On 16 January 1923 the Bishop of Waiapu unveiled a soldiers’ memorial stained glass window in Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Tauranga. This depicted the crucifixion of Christ. Three marble memorial tablets installed below the window recorded the names of the parish’s 43 fallen.
The memorial window joined a number of individual memorial plaques or tablets which had previously been installed in the church: to F.H. Dodson (d. 25 April 1915), Edgar F. Sheppard (d. 8 May 1915), George Henry Webbe [Tobin] (d. 15 September 1916) Thomas Clemson (September 1915) and Clive Franklyn Collett (d. 23 December 1917). Colonel G.A. Ward had also donated a brass lectern in memory of his son Sidney Lancelot Ward (d. 25 August 1918).
The memorial window was destroyed when the old Holy Trinity church building burnt down in 1999. The memorial plaques and tablets survived, as did the lectern, and are now housed in a memorial alcove off the new church’s lobby. The alcove also houses the colours of the Sixth Hauraki Regiment, laid up in 1973.
Sources: ‘Soldiers’ Memorial Window Unveiled’, Bay of Plenty Times, 18/1/1923, p. 3; ‘War Memorial Window: Unveiling at Tauranga’, NZ Herald, 19/1/1923, p. 6; Holy Trinity Church, Tauranga, 1875-1975, pp. 13-14, 23; Christine Clement, Te Puke and District World War One Memorial, Te Puke, 2013, pp. 38-41.
Bruce Ringer, Auckland Libraries, 2014