Timaru Civic Trust: The Troopers’ Memorial

By Andrew Paul Wood for Timaru Civic Trust
Photography By Roselyn Fauth

​The Troopers’ Memorial on a triangle of land between Memorial Ave, King St and Catherine St remains one of the district’s most eloquent reminders of the South African (Boer) War (1899-1902), the first overseas conflict in which New Zealand soldiers served.

Erected in 1905, the monument was originally placed at the corner of High and King streets, before being relocated to its present site on Memorial Ave around 1926.

Its origins lie in a determined civic effort: Timaru residents raised funds, debated designs, and insisted that the memorial should honour not only the fallen but the district’s sense of imperial duty.

The design process was competitive.

In May 1903 the Deceased Troopers’ Memorial Committee considered multiple proposals, ultimately selecting local stonemason S. McBride’s ‘Design No. 3’ by a narrow vote.

His scheme featured a Carrara marble trooper, six feet high, depicted “in action” loading his rifle, standing on a polished red granite pedestal with grey granite corner pillars.

The total height reached seventeen feet, and McBride guaranteed absolute accuracy of uniform and equipment if supplied with photographs.

The committee rejected his idea of concreting the entire site but accepted the monument at a cost of £450.

The statue itself was carved in Italy, based on a photograph of a New Zealand mounted rifleman.

When unveiled on 23 February 1905, the event drew a large crowd, bunting, flags, and a mood of patriotic celebration rather than mourning.

The memorial’s inscriptions list 28 men who died in the Boer War, and a later addition (c.1919) records 12 local men who served in South Africa and later fell in World War I.

Today the Troopers’ Memorial stands not only as a work of imported craftsmanship and local pride but as a marker of Timaru’s early military culture, once centred on the nearby Drill Hall (demolished 2021 as part of the Theatre Royal redevelopment).

It anchors a chapter of national identity shaped by loyalty to the British Empire and the sacrifices of young Canterbury volunteers far from home.