Whanganui Regional Museum preserves what may be New Zealand's second-earliest surviving New Zealand Wars memorial (the earliest was the HMS Hazard memorial headboard erected outside Christ Church, Russell in 1845). The Whanganui memorial is a wooden tablet made from two boards shaped as a double-lancet. It is dedicated to the memory of ten British soldiers and sailors who died at Whanganui between February 1847 and September 1848. The inscription reads:-
SACRED / TO / THE / MEMORY / OF / [these words flanked by figures of soldiers]
THE FOLLOWING MEN OF THE ROYAL ARTILLERY / 58TH REGIMENT & H.M.S. CALLIOPE / - /
[there follow eight names in two columns]
[left-hand column] GUNNER WILLIAM CONNOLLY / DIED 21ST JULY 1847 / OF WOUNDS, / RECEIVED IN ACTION / AGED 29 YEARS / - / PRIVATE JOHN MCMORAN / DROWNED / 18TH JANUARY 1847 / AGED 21 YEARS / PRIVATE WILLIAM WEBSTER / DIED / 26TH FEBRUARY 1847 AGED 22 YEARS / CORPORAL DENNIS NEVILLE / DROWNED / 30TH MARCH 1847 / AGED 21 YEARS / - /
[right-hand column] PRIVATE SAM SCULTHORPE / KILLED / 10TH MAY 1847 / AGED 26 YEARS / PRIVATE WILLIAM WELLER / KILLED IN ACTION / 19TH JULY, 1847 / AGED 30 YEARS /
SEAMAN JOHN CLATWORTHY / DROWNED 30TH MARCH 1847/ AGED 22 YEARS / - / ALSO / PRIVATE JOSEPH SPRATT / 65TH REGIMENT / KILLED IN ACTION / 19TH JULY 1847 / AGED 28 YEARS / - / - /
THIS MONUMENT IS ERECTED BY THE OFFICERS / NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICER AND PRIVATES OF THE ROYAL /ARTILLERY AND 58TH REGIMENT STATIONED AT WANGANUI / - /
[there follow two further names]
[left] LIKEWISE / PRIVATE JOHN MOONY / 58TH REGIMENT / DIED 5TH NOVEMBER 1847 / AGED 28 YEARS / - /
[right] ALSO / PRIVATE GEORGE MCALLISTER / 65TH REGIMENT / DROWNED 11TH SEPTEMBER 1848 / AGED 32 YEARS / - /
The exact date it was installed in Whanganui's first Anglican church has not been recorded, but was presumably 1847 or 1848 (the 58th Regiment left Wanganui in October 1847 but the last two deaths recorded may have been added afterwards).
The original church building was replaced by the first Christ Church in 1866. The original tablet was replaced by a brass plaque unveiled there in 1894 (with some minor changes made to the layout and wording).
The tablet then spent some years in storage at the local Drill Hall, before being transferred to St John's Anglican Church, Matarawa, in 1909. In 1964, because of fire risk, it was deposited in the Whanganui Regional Museum. There it remains today (although not on display). The replica plaque is found in St Peter’s Anglican Church, Gonville - the original Christ Church, where it was transferred on 11 September 1988.
See:Whanganui Regional Museum website; 'Table talk', Auckland Star, 26/6/1894, p. 1; ‘Special Volunteer church parade: unveiling of the soldiers' memorial tablet’, Wanganui Herald, 5/11/1894, p. 2; 'Christ Church: Unveiling of soldiers' memorial tablet', Wanganui Chronicle, 5/11/1894, p. 7; J. Bryant Haigh, 'A relic of the Maori War in the Wanganui area', The Volunteers, vol. 29, no. 2, March 2003, pp. 14-15; Lyndall Ryan & Jeff Hopkins-Weise, ‘Memorialising the New Zealand Wars of 1845-47', in Tutu Te Puehu: New Perspectives on the New Zealand Wars, ed. John Crawford & Ian McGibbon, Wellington, 2018, pp. 407-31.
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