Memorials register

Page 3 – About the memorials register

The memorials register is an ongoing project to document memorials throughout New Zealand.

The register includes the majority of civic First World War memorials and memorials from the New Zealand Wars and South African War. Coverage of the Second World War is less complete. The register also includes some peace memorials, a number of memorials commemorating the victims of accidents, disasters and pandemics, and a few memorials relating to other events. It may be possible to add further non-military memorials (e.g., centennial memorials) in the future.

Beginnings

A register of 453 public First World War memorials was initially compiled by Jock Phillips. More about some of these memorials can be found in Jock Phillips and Chris Maclean, The sorrow and the pride: New Zealand war memorials (1990) and Jock Phillips, To the memory: New Zealand’s war memorials (2016).

Since the register was launched, many more memorials have been added, largely thanks to contributions by members of the public.

Each record contains information about the location and appearance of the memorial. Some records include the unveiling date and the number of soldiers listed, and some records contain information on the history of the memorial.

How you can help

There are gaps in the records. We invite you to check whether your local memorials are on the register. We are keen to add more lists of the names that appear on the memorials – either as transcriptions or as images of the plaques.

We also welcome images where these are missing from the register. If you are sending digital images, please scan these at a high resolution - 200dpi or 300dpi - and send them to us as .jpg files. Please do not resize images before sending. We are also keen to record the exact location of memorials where this is known.

If you can help with these projects, please send your information to [email protected] and we will add it to the register.

You can post images to us at: Production Team, Delivery Group, Ministry for Culture and Heritage, PO Box 5364, Wellington.

Suggestion for teachers

Teachers, why not use the register for a class project on your local memorial? You might want to get your students to find out more about the people listed on it and create a web project for your school website. Please let us know if you do this and we will link to it.

Acknowledgements

The memorials register would not have been possible without the contributions of many volunteers all over New Zealand who have generously sent in images, contextual information and geo-location data. We are very grateful to everyone who has helped out over the years.

We would particularly like to acknowledge the contributions of Glennis Austin, Bruce Cavanagh, Christine Chambers, Bruce Comfort, John Halpin, Ron Lambert, Stuart Park, Bruce Ringer, Ann Robbie, Charles Ropitini and Francis Vallance.

About the memorials

Read an essay on First World War memorials by Jock Phillips.

How to cite this page

'About the memorials register', URL: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/about-the-memorials-register, (Ministry for Culture and Heritage), updated 1-Dec-2021