Mt Eden Congregational Church memorials

The Mt Eden Congregational Church and Sunday School Roll of Honour was unveiled on 16 December 1919. This had been presented to the church by Mr and Mrs J.E. Moore in memory of their son, Captain W.E. Moore, M.C. The memorial tablet was made of fumed oak and inscribed in gold lettering with the names of 76 men from the church who had seen active service during the war, 17 of whom had made the supreme sacrifice.

The list of those who served included the church’s minister, the Rev. H. Steele Craik, who left New Zealand as a chaplain with the 20th Reinforcements in 1916.

On 11 March 1923 a memorial stained glass window presented by Mr J.P. Hooton was also unveiled. This was a reproduction of Sir Noel Paton’s famous painting ‘Lux in Tenebris.’ Underneath was a brass tablet inscribed with the words ‘Pro Deo et pro Patria’ and the names of the 17 men who had given their lives: H.G. Budd, R. Fletcher, F. Goodfellow, G. Goodfellow, R.H. Gutteridge, F. C. Jacka, S. Jacka, R. Lambert, A.G. Lee, S. Long, H. Madill, W.E. Moore, W.C. Rimmer, S.W. Rowe, A. Seabrook, E.C. Smith and R. Ward.

After the Second World War a second, smaller tablet was unveiled listing the names of four men killed in action: H.D. Ball, C.S. Brown, D.G. Carnachan and H.W. LeBailly.

The Mt Eden Congregational Church became a Presbyterian Church (St James) in 1969. It subsequently became the home of the Mt Eden Pacific Islanders Presbyterian Church. In 2012 the church was closed and put on the market, although occasional services were held there until 2017. In December 2018 the church hall, which had been built as the original church in 1885, burnt down. In September 2020 the church building, which dated from 1900, was put on the market again, with a resource consent for conversion into apartments.

See: ‘Services in the War: Church Roll of Honour’, NZ Herald, 17/12/1919, p. 10; ‘Roll of Honour Unveiled’, Auckland Star, 17/12/1919, p. 10; ‘Memorial Window: An Impressive Service’, Auckland Star, 12/3/1923, p. 7; J.B. Chambers, “A Peculiar People”: Congregationalism in New Zealand, Levin, 1984, pp. 51-3, 237; ‘Historic hall and church under threat’, NZ Herald, 7/5/2012; 'Huge fire destroys historic church in Auckland's Mt Eden', NZ Herald, 30/12/2018: 'Ripe for conversion', Weekend Herald, 30/12/2018, D1; 'Ripe for conversion', Weekend Herald, 19/9/2020, D1.