WAR MEMORIALS WELLINGTON

26 March 2019.
In a surprising but most welcome development H. NELSON (Aro Valley) has been identified and his his life story researched and written. His story completes the War Memorials Wellington project which aimed to honour the 96 men commemorated on the war memorials in Brooklyn, Makara, Newlands, Roseneath and Aro Valley around Wellington city by researching their life stories and uploading them to this website.

12 February 2019.
SUMMARY FACTS
96 men who died during WW1 are commemorated on the war memorials in Brooklyn, Makara, Newlands, Roseneath and Aro Valley around Wellington city. The stories of 95 of them have been uploaded to this website. The 96th – H. Nelson, Aro Valley memorial - cannot be identified with certainty so his story remains untold.

AGE
The youngest of the men were Water McArthur GALBRAITH and William George DRUMMOND (both named on the Brooklyn memorial) who were each only 18 when killed in September 1916. Both were buried at Heilly Station Cemetery, France.
The oldest was William Henry MCKENZIE (Brooklyn) who died of influenza in Samoa in November 1918 aged 49 years. He had served – in Samoa – for 1,409 days (3 years, 8 months).

BIRTHPLACE
66 of the men were NZ born and bred. Seven were born in Australia, one in Denmark, 16 in England and six in Scotland.

LENGTH OF SERVICE
Victor Ivan HALL (Aro Valley) served for the shortest time – 59 days. He suffered from haemophilia, an incurable genetic disorder where the blood has a severely reduced ability to clot. He attested and was issued a service number, but a medical board discharged him less than two months later.
James Leslie HOWIE (Brooklyn) served for the longest time - 1,482 days (just over four years). He signed up on 12 August 1914 (eight days after war had been declared) and served as an infantryman until he was killed in September 1918, two months before the Armistice.

CAUSE OF DEATH
10 men died not from wounds or injuries but from illness – enteric fever, tubercular meningitis, cerebro-spinal meningitis, and influenza.
Of the five men who died in NZ two had never left the country – one died from haemophilia (see above) and another (William Robert MCVICAR, Newlands) fell from a railway platform in front of a train while in training at Trentham.
The other three men had served overseas and been returned to NZ where they were medically discharged. George DRYDEN (Brooklyn) died from tuberculosis of the spine and was buried at Karori Cemetery. Daniel McCarthy (Brooklyn) was wounded at Gallipoli and became ill from enteritis too. He was returned to NZ after suffering from “acute mania” and being treated in a special hospital in Egypt. He was admitted to Porirua Mental Asylum where he died. John Donald RUTHERFORD (Brooklyn) was gassed at Messines and may have had a heart condition too. He was returned to NZ in April 1918 and died of a heart seizure in Hastings where he was in hospital with influenza on 2nd December 1918.

REGIMENT
Almost half (41) of the men served in either the Wellington Regiment (21), or the NZ Rifle Brigade (20). 18 served in the Otago Regiment, and the same number in the NZ Field Artillery, while six served with the NZ Engineers, and three with the NZ Medical Corps. Three served with Wellington Mounted Rifles, and one with the Auckland Mounted Rifles. Three served with the British Army. One man served with the Divisional Signal Corps, and one each with the Machine Gun Corps, the Cyclist Corps, and in the Merchant Navy.
Two men died on service in Samoa.
Of the final three men, two hadn’t been assigned to a regiment before their death/discharge, and the service record of one has never been found (update - H Nelson [Aro Valley Memorial] served with the AIF).

FAMILY MEMBERS
Amongst the men listed on the memorials, there were four pairs of brothers who served, both of whom were killed.
Charles (25.5.1916) & Joseph (17.12.1918) HERZOG (Brooklyn)
Charles (4.10.1917) & Ernest (7.12.1917) GOER (Aro Valley, though Charles’s name is not listed on the memorial)
Lance (13.8.1915) and Hugh (25.11.1917) BRIDGE (Roseneath)
Claude Percy (4.8.1917) & Raynor Stephen (17.10.1917) GREEKS (Brooklyn)

RANK
73 of the men killed had never risen above the rank of private or equivalent (e.g. gunner, sapper).
Six had been promoted to Lance Corporal at the time they died, and two had been promoted again to Corporal.
Three had been serving as Sergeants, and one as Sergeant Major.
In commissioned ranks, two had become Second Lieutenants, two were Lieutenants, and two had attained the rank of Captain.

MEDALS
Three men named on the Brooklyn memorial were awarded the Military Medal (MM) - F A Brill, A Watters, and AJ Wilson, along with Martin Griffin (Aro Valley)
Audley Charles Hyde Millar and Benjamin Mollison (both Brooklyn memorial) were awarded the Military Cross.

BURIAL/COMMEMORATION LOCATIONS
Tyne Cot (Memorial)           5
Buttes New British (NZ Memorial)     5
Bagneux British Cemetery    3
Cite Bonjean Military Cemetery     3
Grevillers (NZ Memorial)    3
Achiet-Le-Grand Communal Cemetery Extension     2
Baincourt British Cemetery     2
Euston Road Cemetery     2
Gommecourt Wood New Cemetery     2
Gouzeaucourt New British Cemetery     2
Heilly Station Cemetery     2
Menin Road South Military Cemetery     2
Messines Ridge (NZ) Memorial     2
Polygon Wood Cemetery     2
Trois Arbres Cemetery     2
Bailleul Communal Cemetery Extension     1
Beaulencourt British Cemetery, Ligny-Thilloy     1
Bedford House Cemetery     1
Bulls Road Cemetery     1
Caterpillar Valley Cemetery     1
Dartmoor Cemetery     1
Doullens Communal Cemetery     1
Etaples Military Cemetery     1
Foncquevillers Military Cemetery     1
Haringhe Military Cemetery     1
Hill 60 (NZ Memorial) Cemetery     1
Hyde Park Corner (ROYAL BERKS) Cemetery Extension     1
La Clytte Military Cemetery     1
L'Homme Mort British Cemetery     1
Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery     1
Lindenhoek Chalet Military Cemetery     1
Longuenesse (St Omer) Souvenir Cemetery     1
Louverval Chateau Cemetery     1
Marfaux British Cemetery     1
Metz-En-Couture     1
Motor Car Corner Cemetery     1
Naves Communal Cemetery Extension     1
Perth Cemetery (China Wall)     1
Quarry Cemetery, Montauban     1
Romeries Communal Cemetery Extension     1
Saint Souplet British Cemetery     1
Serre Road Cemetery No. 2     1
St Sever Extension, Rouen     1
Strand Military Cemetery     1
The Huts Cemetery     1
VC Corner Cemetery     1

GALLIPOLI
Lone Pine     2
Chunuk Bair (NZ) Memorial     2
Mikra Memorial, Mikra Briitish Cemetery (Greece)    1
Embarkation Pier (Memorial) Cemetery     1
Portianos Militry Ceemetery (Greece)      1

ENGLAND
Cannock Chase War Cemetery     1
Tidworth Memorial Cemetery     2
Torquay     1
Tower Hill Memorial     1

NEW ZEALAND
Napier     1
St John's Johnsonville     1
New Plymouth Cemetery     1
Karori Cemetery, Wellington     2

SAMOA
Magiagi Cemetery, Apia     2

JERUSALEM
Jerusalem War Memorial Cemetery     1

DIED AT SEA
SS Marquette     1
SS Hunstrick     1
SS Tahiti     2

11 December 2018.The stories of all 48 men named on the Brooklyn Memorial have been completed with the addition of those of FREDERICK ANDREW BRILL and HUGH CARLISLE BIRKETT.
The former was the son of Danish immigrants who became hoteliers in and around the Napier area for a number of years before moving to Wellington and settling in Brooklyn. Frederick enlisted in 1915 and served for nearly 2.5 years before losing his life during the Battle of Messines in June 1917. Earlier that year he had been awarded the Military Medal. His citation states that he "set a splendid example of courage and devotion to duty in keeping his machine gun in action throughout a most intense bombardment lasting from 4am until 5.15am and in keeping the gun firing during the time he and the remainder of the team (two of them were wounded) were being bombed from the rear by the enemy, six of whom had succeeded in entering our trenches."
Hugh Carlisle BIRKETT was known as Lisle, though this became Leslie on his military personnel file. From Taranaki, Hugh was working in Wellington and living with an aunt in Brooklyn when he signed up in October 1915, and was assigned to the NZ Engineers. He arrived in France in April 1916, and fought through the Battle of the Somme later the same year. In April 1917 he became ill with measles but shortly after recovering, contracted cerebro spinal meningitis from which he died on 11 May 1917.

10 December 2018. HARRY CHARLES DONEY (Brooklyn Memorial) died not from wounds or injuries but from illness before he got anywhere near the battlefronts of WW1. He was one of 68 men who died of illness while en route to the UK on the SS Tahiti, which became infected with the deadly second wave of the 1918 influenza virus while in port in Freetown, Sierra Leone in late August 1918. Harry died on 5th September and was buried at sea the same day. His death was one of 42 during the three days since the 2nd of September. Nine more men died after arrival in the UK.

23 September 2018. ARTHUR TROTTER is the last of the men named on the Makara war memorial to have his story researched and uploaded. Arthur, who had been in France since 10 October 1918, was one of the men killed on 4 November 1918 during the assault on the ramparted town of Le Quesnoy by NZ forces. The town was under attack from early morning and because there was a large civilian population in the town, it was decided not to use heavy artillery which would have caused a large civilian death rate. Mid-afternoon, the ramparts were scaled using the age-old technique of using a ladder to make an entry. This act is still commemorated in Le Quesnoy every year, and there are very strong links between the town and NZ. An ANZAC Day dawn service is also held in Le Quesnoy each year on the nearest Sunday to 25 April, attended by a large contingent of NZ officials and military personnel. WW1 finished one week after the capture of Le Quesnoy, and Arthur's death.

21 September 2018. WILLIAM HENRY ARCHER (Brooklyn) proved elusive until he was finally traced serving with the Royal Field Artillery, a British army unit. He was in the field in France and Belgium from 16 August 1914 (12 days after war was declared) until his death in the field on 31st May 1917, aged 30. His private life was full of marital adventure, and his parents never saw him again after he went to sea sometime before 1909, aged 22. The Archer family was amongst early settlers in Brooklyn, living at 118 Washington Avenue from about 1896.

10 August 2018. FREDERICK GEORGE NEWMAN (Aro Valley) was a Rifleman with the Wellington Infantry Battalion. He was another who misrepresented his birth date when he signed up in June 1915, sixteen months underage. He survived on the Somme until he was killed in action on 27 September 1917. By then he was just 20 years old. His name is one of 1,200 on the New Zealand Memorial in Caterpillar Valley Cemetery, Longueval, Belgium.

10 August 2018. V HALL is one of the names on the Aro Valley memorial. Extensive research suggests the most likely match for this name is Victor Ivan HALL, who was enlisted for a brief time until it was realised he was a haemophiliac. Haemophilia is an incurable genetic disorder where the blood has a severely reduced ability to clot, so that injury or surgery can lead to prolonged and excessive bleeding. Victor died in 1920 at New Plymouth Hospital from epitaxis (prolonged nosebleed), and haemophilia was noted also on his death certificate as a lifelong condition. No obvious connection has been found for Victor with the Aro Valley/Mitchelltown area.

10 August 2018. CHARLES GRINDROD (Brooklyn) was only two months short of completing his apprenticeship with the Government Printer in Wellington when he signed up for active service in February 1916. He was assigned to the NZ Cyclists Corps formed in New Zealand from men training to be mounted riflemen. He remained with them, unscathed until 27 July 1918 when the Corps was tasked with capturing the village of Marfaux, 18 kilometres south of Reims. The attack achieved it's objective, but Charles was one of those who was killed in action that day.

9 August 2018. WALTER McARTHUR GALBRAITH (Brooklyn) was far too young to go to war - when he signed up for the first time in August 1914 he was only 16. He declared however that he was 20. His first military experience - in Samoa - didn't last long or go well , but he wasn't put off and in 1916 he signed up again. Once again he backdated his birth date, maintaining he was more than 20 years old again even though he was still only 18. He was in France for only 25 days before he died on 30 September 1916 - he hadn't yet reached his 19th birthday.

6 August 2018. JOSEPH ARMSTRONG (Brooklyn) was in the field in France in time for the major battles of the second half of 1917 - Messines, Passchendaele and the Polderhoek Chateau, and survived all of them. However, on Christmas Eve that year he was one of 13 New Zealand soldiers who died in the Polygon Wood sector. His body was never found so his name is on the Buttes New British Cemetery (NZ) Memorial in Polygon Wood.

3 August 2018. 100 years ago on this day ROBERT COCHRANE, a Sergeant with the NZ Rifle Brigade, died of gunshot wounds to the chest. He was buried in the same row at Foncquevillers Military Cemetery as three other NZRB men killed on the same day, and a fourth killed on the 4th August 1918. They were the last four New Zealanders to be buried there. Robert was posthumously awarded the Military Medal on 15 August.

26 July 2018. Statistics New Zealand have put together an infographic about WW1 in partnership with the Ministry of Culture and Heritage WW100 Programme Office, and with valuable assistance from the New Zealand Defence Force, to mark the First World War centenary from 2014 to 2018. The infographic aims to present key information about the war and its impact on New Zealand. To view this summary of critical data about the war and some events thereafter click this link: http://archive.stats.govt.nz/ww100-infographic

12 May 2018. RODERICK CRAWFORD (Brooklyn) was another youngster, only 19 years old when he was killed in action on 8 March 1917. Two of his brothers also served, and one of them was killed in October 1918 but his name is not included alongside his brother's on the Brooklyn memorial.

27 April 2018. WILLIAM GEORGE DRUMMOND (Brooklyn) was 5ft 11ins tall when he signed up for service in May 1915, so was able to convince the authorities he was at least 20 years old. He was though only 17, and he was still only 18 when he was killed in action on the Somme in September 1916. His cousin died in the same engagement and is named on the Caterpillar Valley Memorial.

26 April 2018.BERTY FITZCLARENCE ELLIOTT (Brooklyn) left behind his wife and young daughter when he signed up for military service and became a Sapper with the NZ Engineers. Though Berty and his family lived in Timaru, his parents lived in Brooklyn so would have organised his name to be included on the memorial on Sugarloaf Hill. He died in the Battle for Bapaume on 29 August 1918, one month after he turned 29.

17 April 2018. William MOUTON (Aro Valley) enlisted in June 1916 and was on active service until he died at the end of October 1918. However, he saw little action, as most of the time he was overseas he was hospitalised, having contracted trench fever. He eventually died of tubercular meningitis at the Red Cross Hospital in Torquay, Devon and was buried with 5 other NZ servicemen in their own memorial plot in Torquay Cemetery.

17 April 2018. HERBERT TUDOR BREWER (Brooklyn) was a small man, married with no children, who was conscripted mid-1918 and by the time he arrived at Brocton Camp, Staffordshire in October 1918 the Spanish flu epidemic was already wreaking havoc. Herbert was one of 49 men of the NZ Rifle Brigade at Brocton who died of influenza between 31 October and early December 1918. Ironically, Herbert's parents were from Staffordshire, so he lies for eternity in their home county.

28 March - 26 April 2018. During this period a programme of visits to the graves of the men who died on the Western Front and in England is being conducted. Updates to some of the pages on this website will be posted accordingly. Ernest BRIANT, James DUNN and Robert SINCLAIR have been visited so far (8 April).

3 April 2018. Little is known about Frank Hedley DUNNE. Born in England in 1879 he lived in New Zealand from 1907 and was working for the Government printing Office when he signed up for active service in May 1917. By March 1918 he was on the Western Front with the NZ Rifle Brigade, and only one month before the war ended he died from gunshot wounds to his right leg. It is not known who put forward his name for inclusion on the Brooklyn War Memorial.

2 April 2018. 100 years and 4 days ago Benjamin Henry DRIVER was killed on the Western Front. Benjamin was born in London, and arrived in New Zealand in 1911, following his older sister who married and settled in Brooklyn. Benjamin was 37 years old when he died. His sister is likely to have nominated him for commemoration on the Brooklyn War Memorial.

28 February 2018. V HALL is one of the names on the Aro Valley Memorial. Extensive research suggests this might be Victor Ivan HALL, even though there is no obvious link between Victor and the Aro Valley area. Victor signed up for active service in October 1917 but was medically discharged 59 days later - he was a haemophiliac. Haemophilia is an incurable genetic disorder where the blood has a severely reduced ability to clot. Victor died in New Plymouth in January 1920, of epistaxis (or nosebleed) followed by cardiac failure.

28 February 2018. George Irvine Mouat DRYDEN, known as Irvine, served for less than two years, and was on the Western Front during the battle for Messines in June 1917. However, he became ill and after hospitalisation in the UK he was returned to NZ, deemed unfit for active service. Once home, his illness was diagnosed as tuberculosis of the spine and he was discharged to Wellington Hospital where he died the day after discharge. Irvine was buried in the Public section of Karori Cemetery, Wellington, and was joined there next year by one of his brothers who also died of tuberculosis. His name is on the Brooklyn memorial - his family lived in Washington Avenue for many years.

4 February 2018. Martin (Mat) GRIFFIN was on active service for just under four years. He was wounded at Gallipoli, and spent more than two years on the Western Front in the Wellington Infantry Battalion. He was awarded the Military Medal "for acts of gallantry in the field", and rose through the ranks to become a Sergeant. He was killed only one month before the end of the war, and his name is commemorated forever on the Aro Valley War Memorial. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission, having been advised that the surname was misspelt - GRIFFEN - have changed their records and programmed work to replace his headstone at Romeries Communal Cemetery Extension.

3 February 2018. William Frederick ELFORD (Will) migrated to NZ with his parents and a brother in 1907 and 10 years later he enlisted for service with NZEF and was soon on his way back to England. He was with the NZ Rifle Brigade on the Western Front from late October 1917 until he was killed less than four months later, in February 1918. His name is amongst those on the Aro Valley Memorial.

7 January 2018. James and Mary Ann BRYANT arrived in Wellington in 1840 and were amongst the earliest European settler families to put down roots and establish themselves successfully in the new colony of New Zealand. John Ernest Bryant was one of their grandsons, who left the family farm in Ohariu Valley, on the rural outskirts of Johnsonville, Wellington, to go to the other side of the world to fight for King and Country. John never came home. When the residents of nearby Makara decided to erect a war memorial, John's name was included, indicating the close links between the farming communities of Ohariu and Makara.

6 January 2018. John Victor ROBERTS (Roseneath Memorial) was born in Douglas, Isle of Man, and when he signed up for service in New Zealand in 1915 he was still only 18 years old. He joined the NZFA (Field Artillery) and served for 3 years and 3 days before his luck ran out and he died from wounds received on 26 August 1918. He was still only 21 when he died.

2 January 2018. Hector Sidney MCDONALD's name is on the Aro Valley Memorial. He was a man of slight stature, described by the doctor when he was examined for service as "Of small stature but strong and wiry and always used to hard work’. Hector was a Private with the Wellington Infantry Regiment, and during the first Battle of Passchendaele (4 October 1917) he was one of those killed in action. His body was never able to be retrieved so his name is inscribed on the Tyne Cot Memorial.

7 November 2017. John Rutherford BORTHWICK's name is included on the Aro Valley Memorial, but so far no connection between Jack (as he was known) and the Aro Valley/Mitchelltown area has been found. He grew up in Dunedin, and had family in Golden Bay. He was living in Wellington at the time he signed up in August 1915, when he was only 18 years old, so two year's underage. He served in France for 14 months, and was killed in the the Battle for Messines, on 7 June 1917. He had turned 20 about 6 weeks earlier.

7 November 2017. Karl PEDERSEN's father migrated from Denmark to New Zealand in 1875, married, had six daughters and the family returned to Denmark in the early 1890's, where Karl was born. He eventually returned to live in Makara where one of his sisters had married and settled, and from there he signed up on 11 January 1916 at Trentham, a month before his 20th birthday. As an infantryman in the Wellington Regiment he managed to survive action on the Western Front for nearly two years, until finally copping shrapnel wounds to his chest, arm and leg on 5 June 1918. He died from these wounds on Saturday 8th June and was buried the next day.

7 November 2017. The Gallipoli campaign claimed the lives of many New Zealand men. Amongst them was Hall Martin DOWMAN, an infantryman with the Otago Infantry Battalion, who was reported as "missing" on 25 July 1915. Many months later - on 4 May 1916 - it was finally noted on his military personnel file: ‘Missing – Believed Dead. Dardanelles, on or about 28.7.15’. Martin’s name is listed at the Lone Pine Cemetery and Memorial at Canakkale, Turkey, as one of those whose final resting place is unknown. In New Zealand he is remembered at the Aro Valley War Memorial, close to where he lived in Mitchelltown, and on the War Memorial in the centre of Martinborough.

7 November 2017. Charles Matthias HERZOG signed up in April 1915 and was assigned to the NZ Rifle Brigade. He had been in France for a mere 6 weeks, and on in the front line for only two weeks when he was killed on 25 May 1916, not far from Armentieres. He had been a soldier for only 7 months and 14 days.

12 October 2017. Exactly 100 years ago LOGAN LEONARD DAVIDSON and WILLIAM SANDFORD EVENDEN died at Passchaendaele. Their lives until this fateful day had been very different, and their service with the NZEF had taken different pathways, but the outcome for both young men was the same. Their names are only two of nearly 1,200 men who are remembered on the New Zealand Memorial within the Tyne Cot Memorial.

7 October 2017. Abraham HADLEY was one of 15 brothers, seven of whom moved from their home in Forster, NSW, to find work and build their lives in New Zealand. Abraham was single and aged 46 when he signed up in 1917 and was sent to Samoa to be part of the Garrison force based in Apia. Life there was fairly dull until in November 1918 the influenza epidemic arrived in Apia and rapidly decimated the population. Abraham was one of seven men in the Garrison force to succumb and is buried in Magiagi Cemetery, Apia. He is named on the Brooklyn memorial, along with William McKenzie, another who died in Apia of the flu in November 1918.

7 October 2017. Ernest Jesse GOER was on the Western Front in France for exactly six weeks in the latter part of 1917 before he was killed. His total service was less than one year. He was a married man with two daughters, who he left with his wife in their cottage at 7 Thule Street, a steep walkway between Entrance Street in the Aro Valley and Raroa Road on the hillside above. His older brother also served and was killed at Passchendaele but his name is not amongst those on the Aro Valley Memorial, presumably because he had moved away before the war and no-one provided his details to the Committee raising funds for the memorial.

26 September 2017. BERT HILL was 32 years old when he signed up in 1916 and went to war as an infantryman in the Canterbury Regiment . By June 1917 he was amongst those preparing for the attack on Messines. He survived, though many didn't, and carried on until 12 October when he was one of the many NZ men killed during the Battle for Passchendaele. He's commemorated on the Brooklyn memorial. Read his story here.

6 September 2017. Which S SMITH? The names on the plaques on the Aro Valley memorial list men by their surnames and the initials of their first name or names. Those with a distinctive surname and more than one initial are easy enough to identify. However, if there is only one initial and the surname is not particularly unusual, it is much harder to work out who is the correct “owner” of the inscribed name. It’s even harder to do so if the surname is a common one. The person listed as ‘S Smith’ certainly fell into the hard-to-find category. Online Cenotaph (Auckland War Memorial Museum) lists 1,259 men and women with the surname “Smith” who served in the NZ Expeditionary Force in WW1. Using database filters this list was refined to identify those with only one initial - “S” – who had served in WW1. The list of possible men was thus reduced to 14 - three named Samuel, five named Sidney, three spelt Sydney, one called Stewart and two called Stanley. The same process of searching the military personnel files available online at National Archives revealed 19 files (including the 14 from the Online Cenotaph database) which met the criteria. The next step was to review each of the online files at Archives New Zealand to identify any men who might have had some contact with the Mitchelltown School, and had been killed in action. In the end, there was only one file for a man who was killed in action and had a next-of-kin living close to Mitchelltown School in the Aro Valley. It was the last file reviewed, and was the file for Sydney Smith, Regimental Number 56038. It was the file for a man whose name was spelt by the Army as Sydney, by others as Sidney, and whose parents used both possibilities! Read about the life of Sidney/Sydney SMITH here.

8 September 2017. WILLIAM JOHN OLIFF was under-age when he signed up in May 1915, and joined the newly formed New Zealand Rifle Brigade as a rifleman. He served for just over two years and eight months, and had just turned 21 when he died (21 February 1918) in the fighting in the Polygon Wood sector in the fighting around Ypres. Read abut him here.

19 August 2017. Data. A file has been added which lists all the men named on the five memorials. Their full details are added when their story is uploaded to the website. The page on which the file appears is creatively named "List".

19 August 2017. HENRY (HARRY) WARNER, of Holloway Road, Mitchelltown, was in France less than a month before he was killed on 4th October 1917 in the Battle of Broodseinde. He is one of the many New Zealand men commemorated on the New Zealand Memorial, Tyne Cot Cemetery, Belgium. Read about him here.

29 July 2017. DANIEL PATRICK McCARTHY signed up for active service 10 days after war was declared, sailed with the NZEF in early December 1914 to Egypt where he saw some action before being sent to Gallipoli. He was wounded, recovered, sent back to Gallipoli in late August, got sick with enteric in early September 1915, was evacuated again, and never went back into action, being sent home to New Zealand in March 1916. Immediately on his return he was admitted to Porirua Mental Asylum, where he died 11 months later. His tragic story is here.

19 July 2017. WILLIAM RICHARD HIGGS BOWDEN. William, known as Will, or Smiler, had 10 sisters and one brother. By the time Will signed up in May 1916 he was married with one daughter and another child on the way. His brother, Tom, who was somewhat older and a married man with four children, signed up four days later. Tom survived, but Will was killed in action around Messines on 17 June 1917. He was buried in Motor Car Corner Cemetery, just across the border in Belgium from Armentieres, France. Read about him here.

12 July 2017. WILLIAM MOUTON was the third of four sons of Polly and Daniel Mouton. Daniel abandoned the family in about 1895 and went to live in Perth, Western Australia, and served with the Australian forces during WW1. William signed up in June 1916, and spent much of his war service in hospital or convalescing. Two of his brothers also served, but survived. At the end of October 1918 William succumbed to illness and died at the Red Cross Hospital in Torquay. Read about him here.

8 July 2017. JAMES LESLIE HOWIE served in the NZEF from 12 August 1914 until his death on 1 September 1918, a total of 1,482 days. He was one of the Main Body which left New Zealand in October 1914, he fought in Gallipoli, and was on the Western Front. However, during this time he spent 9 months as a storeman in the Base Depot in Cairo, Egypt, 12 months in the UK after being wounded on the Somme in 1916, and also spent other spells in hospitals, and serving time for an ongoing series of misdemeanours and offences during his service. He was sentenced to both Field Punishment No. 1 and Field Punishment No. 2. He managed to marry a Scottish woman 10 years older than him, and then finally get killed in action as the Auckland Regiment was advancing around Bapaume in the final few months of the war. Read about his long service here.

18 June 2017. HENRY MORELAND JONES went to Samoa in August 1914, where there was little for the occupying soldiers to do other than get themselves into trouble. He signed on again in August 1915 and after training in Egypt was off to the Western Front and fighting on the Somme between April and September 1916. He was wounded on the first day of the Battle for Flers-Courclette (15 September) and killed the next day when a shell landed alongside him as he left the Regimental First Aid Post where he had received treatment. Read about him here.

7 June 2017. DAVID MORRIS LAWSON signed up on 15 May 1915 and by March 1916 he was on his way to the Western Front after spending most of his time in Egypt in hospital. He had several more periods in hospital, one time suffering from shell shock, and another time after being wounded. Finally, in May 1917, he was back at the front line amongst those preparing for the attack on Messines. When the high explosives in the tunnels around Messines blew just before dawn on 7 June 1917 signalling the start of the Battle of Messines Morris was one of the infantrymen ready to be launched into the attack. Read abut his war here.

29 May 2017. LEONARD WILFORD CULVERWELL was born in Woolwich, London, and emigrated to New Zealand around 1908-1910. He served from 1915 as a Gunner with the NZ Field Artillery, suffered a severe illness, and was killed in France less than 2 months before Armistice Day, aged only 23. Read about him here.

1 May 2017. LESLIE ALFRED HOWARD MOORE never saw active service, spending 10 months in camp in New Zealand after signing up in May 1917. He was on the ill-fated "Tahiti" which left New Zealand in July 1918, and called in to Sierra Leone in West Africa en route for Devonport in England.There an early phase of the influenza virus that was to cause millions of deaths worldwide in November and December 1918 was brought on board. Alfred was one of the 68 men who succumbed and he was buried at sea on 2 September. Read about his otherwise unexceptional life here.

26 April 2017. WILLIAM EDWARD RAMSAY is one of two men named on the Makara Memorial who was not born in New Zealand. William was from the Shetland Isles but had migrated to New Zealand in 1914, and enlisted three years later. He, like James LEYS, was with an Entrenching Battalion when he was killed, at the beginning of May 1918, and the two men may have known each other. Although he never married his relationships in Makara are indicative of the close ties between local families through intermarriages. Read William's story here.

23 April 2017. JAMES ROBERT RUXTON LEYS, known as Jim, was amongst the first to sign up for military service, left New Zealand in the Main Body in October 1914, and then served until his death in April 1918. Along the way he was brought home to be commissioned as a officer, was subject to a court martial for drunkenness, and won the Military Cross in the action which killed him. And he was still only 22 when he died. Read abut him here.

7 April 2017. LOUIS WILLIAM SIEVERS was a farm boy from a long established Makara family who used the names Louis, Lewis and William in various combinations for many of their sons. Sorting out the facts about L W SIEVERS named on the Makara memorial has been challenging, especially as the military personnel file for Louis William Sievers recorded an incorrect birthdate. Louis was survived the slaughter of the Battle of Passchendaele, but was killed not long after the Broodseinde area, a few kilometres south of the village of Passchendaele and close to where Tyne Cot cemetery now dominates the landscape. Read what has been found out about him and his family here.

2 February 2017. WILLIAM HENRY MCKENZIE's experience of WW1 was very different from all the others whose stories have been told on this website so far. He was older when he signed up for service in the Samoa Relief Force and became one of those who took over from the Advance Force in April 216, and then maintained a radio wireless station for the duration. He spent 3.5 years in Samoa, His service record suggests he was bored and had little to do, and as a result was fractious and kept getting into trouble. In the end he died in Apia (the capital of Samoa) during the influenza epidemic which decimated the Samoan population in November and December 1918. Someone then made sure his service, and death while on active service, was commemorated on four war memorials, Brooklyn being only one of them. Read about William's war service here.

1 February 2017. KENNETH RITCHIE MURRAY served less time in the field than he did being prepared for active service. He was with the NZ Engineers, and was killed during the Third Battle of Ypres, on 26 November 1917. His family lived in Brooklyn, and accordingly his name is amongst those inscribed on the Brooklyn Memorial.

4 January 2017. Benjamin MOLLISON had a long and distinguished service record before being killed in action on 21 March 1918. He had been awarded the Military Cross, promoted to the rank of 2nd Lieutenant, and had participated in most of the major battles on the Somme in which the NZ Division were involved throughout the two years prior to his death. His connection to Brooklyn is tenuous, and his name on the monument is incorrect. We believe though that R. MOLLINSON on the Brooklyn Memorial plaque is in fact Benjamin Mollison.

19 December 2016. INDEX OF NAMES. If you want to quickly find out what names are on the Memorials, simply click on the heading page for each Memorial, and scan the names listed. This saves scrolling down the slowly increasing list of pages under each Memorial heading. The men who have been written about and their stories uploaded to this website are noted in red.

1 December 2016. James Cooper MILL was a young lad when he followed his sister, brother-in-law and their two young children to Wellington in 1912 from the familiar streets of Dundee, Scotland. At 16 he was already in the workforce, and by the time he was 21 he was dead on the battlefields of France. Read about him here.

26 November 2016. James Alexander WILSON was an academically gifted and an excellent young sportsman, who was studying at Victoria University College and working as teacher at Roseneath School before signing up for active service in 1915 when he was still only 19 years old. His family circumstances, and his war record, which included being awarded a Military Medal, has proven to be somewhat elusive, mainly because his surname is common, and details on his military personnel file are less than helpful as to detail.

24 September 2016. Two new biographies have been added, both of men named on the Aro Valley Memorial. They are father and son, William and Henry Hampton. William was killed in action about 20 days after his son was wounded in an action which resulted in him being awarded the Military Medal. Henry survived and returned to New Zealand, living until the age of 83. Henry is named on the "main" panels of the Aro Valley Memorial.

5 September 2016. John Bruce WEST seems to have been known as Bruce when he attended Roseneath School. By the time he was 19 he was 6 ft. tall, and was able to enlist by claiming to be two years older. He was killed before he reached enlistment age, in action in Armentieres in France one month before his 20th birthday, and only 8 months after signing up for military service. Read about his tragically short life here.

4 September 2016. John Black SMITH lead an unexceptional life, for 23 years, but died during the Battle of the Somme, on 6th October 1916. He served in the Ammunition Column of the Field Artillery, so was ensuring the guns were kept supplied with ammunition during battles.

26 July 2016. Thanks to Facebook, a terrific photo of the Brooklyn Memorial taken by an unknown photographer in the 1930's has come to light, and has been added here. Take a look and see just how prominent it was when built and for years after, before housing encroached and reduced it's impact on the landscape. The Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/Old-Wellington-Region-624647914290150/?fref=nf

20 July 2016. The life story of Ernest George BRIANT has been one of the more elusive. He is named on the Newlands Memorial but information about his life is almost non-existent. His name was finally located on a Commonwealth War Graves Commission memorial at Tower Hill in London. Find out how this connected him to Newlands here.

20 June 2016. The story of Charles Edgar Makeham is different again from any of the others posted so far on this website. He was on the Western Front in 1916, then trained to be an officer at Cambridge University, was returned to NZ to train and accompany new conscripts to France, where he was assigned to the NZ Rifle Brigade and lost his life in the Battle of Havrincourt on 12 September 1918. His story was researched initially by Ann, one of our regular contributors, and significant detail has been added by Zane, our military history adviser. Zane has also contributed an image gallery illustrating many aspects of Charles's service.

25 May 2016. Harry Monaghan was the seventh, posthumous child of Henry Monaghan and his wife Sarah , a farming family of Makara. Harry's military file contains scant detail about his service, but it is clear that he was fighting in the Battle of the Somme in July 1916, dying at the very end on 1 August.

20 May 2016. The first post in 2016 is the result of some very challenging and dogged research. H.H. NELSON, one of the names on the Aro Valley Memorial, has been particularly difficult to trace, and verifiable information about him is scarce. There are lots of gaps in his story, and a number of assumptions have been made. Read what we have found out about him anyway - he seems to have signed up with a British regiment in Yorkshire and served with them on the Somme for many months.

19 December 2015. James DUNN's story is one of those which represents the range of different experiences men had during WW1. He never made it to the front line, falling victim to what became known as the Spanish 'flu en route to the UK in September 1918.

11 December 2015. COMING SOON - two more stories are in the pipeline, both fascinating but utterly different examples of the experiences and service men had during WW1. Keep watching this space.

23 November 2015. Hubert George SCOTT died aged not quite 23 years old less than two months before the end of hostilities. He had been fighting in France for only 6 months. Read about him here.

15 November 2015. Herbert HODDER died on the Somme, in September 1916, after enlisting only nine months earlier. He was killed in action, buried where he fell, and the following year exhumed and reburied in Serre Road Cemetery No. 2, alongside four comrades in arms. Read about him here.

8 November 2015. The GREEKS family of Brooklyn lost two sons in WW1, the younger in August 1917, and the older in October the same year. Claude had served less than 12 months, and Raynor almost exactly one year. Read about them and their family here.

24 September 2015. Audley Charles Hyde MILLAR's story is different from the others told on this website so far. After initial service with the NZ Advance Force in Samoa he took himself to England and got a commission with the 3rd Battalion Yorkshire Regiment (Green Howards). He was joined in this venture by a friend Alan Miller, who is not named on the Brooklyn Memorial, but the outline of Alan's story has been included here. Audley was decorated for Meritorious Service, being awarded the Military Cross only three months before he was killed on the outskirts of Ypres, aged 33.

3 September 2015. The story of Richard Newman and his family has been a collaborative effort with descendants of his siblings, who have done lots of research into his military career and visited the locale where he died and is buried. Their contributions have been integrated into the story wherever possible.

13 August 2015. The story of John Howard JERVIS, the first of the seven men named on the memorial at Makara, a small rural settlement on the outskirts of Wellington, is now available here.

29 July 2015. The latest addition provides a brief but illuminating description of some of the basic fighting units of the New Zealand Army during WW1 - helpful to those of us who have never studied military history or know nothing about what different military terms mean.

27 July 2015. William Campbell PICKERING was 36 when he signed up for war service. He was a married man, with a wife and two children. He was assigned to the NZ Medical Corps when he signed up in March 1915, and shortly after landing in Egypt in mid-1915 he boarded the ill-fated Marquette, along with John Bruno WALTER, also from Brooklyn. Read what happened to him during his short-lived war service here.

27 July 2015. Edward Percy SMITH (Brooklyn Memorial) is typical of many of the young men killed during WW1 - he was young, hadn't achieved anything outstanding in his short life, or at least nothing that featured in the papers of the time - and and his military career was short-lived and not noteworthy. He received no promotions nor medals. His family appear not to have put In Memoriam notices in the papers after he died so traces of his life are few and far between. He's named on the Tyne Cot Memorial, the first of the men in this website to be killed fighting for Passchendaele. Read about him here.

26 June 2015. The latest addition to this site is the first to be written about from the names on the Aro Valley memorial. Kenneth James Tait is the first of "our" men who received a decoration for his bravery in the field - the Military Cross. The only medal which has higher status is the Victoria Cross, so his bravery was of a very high order. Kenneth also served in the Palestine Campaign, so his experiences of fighting in the desert, against the Turks, was very different from those who fought in the Western Front. Kenneth also signed up very early after war was declared, and was amongst those who served first of all in Samoa. Read more about Kenneth, his family background, his military award and his service record here.

11 June 2015. Ever wondered about medals, awards and decorations? Read about those awarded to NZers during and at the end of WW1 here.

11 June 2015. There's not really a lot to say about Charles Huntly ROSE as there aren't many records about him and his family. He wasn't so young when he signed up - he was 27 - and he'd married the previous year, and had a son three weeks before enlisting. Nevertheless, he was keen to "do his bit". Read what we have found about him here.

31 May 2015. John Wilson has provided useful information about searching for New Zealand military personnel using the Archway facility at National Archives. Read about it here.

31 May 2015. John Bruno WALTER lost his life in a tragic incident at sea. He was one of those who drowned when the SS Marquette was sunk on the way to set up a Stationary Hospital during the Gallipoli campaign in 1915. Read about him, and the sinking, here.

18 May 2015 Another Jack has been added - Jack Dick SHADDICK. His origins are a bit of a mystery and there has been much speculation about him and his family, though only some of the theories have been canvassed here

13 May 2015 The name J C Clark is on the Newlands Memorial but there is no obvious connection between John Cameron CLARK and the Newlands/Johnsonville area. If Trooper John Clark Regimental Number 11/866 is the right man, he died on the battlefields of Gallipoli after only two weeks in the field. Read about him here.

21 April 2015 John TEAZE was so determined to "do his bit" he signed up for a second time a mere 8 days after being discharged as medically unfit after 232 days service in New Zealand and Egypt. Read more about what happened here.

20 April 2015. Wllliam Robert McVicar signed up and embarked on training at Trentham but died before he left New Zealand. Read about what happened to him here

18 April 2015. There was a story about the Bridge family in the DomPost during the week - you can view it here
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/67735229/wellington-family-honoured-their-ancestor-is-face-of-wwi-commemorations

The story in the article is not the same as that covered in our research. Although there were indeed 10 sons in the family, 2 died as infants, and 4 fought in WW1, not 8 of them. The general thrust of the article - that one family made a major contribution to the war effort - is one with which we can only agree, however.

Read the story according to our research here

12 April 2015
Brooklyn Memorial: Arthur Smith
Newlands Memorial: John Albert "Bert" Barlow

9 March 2015

Brooklyn Memorial: Alexander Smith

7 March 2015

Brooklyn Memorial: Robert Alexander Sinclair