Signposts - a blog about Te Ara the Encyclopedia of New Zealand

Sesquicentennial memorial

The other side of the sesquicentennial memorial

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Over the last few weeks Te Ara people have been thinking about what will be needed to keep the site up-to-date over the long term. There are certain obvious events that require updates. There are expected events such as the release of the 2013 census figures, which will call for innumerable changes to statistics and conclusions throughout the site. There are unexpected happenings, like the Christchurch earthquakes, which forced us quickly to add new sections to our entry on Historic earthquakes. There are new political developments such as the revised law on the foreshore and seabed, which will need including in relevant parts of the site.

Then there are more subtle changes – such as new scholarly interpretations. If archaeologists suddenly decide that there is evidence for Polynesian arrival long before 1300, many entries will have to change. And there will be changes in fashion and public interest which might require new entries. For our final theme – on creativity, which we are just scoping now – we will have an entries on conceptual art and on video art, which would have been inconceivable when A. H. McLintock put together the 1966 encyclopedia.

All this seemed clear, but it was only when I went down to Invercargill last month that I realised just how quickly entries can date. A couple of months before I had finished writing an entry on Memorials and monuments, a history of the way New Zealanders have commemorated people and events in free-standing objects. I concluded that the great age of monument-building was from about 1900 to 1960; but since then people have been less interested in commemorating ‘great men’ in stone, and relatively few memorials have been put up.

South African War memorial, Invercargill

I had gone to Invercargill for the wonderful Southland Heritage Forum, a real outpouring of energy and passion about local heritage. I had been asked to talk about – you guessed it – monuments and memorials. So to get a local flavour into my talk I took a walk around central Invercargill. There were some old favourites, such as the magnificent South African War memorial isolated in the middle of a busy round-about; and there was one new ‘great man’ statue of local genius and personality, Burt Munro.

I also discovered four memorials to recent commemorative occasions. Directly opposite the South African War memorial in the centre of the city are two memorials commemorating the sesquicentennial of the Treaty of Waitangi. One, which is very large, is inscribed with the words, ‘Now we are one people’ (which may surprise some New Zealanders from further north committed to multi-culturalism) and the other has a beautiful interweaving of Union Jack and koru beneath the tail of a whale – to express the bicultural traditions of the early whalers. These were the first 1990 memorials I had seen.

Millennium memorial

Then just along the road I discovered a striking memorial to the millennium. It was in the shape of an umbrella, and functioned as a sun dial. Shadows cast by the umbrella handle told the local time, and on the walls around was a fascinating inscription explaining how and why a standard time came to New Zealand  (you will see the story in Te Ara also). This was the first millennium memorial I had seen.

150th anniversary weka

Finally, I discovered a cute bronze of a weka which had been erected in 2006 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Invercargill becoming a city.

So here were four monuments to recent anniversaries, all of which were news to me, a self-professed memorial nut. It looks like I need to go and revise my entry. But, before I do, does anyone know of other 1990 or millennium memorials in New Zealand – or is Invercargill alone in its commemorative splendour?

The other week I was on a roadtrip. Ostensibly I was taking photos for our West Coast Roadside Stories, starting in the north with Thomas Brunner and finishing in the south with Julius Haast. It might be overstating things somewhat – after all I had a nice car, a map book and paved roads, mostly, rather than vague tracks through the dense bush – but, like those two, I was also exploring the West Coast.

Westport

Some of the things I needed to photograph I knew well – Punakaiki, Ōkarito, the glaciers. Others were less clear-cut in what was needed – such as Grey coal. And others I was just hopeful that I would find something/anything interesting to photograph – earthquakes, Addisons Flat.

Hokitika

Hokitika

The West Coast is renowned for its rain. I was hoping for a bit of rain as it wouldn’t really be a proper West Coast experience without it, but I got quite a bit of rain. On most days. At Kumara the rain cut visibility to less than 50 metres, so no hanging out at Seddon’s house. My day exploring the Haast Pass was also pleasantly evocative, meaning the river at the Gates of Haast was quite wild and the view from Haast Pass was somewhat limited.

Whataroa

Ōkarito

The West Coast is also renowned for its wildlife. I forgot to pack any insect repellent. Well, I didn’t forget so much as it never occurred to me to pack any. Rain or shine they were out in force, from St Arnaud to Haast. One thing I did learn, however, was that it takes a certain fortitude to compose and take a photo while your arms/legs/ears are being nibbled by hoards of hungry sandflies. Of course, once you’re done, there is more than a certain satisfaction in squishing a few of the pesky buggers with a nice slap or two.

Fox Glacier

While I was a couple of months early for the Hokitika Wild Foods Festival, I also discovered great beer (thanks West Coast Brewery), great salmon (thanks Lake Brunner), and great coffee (thanks Lake Matheson and Wānaka … not that it’s actually on the Coast).

Knights Point

Probably my greatest discovery was that while my whistle stop four-day tour covered the highlights, though only one of the glaciers, I could have easily spent two or three times as long just exploring the side roads and numerous walking trails I raced past. One day…

Haast

And one thing that I’d be taking with me would be a camera or two (or three). While my recent trip was for work, it probably wouldn’t come as any surprise to anyone (including my manager) that I snuck in a bit of photography for myself too, including the photos above and this one of me at the Haast Pass lookout … in the rain … pretending to be photographing.

Haast Pass

We’ve just completed the last of our Roadside Stories, audio guides to places around New Zealand. The final two areas we’ve covered are Northland and the West Coast. You can find out more about them and download them here: http://www.mch.govt.nz/roadside/.

Around Anzac Day the headmaster of my old school, Broadgreen Intermediate in Stoke, Nelson, would always relate the story of Simpson and his donkey. Australian Private John Simpson, real name John Simpson Kirkpatrick, landed at Gallipoli on the 25th April 1915. He soon ‘acquired’ a donkey, known variously as ‘Murphy’, ‘Abdul’ or ‘Duffy’. Simpson and Murphy then worked together, bringing in the wounded from the firing line.

'Simpson' (centre) and his donkey carrying a wounded soldier, Gallipoli, 1915

The image of the humble private and his donkey bearing wounded soldiers to safety has a universal resonance, with Biblical overtones of donkeys and Good Samaritans. Simpson was killed on 19 May 1915, less than a month into the Gallipoli campaign. He became a folk hero in Australia, his story combining self-sacrifice, mateship, courage and compassion. He was held to represent all the finest qualities of the Anzacs, in particular the stretcher bearers. Simpson’s image is represented in a statue near the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, and another at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. His grave at the Beach Cemetery, Anzac Cove, has become a site of pilgrimage.

There is an ironic New Zealand connection to the John Simpson Kirkpatrick story. The most famous image of ‘Simpson’ is a painting by New Zealand soldier-artist Horace Millichamp Moore-Jones, entitled Private Simpson D.C.M. & his donkey at Anzac. Moore-Jones was at Gallipoli until November 1915, when he was evacuated wounded. He does not appear to have met Simpson. The artist painted at least two versions of his ‘Simpson’ painting, the first of them painted in Dunedin, in 1918. Moore-Jones based his ‘Simpson’ on a photo of a man with a donkey. The photo was in fact of New Zealand medic Richard ‘Dick’ Henderson. There had been a number of men and donkeys rescuing wounded soldiers at Gallipoli, although Simpson was the most well known. Moore-Jones, who died in 1922, appears to have been unaware of his error, which was only cleared up in 1950. There is a statue of Henderson in front of the National War Memorial in Wellington.

Horace Millichamp Moore-Jones's painting of Simpson and his donkey

Despite my assumed familiarity with the Anzac story, I knew nothing of Simpson’s connection to South Shields, my partner Janis’ hometown in the North East of England. During a recent visit, I was surprised to come across a large statue of John Simpson Kirkpatrick and his donkey in the main thoroughfare of Ocean Road. I learned that John Simpson Kirkpatrick, the sum of all Anzac virtues, was in fact a Geordie. He was born in Tyne Dock, a tough working-class neighbourhood of South Shields. Young Jack, as he was known, is said to have always had a love of animals. He was particularly fond of the horse he drove in his childhood job on the milk rounds and the donkeys that people rode at the South Shields seaside.

A statue of John Simpson Kirkpatrick and his donkey in South Shields

In 1909 the 17-year-old Jack went to sea, leaving home a few days after his father died. He jumped ship at Newcastle, New South Wales, in 1910, having long desired to spend time in Australia. Jack worked as an itinerant miner, farm labourer and sailor around Australia and its coasts. Although he liked a drink and the occasional scrap, Jack always sent about a quarter of his pay home to his widowed mother in South Shields. By the time war came in 1914, Jack was thinking of a return trip to England – apparently a motivating factor in his enlistment in 1914. For reasons that remain mysterious, he enlisted under the name John Simpson.

Instead of a direct trip home, Jack ended up at Anzac Cove, where his exploits and early death brought him lasting fame. The figure of Simpson, the man with the donkey, was held up by pro-conscriptionists and recruiting sergeants as a great example of loyalty to king and empire, and support for comrades at the front. This image fed into the huge debate going on in Australia over the introduction of conscription. With casualties mounting and the Mother Country calling for more men, the New Zealand government had introduced conscription in 1916. In contrast to New Zealand’s direct approach, the Australian government held two referendums on conscription. In each of the referendums, held in 1916 and 1917, the majority of voters rejected its introduction.

The Kirkpatrick pub – a fitting tribute to John Simpson Kirkpatrick

The use of John Simpson Kirkpatrick as an image of Australian loyalty to empire had a deep irony. Not only was Jack a recent Geordie immigrant to Australia, he was also a staunch socialist. Having grown up working class in a depressed industrial area, Jack referred to England as ‘that louse bound country’ (quoted in Peter Cochrane, Simpson and the donkey: the making of a legend. Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1992, p. 19). He wrote home to his mother, ‘what they want in England is a good revolution that will clear some of these Millionaires and lords and Dukes out of it’ (quoted in Simpson and the donkey, p. 18). Despite these views, Jack still ended up dying in the Great War after having rescued many of his comrades. Along with the memorial statue, there is another monument to him in South Shields: the old South Shields School for Mariners building, right by the statue, is now a pub and nightclub, named The Kirkpatrick in his memory. Jack, a canny South Shields lad who enjoyed a good ‘bit a crack’ (a good yarn), a ‘bloo aat’ (drinking session) and the occasional punch up, would surely have approved of such an honour.

A veteran and a young serviceman at Hamilton cenotaph, Anzac Day 2010

Waitangi Day and Anzac Day are this country’s major occasions for historical remembrance – and which one is the most significant for the nation is one of our more interesting debates.

In April every year since Signposts began we have tried to acknowledge Anzac Day in some way. This year our acknowledgement has taken on unusually large proportions: we are launching no fewer than 13 new entries – a bumper crop of newly minted stories from our Government and Nation theme. They each in their way tell us about the diverse meanings of Anzac Day.

• The First World War was where it all began, with New Zealanders landing on what is now officially called Anzac Cove, halfway up Turkey’s Gallipoli peninsula on 25 April 1915.  Although we now commemorate the day with a dawn service, most of the Kiwis landed in the later afternoon. One of those who landed that day was George Bollinger. Make sure you watch his story, the first of a projected series of War Stories about New Zealanders’ lives in the Great War. As the entry shows, only about 8,000 New Zealanders served on Gallipoli. Far more of the 100,000 Kiwis who went overseas fought, and too often died, on the Western Front.

• Australia and New Zealand picks up from the fact that for New Zealanders, if not for Australians, Anzac Day also recalls the close kinship with our Tasman brothers and sisters. This entry explores the ups and downs of this, perhaps our most important, relationship.

• Public holidays tells us that within a year of the landing Anzac Day was being remembered; and in 1920 Anzac Day became a public holiday.

• In 1949 a new law affirmed that Anzac Day officially commemorated those who had fallen in two other overseas wars. The first of these was the South African War. The entry on that war tells us that some 6,500 went and fought on the veldt (South Africa’s open plains), but more died of disease than from gunshot.

• The Second World War was the other overseas conflict recognised in the 1949 legislation. Ian McGibbon’s entry on that war is a brilliant summary of New Zealand’s involvement. The war re-shaped New Zealand and re-shaped the world.

• At the end of the Second World War, as after the First World War, New Zealanders hoped that they would no longer have to go and fight overseas. It was not to be. The world divided into an ideological conflict between the so-called ‘free world’ and the communist world; and in 1950 New Zealanders once again sailed overseas. They went to fight in the Korean war – the first of a number of engagements covered in Asian conflicts.

• In Europe the ideological conflict was largely a diplomatic, rather than military, stand-off. We cover this in Cold War.

• New Zealand soldiers also began to go overseas to serve as peacekeepers. The extent of our service in this role is covered in Peacekeeping.

• Since the attack on the World Trade Center in New York in September 2001, terrorism has become a major focus for New Zealand’s allies. Our involvement in anti-terrorism is the theme of Terrorism and anti-terrorism.

• For more than a century the major burden of these foreign commitments has fallen on our Armed forces. Our entry shows how the army, navy and air force have evolved over time.

• When members of the armed forces returned from overseas, particularly following the world wars, they were frequently physically and mentally scarred and had missed out on job opportunities. Veterans’ assistance describes how society tried to help them return to full lives as civilians.

• On Anzac Day veterans often march with their mates, and all wear the medals that they have earned from their service. Military medals will help you understand the meaning of those medals.

• In New Zealand the focus of Anzac Day services is the local war memorial, which usually lists those from the area who died in overseas wars. The memorial is where wreaths are laid and services are held. Memorials and monuments provides a history of New Zealand’s memorials, both those that commemorated particular armed conflicts and also those that recalled major people and events of civilian life.

So before you get up on Anzac Day and head off to the local dawn service, take a look at some of these 13 entries. We are confident that this will make your appreciation of the day very much richer.