A well-known mountain scene, South Island, New Zealand.
(Rly. Publicity photo.)

It is the purpose of this article to draw attention to those memorials and monuments erected in various parts of the South Island, that are in some way unusual: or that for other reasons are worthy of having attention bestowed upon them. Of course, many of the memorials here tabulated have been erected only because of the generosity of some person who has seen fit to perpetuate the memory of an event or personage, but in nearly all such cases the name of the donor has been lost in obscurity.

Some of the memorials referred to are sufficiently off the beaten track for the average man never to have seen: others are in the heart of cities and are passed by every day by the citizens—passed by and heeded not. Only the other day a Dunedin man admitted he had never seen the tablet reposing on the pavement in Water Street, in the heart of the city, and which bears testimony to the fact that here the first Otago settlers landed from a boat belonging to the “John Wycliffe.” Other vessels are mentioned on this tablet: “Philip Laing,” “Blundell,” “Bernicia,” and “Victory.”

Every little centre, every little cluster of houses that proudly terms itself township, possesses to-day its war memorial. Which is as it should be. Many of these memorials are worthy of mention in any article of this nature, but space forbids too much consideration here. At least they all serve the same purpose—that those boys who fell in the hideous years of 1914–18 shall never be forgotten. Christchurch's imposing bridge; Dunedin's stately column; Invercargill's granite cenotaph with its brooding soldier and mighty list of names, are fine tributes to the “glorious dead.” Akaroa is proud of its simple, impressive monument that looks like the entrance to a church with steeple and cross above, and which carries a simple message that rings true: “Their bones are buried in peace.” Sumner boasts a row of lights erected on small cairns along the esplanade, and Timaru, in addition to a tall column near the Gardens, has on Caroline Bay, a War Memorial Parade. And here is an oddity. For on Caroline Bay is a V.C. Memorial Sundial, claimed to be the only memorial in the world dedicated to a number of V.C.'s. On the sundial is an array of names that will go down in history, and that should stir the blood of any patriotic New Zealander: C. R. G. Bassett, D. F. Brown, S. Frickleton, L. W. Andrew, H. J. Nicholas, R. C. Travis, S. Forsyth, R. S. Judson, H. J. Laurent, J. G. Grant, and J. Chrichton. Eleven brave men, five of whom lost their lives in action.

Yet of all war memorials, commend me to the great boulder situated at Cave, on the Timaru-Fairlie road. This great boulder, rough and rugged, with but one glazed surface, seems to be the epitome of sincerity and faithfulness. The inscription is magnificent and one is a queer being who cannot be stirred by the words thereon: “So long as the rocks endure, and grass grows and water flows, so long will this stone bear witness that men from the Cave, Cannington, and Moutakaika districts rode and walked on their way to the Great European War 1914–1918. Some of them have not returned but have left their mortal remains in foreign lands and strange seas that our British way of living may continue, but their immortal souls have risen from the grave.” Then follows a list of names of “Those who offered their lives by serving overseas.”

There are other memorials in this district worthy of mention. On the hillside in a commanding position is Cave Church, built as a memorial to Andrew and Catherine Burnett, who were the original settlers on the Mount Cook sheep run, May 1864: and also in memory of the runholders of South Canterbury and their women folk. It is built of glacier borne boulders taken from the great tracts of Mackenzie Country lying beyond the hills. In the porch is a tablet: “This porch is erected to the Glory of God, and in memory of sheepmen, shepherds, bullock-drivers, shearers, and stationhands who pioneered the back country of this province between the years 1855–1895.”

At Cave is the home of Thomas David Burnett, M.H.R. He has recently had erected a new gateway. This consists of a solid stone wall running for a short distance, and a fine iron gateway. On this appear the words: “Erected to keep minds and hands busy during the great depression 1932–33.” Probably the only memorial to the depression in the world!

The road continues from Cave, through Fairlie, and through a low pass in the hills that guard the Mackenzie Country. This pass was discovered by Michael Burke, an Irishman, in 1885. A monument has been erected and bears this unusual inscription: “To put on record that Michael John Burke, a graduate of Dublin University and the first occupier of Rancliff Station, entered this pass—known to the Maoris as Te Kopi Opihi—in 1885. Oh, ye that enter the portals of the Mackenzie to found homes, take the word of a child of the misty gorges and plant forest trees for your lives! So shall your mountain facings and river flats be preserved to your children's children page 46 and you evermore. 2,200 feet above sea-level.”

And in the Mackenzie Country we find the monument erected at Mackenzie's Pass: erected in memory of “Jock” Mackenzie, the pioneer, who first discovered a way through the hills into the Mackenzie Country: and which also serves to mark the spot where “Jock” Mackenzie, the sheep-stealer, was captured by John Side-bottom, manager of the Levels Run, in 1885, after he had stolen 1,000 sheep. Mackenzie escaped, but I have related the exploits of this notorious raider elsewhere.

At Waimate we find probably the only memorial of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere. Dr. Margaret Cruickshank was the first woman doctor to practise in New Zealand.

Oamaru is proud of its delightful Peter Pan memorial which occupies a prominent place in the Botanical Gardens.

Trees have been planted in many places by prominent visitors—members of the Royal Family, and others. It is not so common to find trees planted to commemorate an event occurring elsewhere. In the Dunedin Gardens a somewhat misshapen oak bears a tablet: “The Royal Oak. This tree was planted by John Hyde Harris, Esq., Superintendent of the Province of Otago, to commemorate the marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales, 10th March, 1863.”

In Arun Street, Oamaru, overlooking the harbour, is a sturdy young oak, planted to commemorate one of the world's saddest disasters. On February 10, 1913, Doctor Atkinson and Lieutenant Pennell landed from the “Terra Nova” with the news that Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his companions had lost their lives returning from the South Pole which they had reached not long after Raold Amundsen, the Norwegian. Oamaru was the first town in the world to learn of this. To-day, on the Arun Street oak a simple inscription reads: “In memory of the Antarctic heroes, Scott, Wilson, Bowers, Oates, Evans, who reached the pole on January 18, 1912, and perished on the return journey.”

Scott is well remembered in New Zealand. On the banks of the Avon River in Christchurch is the replica of Lady Scott's monument, which has this grand inscription: “I do not regret this journey which shows that Englishmen can help one another and meet death with as great a fortitude as ever in the past.” Scott's last heroic message. At Port Chalmers is another memorial, and there is yet a fourth in the shape of a mountain boulder in the Queenstown Gardens.

The man who proclaimed New Zealand as a British possession, Captain James Cook, is not so well remembered. A very fine statue was unveiled in the Victoria Square, Christchurch, on August 10, 1932, and there is the older memorial at Ship Cove, in Marlborough, where Cook landed and hoisted the Union Jack for the first time on New Zealand soil. Cook's name, however, is well remembered in place-names, and it is to be hoped these last forever.

(Rly. Publicity photo.)
Scene on West Coast, South Island, New Zealand.

More strictly historical memorials are to be found in divers places. At Memorial Point, Akaroa, is an obelisk erected in a commanding position at the very end of the point, to commemorate the hoisting of the British Flag, in 1840, when Captain Stanley, of H.M.S. “Britomart,” arrived just ahead of Commodore Lavaud, of the French ship “L'Aube,” and forestalled the Frenchman's intention of proclaiming Akaroa a French possession. The lettering on the stone reads: “On this spot, Captain Stanley, R.N., of M.H.S. ‘Britomart,’ hoisted the British Flag, and the Sovereignty of Great Britain was formally proclaimed. August 11th, 1840.”

As a result of a foolish dispute over lands, in 1843, Captain Arthur Wakefield and a small body of men of the New Zealand Company attempted to arrest the Maori rover Te Rauparaha at Wairau. The tactics used by the white men were stupid and blundering, rightfully rousing the ire of the Maoris. They attacked the white men who had little chance. Twenty-two white men, including Wakefield, lost their lives, and to-day on Memorial Hill, near Blenheim, a pyramid-shaped monument bears silent testimony to the foolishness of the pakeha, and displays the names of 22 men whose lives were really “thrown away.” Place-names give frequent grim reminders of the days when Maori and pakeha were in conflict, but in the South Island, monuments themselves are rare. Had there been as much fighting in the South as there was in the North, this article might have assumed inordinate lengths.

In 1861 Gabriel Read discovered gold near Lawrence, then known as Tuapeka. To-day a cairn in the sleepy township of Lawrence commemorates Read's great discovery that placed Otago on the map and proved to be the forerunner of one of the world's greatest gold rushes. The cairn bears an additional inscription to the effect that in May, 1911, 50 years later, 260 of the original pioneers gathered at Lawrence to celebrate the jubilee of the Gabriel's Gully Rush.

Further on, some miles past Lawrence, at Gorge Creek, is another cairn that recalls the hectic gold rush days. In its heyday this deserted place was known as Chamaunix Creek, and boasted a canvas town population of several hundreds. Now the cairn is all that is left to tell of the glory that was Rome's. It also serves as a silent memorial to many diggers who lost their lives in the terrible snowstorms that swept the page 47

(Rly. Publicity photo.)
Head of Lake Manapouri, South Island, New Zealand.

country in 1863. “In memory of the pioneer gold diggers who perished in the great snow, 1863.”

Near Millers Flat is an entirely different kind of memorial that is well worthy of inclusion in this article. In 1865 a man named Rigney found a young man's body on the beach of the Molyneux River. He buried it and put a fence round the grave, and erected a slab with the words: “Somebody's darling lies buried here.” The original stone decayed and a new one was erected in 1903, and is there to-day, marking the grave of some unknown unfortunate. When Rigney died he left word that he be buried in the wilds alongside this unknown person. And this was done. Rigney's tombstone bears this inscription: “Here lies the body of William Rigney, the man who buried ‘Somebody's Darling.’”

Trig stations are not memorials, but on the summit of Botanical Hill, Nelson, is a trig station that is worthy of mention because it marks the geographical centre of the Dominion.

Near Hanmer is the Red Post. Not a memorial, really, yet not out of place here, surely. At the junction of the Culverden-Hanmer and Culverden-Kaikoura roads stands a red post familiar to all who travel in this locality. About 1878 it was moved that a railway to the West Coast be run from one of the North Canterbury stations, and a certain spot was designated as one of the most likely places for a junction. A red post was erected to keep the site of this proposed junction in view, and at one time it really seemed as if Red Post would become a very important centre. But—nothing happened, and to-day Red Post is—just a red post with a history.

No article of this nature could be complete without brief reference to the only travelling statue in New Zealand: one that in recent years has travelled about Cathedral Square, Christchurch, with disturbing frequency, and one that has been the subject of more debate in council than any other could have been anywhere—the statue of John Robert Godley, the Founder of Canterbury.