind farm fences lies a less visible landscape of war and hundreds of hidden stories waiting to be told: a soldiers name carved on a remote railway station, a once bustling uniform factory in the heart of a city, a long abandoned gun battery

This unique book will be a revelation to all New Zealanders. Extensively illustrated with new and period photographs and fascinating maps, it contains original research and information that will open the eyes of every reader to places and stories in their community hidden in plain sight. The impact of the First World War on New Zealanders was immense; its legacy can be seen all around us today.

NEW ZEALANDS
FIRST WORLD WAR
HERITAGE

Imelda Bargas and Tim Shoebridge

First published 2015

Exisle Publishing Limited,
P.O. Box 60-490, Titirangi, Auckland 0642, New Zealand.
Moonrising, Narone Creek Road, Wollombi, NSW 2325, Australia.
www.exislepublishing.com

Copyright The Crown 2015

Imelda Bargas and Tim Shoebridge assert the moral right
to be identified as the authors of this work.

All rights reserved. Except for short extracts for the purpose of review,
no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or
transmitted in any form or by any means, whether electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission
from the publisher.

This publication was supported by the Ministry for Culture and Heritages
War History Trust, the result of a generous bequest by Julian Watson.

A catalogue record for this book is available from
the National Library of New Zealand.

Print ISBN 978-1-77559-129-0
ePub ISBN 978-1-77559-214-3

Text design and production by IslandBridge
Cover design by Book Design Ltd

Contents

Acknowledgements

A book like this naturally calls upon the time and energies of lots of people, and we owe many debts of gratitude. The first go to the readers who provided feedback on all or parts of earlier drafts: Peter Cooke, Neil Frances, Andrew Francis, Gavin McLean and Jock Phillips. They brought a critical eye and many new perspectives to our thinking, though we, of course, are responsible for any errors of fact or interpretation which remain.

Weve also greatly benefited from the support of our colleagues at Manatu Taonga the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, both past and present, particularly Neill Atkinson, Lyn Belt, Bronwyn Dalley, Damien Fenton, Helen McCracken, Ian McGibbon, Fran McGowan, Jamie Mackay, Gavin McLean, Margaret Marks, Melanie Mills, Alison Parr, Jock Phillips, Paul Riley, Monty Soutar, Matewai Tukapua, and the Te Ara resources team. Weve also received able research assistance from Elizabeth Cox, Caroline Lord, Alice Meads, Rosie Moreton and Martha van Drunen, and would like to extend our gratitude to our editor and indexer, David Green, who, as always, brought much-needed insight and polish to our work.

The staff of the various government agencies involved in heritage work have greatly aided our research into surviving sites and structures. In particular wed like to thank Heritage New Zealands national and regional archaeologists, Maori Heritage, planning and registration teams, whose help has made a huge difference to our project. Department of Conservation and New Zealand Defence Force staff have also been of invaluable assistance to us in accessing and photographing historic sites.

Weve drawn heavily on public research collections, and would like to thank the archivists and librarians who have helped us along the way. The staff of the National Library and the Alexander Turnbull Library were always on hand to help, as were those of Archives New Zealand in Wellington. Wed also like to thank the staff of Ashburton Museum, Auckland Libraries, Dunedin City Council Archive, Hocken Library, Lyttelton Museum, Marlborough Museum, North Otago Museum, Puke Ariki, Rotorua Museum, Wairarapa Archive and Wellington City Council Archives.

This book has put us in touch with hundreds of landowners across the country, both private and public, and we are incredibly grateful to them for permission to include their properties in this book. Their names are too numerous to mention, but we thank them all for their generosity and hospitality. We are equally grateful to the owners of properties we didnt end up including in the book because of space limitations. Thanks also to the many local enthusiasts who helped us link up with landowners and supplied valuable source material and images.

Wed like to thank Alastair McAra for providing us with vital photography training before we visited many of the places in the book, and for helping us tweak and adjust our images once wed finished. Were very grateful to the photographers who graciously supplied images of places which, for one reason or another, we were unable to visit ourselves. Many of these were taken especially for this project, and were enormously thankful for his contributions. The photographers are named on the credits attached to each image. Thanks once again to those who supplied images we didnt end up including in the book. Geographx, as always, have done a fine job with the maps.

Wed like to specifically thank the following people for assistance of various kinds: Richard Alach, David Askin, Karen Astwood, Diane Bargas, Peter Bargas, Christine Barnett, Heather Bauchop, Wayne Beggs, Ren Bester, Jim Bicknell, Janine Boon, Shar Briden, David Bruce, Matthew Buck, Robyn Burgess, Jaimee Burns, Katherine CAilceta, Brad Cadwallader, Grant Craig, Greg and Casey Dalton, Alison Dangerfield, Paul Diamond, Andy Dodd, Rob Douglas, the Downey family, Kaye Dragicevich, Byron Duncan, George Farrant, Rachel Ford, Neil Frances, Don Fraser, Michael Gooch, Andrew Gregg, Jan Harris, Gail Henry, Mate Higginson, John Hodder, Peter Holton, Ian Hopkins, Fiona Jack, Linda Jeffrey, Martin Jones, Mark Jurisich, Basil Keane, Michael Kelly, Kim Kindley, Susann Liebich, Maureen Lienert, Ian Littlejohn, Ken and Elizabeth Lynch, Bill McKay, Gavin McLean, Paul Mahoney, the Massey family, Andrew Matheson, John Mattison, Kim Dusty Murtagh, Natasha Naus, Richard Nester, Rebecca OBrien, Barry OSullivan, Stuart Park, Rachel Patrick, Wendy Pettigrew, Margaret Pointer, Matthew Randell, Rick Ratcliff, Topsy Rule, Kelso and Jane Rushton, Andrew Russell, Cushla Scrivens, Sven Schroeder, Ray Scott, Paul Shoebridge, David Spencer, Bethney Stafford, Emma Stanley, Laurie Stewart, Margaret Tate, John Tenquist, Clifton Thomson, Peter Thomson, Tiriata Thorne, Lynette Townsend, Amanda Trayes, David Turton, Ashley Tvrdeic, Alice Van Den Hout, John van Vliet, David Veart, David Verran, Blyss Wagstaff, the staff at Wairarapa Hospital, Bill Wheeler, Gareth Winter, Barbara Wishnowsky, Tony Woods, Vernon Wybrow, Michael Wynd and Rose Young.

Wed also like to thank our partners, Dan Morris and Nicky Lynch, for their support and good humour. We dedicate this book to Chiara Cangiano, Katie Shoebridge, Emily Callaghan and Thomas Shoebridge, who were born while it was being written, and to the memory of Phyllis Carter, Edgar Morris and Ian Downey, who passed away during that time.