Governor-General Viscount Jellicoe unveiled the Morrinsville and District First World War memorial on 30 April 1922. This is a tall granite obelisk on an elevated site in Howie Park (donated by Mr G Howie as a memorial park) on the eastern side of the township. The dedication on the front of the obelisk reads:
TO THE GLORY OF GOD / AND IN MEMORY OF THE MEN / FROM THIS DISTRICT / WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES / IN THE GREAT WAR / 1914 - 1918. / THEIR NAMES ARE INSCRIBED HEREON / - / THIS MONUMENT / WAS ERECTED BY THE PEOPLE / OF MORRINSVILLE / AND SURROUNDING DISTRICTS.
There are on two other faces a total of 71 names. The first listed is - unusually - a clergyman: Rev. C.A. Mallett C.M., a former vicar of Morrinsville, who died in a hut fire in France in September 1918 (he was one of seven New Zealand military chaplains who died as a result of service in the First World War).
See: 'War memorial unveiled at Morrinsville', Auckland Star, 1/5/1922, p. 7; P.S. Hanan, Lest We Forget: The History of Morrinsville's RSA, Morrinsville, 2004, pp. 54-7.
Main image: Jock Phillips and Chris Maclean, c1986
Other images: Ang Wickham, 2010 and Bruce Ringer, 2014
Text: Bruce Ringer, 2024