War Memorial at Botanic Gar­dens

By Roselyn Fauth

In the third instal­ment of a four-part series, Timaru Civic Trust mem­ber Roselyn Fauth looks at the South Can­ter­bury War Memorial, designed by archi­tect Her­bert Hall.

In 1925, the same year the Ōrari Build­ings opened, Timaru com­pleted its South Can­ter­bury War Memorial.

Stand­ing in the Botanic Gar­dens at 20 Queen St, oppos­ite Memorial Ave, the memorial takes the form of a fluted Cor­inthian column moun­ted on a stepped base and topped by a wreath, orb and cross.

Con­struc­ted of basalt, gran­ite, marble and bronze, it com­bines clas­sical tri­umph with Chris­tian sym­bol­ism. It is restrained, delib­er­ate and dig­ni­fied. The column form was inspired by clas­sical tri­umphal columns such as Nel­son’s Column in Lon­don.

The bronze cross at the top was made in Lon­don to Her­bert Hall’s design.

Dis­cus­sions about a memorial began in Octo­ber 1918, even before peace was form­ally declared.

The Returned Sol­diers’ Asso­ci­ation ini­tially pro­posed a build­ing that could serve as headquar­ters.

By mid-1919, the idea shif­ted toward a purely com­mem­or­ative monu­ment.

At one stage, a site oppos­ite the Hydro Hotel was favoured. When that could not be secured, the Botanic Gar­dens were approved in Feb­ru­ary 1924.

Charles St was renamed Memorial Ave in August 1925 to acknow­ledge the memorial’s place­ment.

Designed by Her­bert Hall and con­struc­ted by Messrs Par­kin­son Ltd, the memorial was com­pleted by July 1925 and unveiled on Armistice Day, Novem­ber 11, 1925.

The bronze memorial tab­let was unveiled on Anzac Day 1926.

The pan­els list the names of 875 South Can­ter­bury ser­vice­men from World War I, 497 from World War II, and those who served in later con­flicts, includ­ing Korea, Malaya, and Viet­nam.

Memorial walls flank­ing the column were erec­ted in 1997, and the paved fore­court was added around 2000.

Each Anzac Day the memorial remains the focal point of com­munity remem­brance in Timaru.

In 1925, Timaru built two very dif­fer­ent things.

The Ōrari build­ings on the site oppos­ite the Hydro to con­tinue daily life. And the memorial to hon­our those who did not return.

Look­ing at the three struc­tures, it is inter­est­ing to note what we have lost, what we have endured, and how the built her­it­age helps us con­nect to our past, people and place.

When we know where we come from, we know who we are, and it can help us make bet­ter decisions and know what to advoc­ate for, for our future.