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Rotorua RSA Memorial
NZRSA Memorial at Rotorua
Don Stafford

Historian Don Stafford CBE MBE spent most of his long career championing the history and heritage of his beloved city, Rotorua. He authored numerous books, including the award winning Te Arawa: A History of the Arawa People, and, as the city’s official historian, two major books on the history of Rotorua area.

Don Stafford
Rotorua historian Don Stafford, (1927-2010)
Guide Sophia
Sophia Hinerangi, circa 1895. She wears a korowai.
Guide Sophia

Best known as ‘Guide Sophia’ (but sometimes also as Te Paea or Tepaea), Hinerangi was the principal tourist guide of the famous Pink and White Terraces at Lake Rotomahana. Following their destruction during the Mt Tarawera eruption of 1886, she became a tour guide at nearby Whakarewarewa, Rotorua.

Joe Warbrick

Joe Warbrick was the captain and undisputed leader of the New Zealand Natives' tour of Britain in 1888-89, the first New Zealand representative rugby team to tour beyond Australia. 

He was born in Rotorua in 1861, the third son of English immigrant Abraham Warbrick and his Maori wife, Nga Karauna Paerau, the daughter of a Ngati Rangithi chief. Four brothers would join him in the team that left New Zealand for Britain in the winter of 1888.

Maori voters at Rotorua, about 1908
Maori men and women congregate outside the Rotorua courthouse on election day, possibly in 1908.
Four killed by Rotorua geyser
Guide Joseph Warbrick and three tourists were killed instantly when Waimangu geyser, then one of the largest and most active in the world, erupted unexpectedly.
Railway station booking office
Travellers queue to buy tickets at the Rotorua railway station booking office in the early 1930s. The inter-war years were the heyday of rail tourism in New Zealand. The office is decorated with posters and maps advertising rail trips, and it also includes a Government Tourist Bureau kiosk.
Film: Guide Rangi shows Queen around Whakarewarewa, 1954
Guide Rangi shows the Queen around a traditional Maori village and the impressive geysers at Whakarewarewa
Maori reception of Royal couple at Rotorua, 1954
The Duke of Edinburgh receives a gift during the Maori reception at Rotorua while Minister of Maori Affairs, E.B. Corbett looks on
Royal couple at Whakarewarewa, 1954
Image of Queen watching Maori kids jumping off bridge
Departure of Maori soldiers, 1944
Mai Te Kapoterangi (holding child) and Turei Karaka (with cigarette) farewell Tei Tihi (second from left) and Kumeroa Te Kapoterangi (third from left) as reinforcements for the Maori Battalion depart from Rotorua in January 1944.
Rotorua South African War memorial
Memorial to F Wylie in the Government Gardens, Rotorua. He was a Galatea soldier that fought in the Sth African War .
Rotorua First World War memorial
Rotorua First World War memorial cenotaph
Arawa war memorial, Rotorua
The Arawa memorial in the gardens at Rotorua. The figure on top is George V, the panel below shows the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. The sculptor was W.H. Feldon. See also the other memorial by W.H. Feldon at Matakana. Jock Phillips and Chris Maclean, c1986
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