My Account
By Judy Waters, Warkworth & District Museum
On loan to the Warkworth Museum for the World War I exhibition is the octagonal district War Memorial, which once held pride of place in the Warkworth Town Hall. Each of the eight panels represents an area of the old Rodney County and lists the World War I soldiers from that immediate vicinity. What a remarkable piece of history it is!
As the names are read, many are recognised as the sons and grandsons of pioneer settler families. It is sobering to note the number of young men from each tiny settlement. There are 44 listed from Matakana, 33 from Leigh, 28 from Streamlands and more than a 100 from Warkworth. Of the 43 Puhoi names, six have the surname Turnwald and five are from the Lennan family. Brothers and cousins went to war, and for those left at home, how difficult it must have been with such a shortage of manpower.
After months of planning, the World War I exhibition at the museum is now complete. It is mostly the work of Jean Gardner, the museum displays coordinator. She enlisted help from most of the other departments and the engineers from the big shed made the obelisk and stands, and textiles, artefacts and archives all made a contribution.
The museum is indebted to the Dill and Guest families who made the uniforms on display available. The full dress mess uniform belonged to Frederick Gordon Dill, a farmer from Kaipara Flats, who was one of eight local men who went into training camp in August 1914, just eight days after war was declared. He had a distinguished military career, served in both World Wars and died aged 95 years.
The uniform contributed by the Guest family belonged to Donald Raymond Guest who went into camp in August 1915. The week before his army life began, he had practiced with the town band, played his usual game of hockey and taken a group of children down the river in his launch to visit Mrs Lushington and view her famous collection of paintings. He served in the N Z Rifle Brigade and must have been a very slim young man as his uniform does not fully fasten on the model.
The display features more than 130 poppies made by Jean. Poppy day became a tradition in Rodney in 1930 when the newly-formed Rodney Returned Soldiers Association ordered 750 poppies and arranged for them to be sold throughout the county. Many ex-servicemen were experiencing hardship during the depression years and the profit from poppy sales was used to give some help to needy cases. On happier occasions, the former soldiers would gather in the Town Hall for their annual ball and the memorial would be festooned with poppies in memory of absent friends. A cold winter’s day could be a good time to visit the museum and spend some time viewing the World War I memorabilia.
