Port Chalmers South African War memorial

Port Chalmers South African War memorial

Port Chalmers South African War memorial, c1986.

Port Chalmers South African War memorial Port Chalmers South African War memorial Port Chalmers South African War memorial Port Chalmers South African War memorial Centennial dedication Centennial dedication

The memorial in 2011, showing details of plaques.

The building was originally built as the Port Chalmers Borough Council municipal offices in 1888.

The plaque near the doorway commemorates four Port Chalmers men who died in the war: James Cashman (who served in Steinaecker's Horse), Samuel Walker Gourley, John Patrick Salter and Charles Kefford Ward.

The Governor of New Zealand Lord Plunket unveiled this plaque on the Port Chalmers band rotunda on 30 November 1906. When the band rotunda was demolished in 1939, the plaque was transferred to its present site on the exterior wall of the town hall.

Another South African War plaque was unveiled outside the Port Chalmers Maritime Museum, on 1 June 2002, the day after the centennial of the signing of the Peace of Vereeniging at Pretoria, Transvaal, on 31 May 1902. This plaque records the names of the ships and the dates on which contingents of the NZ Mounted Rifles embarked or disembarked at Port Chalmers and Dunedin during and after the war.

The museum also displays in its collection a copy of the memorial tablet, ‘Otago’s Fallen Soldiers during the Boer War, 1899-1902’. This lists the names of 39 men from the Otago district who fell during the war. It is embellished with four engravings of Boer War scenes by R. Haweridge. A total of 250 of these tablets were distributed to schools throughout Otago in October 1906. The Owaka Museum also preserves a copy.

There is also a plaque listing Boer War soldiers at the Port Chalmers war memorial.

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