History of the Memorial
Although Parliament approved a national war memorial in 1919, the country was halfway towards the next world war before the foundation stone was laid. In the meantime the Wellington Citizens' War Memorial Committee grabbed a prominent site near Parliament for its monument. Finally, in 1928 the government approved an inner-city Mount Cook site for an art gallery, museum, and forty-nine-bell carillon, the last to house bells funded by a public subscription campaign led by Sir Harold Beauchamp.
The Design
Gummer and Ford's winning design.
Architects Gummer and Ford won the prize for their design. Their museum is in a heavy, stripped classical style, but their carillon is a thoroughly modern art deco 'erect phallic shape'. Work began in 1931 and was completed for an Anzac Day 1932 dedication when Governor-General Lord Bledisloe switched on the Lamp of Remembrance atop the tower and the Evening Post reported hearing 'magic from the skies'.
Just over 50 metres tall, New Zealand's only carillon is one of the largest in the world. Its art deco qualities have been recognised by a Category I Historic Places Trust registration. The Carillon's weekly recitals, often commemorating important battles, added a new feature to Wellington life.
Hall of Memories
Although the museum was opened in 1936, the planned Hall of Memories fell victim to first the Depression, then the Second World War. The first plans were prepared in 1937, and Gummer and Ford forwarded a new set in 1949, but the project did not go to tender until 1960. Graham & Son, builder of the Carillon, won the job, which it completed in 1964, just two years before Gummer's death.
Recesses commemorate the services and campaigns. Four Rolls of Honour bear the names and ranks of the 28,654 New Zealanders who have died in conflicts from the South African (Boer) War to the Vietnam War. Lyndon Smith's bronze statue of a family group forms the focal point for the complex, which is visited by approximately 20,000 people a year.
Maintaining the Memorial
The dedication of the National War Memorial on Anzac Day, 1932.
The Carillon's Putaruru stone had badly deteriorated by the late 1950s. Although repairs were approved as part of the Hall of Memories project, work did not finally begin until 1981-82. Among other things, a section of the campanile was replastered, Canaan marble replaced the Putaruru stone, and the metal louvres, window frames, and grilles were replaced.
In 1985 the Carillon, increased to sixty-five bells, was restored, ready for rededication in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II in the following year. (In 1995 the original specification for bells would finally be achieved; four large bass bells were added to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War.)
The mid-1980s conservation work rectified the structural problems, but did nothing for the memorial's increasingly unfortunate location. Its link to the city, the planned tree-lined boulevard from Buckle Street to Courtenay Place, had never been built and during the 1980s planned motorway extensions (not proceeded with) posed a further threat. The Museum of New Zealand's departure for its new waterfront site in 1998 has left this important structure more isolated than ever. At century's end its setting was marred by an adjacent petrol station.
Further information
C. McLean, For Whom the Bell Tolls: A History of the National War Memorial (Heritage Group, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington, 1998).
See also essays on William Henry Gummer and Charles Reginald Ford on the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography website.
Adapted from an essay by Gavin McLean in McGibbon, I (ed) Oxford Companion to New Zealand Military History (OUP, 2000).
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