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Dargaville memorial town clock

Dargaville memorial town clock

Dargaville clock war memorial c1986.

In 1923 Dargaville solicitor Mr G.N. Hayes undertook to present a town clock to the people of Dargaville, in memory of his late partner, Charles Darling, who had been killed in the First World War, and as a memorial to fallen soldiers from the district. The clock was installed in the tower of the Dargaville Post Office building (opened in 1914). On 7 March 1925 Mr Hayes formally presented the clock to Postmaster-General Gordon Coates; Mrs Hayes then ceremonially pulled the ribbon which started the clock.

The building, on the corner of Normanby Street and Hokianga Road, no longer serves as a post office, but is listed as a Category I heritage building. Read more about this building on Heritage New Zealand's website

See also: ‘Memorial Town Clock: Presentation to Dargaville’, Northern Advocate, 3/11/1923, p. 5; ‘Dargaville Town Clock: Memorial to Soldiers’, NZ Herald, 7/11/1923, p. 10; ‘Gift of Town Clock’, NZ Herald, 18/2/1925, p. 2; ‘Time at a Glance: Dargaville’s New Clock’, Auckland Star, 9/3/1925, p. 4; ‘Dargaville Clock: Presentation Ceremony’, NZ Herald, 25/3/1925, p. 10; ‘Celebrating a Century’, Kaipara Lifestyler, 23/9/2014.

Keywords

dargaville
Credit

Image: Jock Phillips and Chris Maclean, c1986; text: Bruce Ringer, Auckland Libraries, 2016

How to cite this page

'Dargaville memorial town clock', URL: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/photo/dargaville-war-memorial, (Ministry for Culture and Heritage), updated 21-Sep-2021

Community contributions

4 comments have been posted about Dargaville memorial town clock

What do you know?

admin

Posted: 11 Aug 2010

Thanks for this, Stuart. I'll add this link to our page: Post Office (former), Dargaville (NZHPT register)

Stuart Park

Posted: 11 Aug 2010

The building is the former Post Office, opened in Dargaville in 1914. It is a Category I historic place. When opened, it had a tower, but no clock. In March 1925, G N Hayes presented the clock 'as a memorial to his late partner Lt Charles Darling and other men from the Northern Wairoa who made the supreme sacrifice in the Great War, 1914 - 1918'. Now privately owned, the former Post Office is currently (August 2010) undergoing conservation with funding assistance from NZ Historic Places Trust. The building has had a variety of tenants, one of which was a church group.

Anonymous*

Posted: 23 Jul 2009

last time i was in Dargaville the Dargaville wall memorial clock was a church... what happened?