Crosses and wreaths at Pātea war memorial on Anzac Day.
The Patea and Districts First World War memorial was a set of memorial gates erected at the entrance to the Patea Domain. These were unveiled by Mrs C.A. Larcombe and other members of the Ladies’ Patriotic League on Anzac Day 1922. Four granite plaques on the pillars listed the names of 64 men from the district who had made the supreme sacrifice: from Pātea, from Whenuakura and Opaku, from Manutahi, and from Kākaramea, Alton and Hurleyville (a memorial obelisk was unveiled at Alton on the afternoon of the same day).
After the Second World War a new district memorial was erected in a small park nearer the centre of the town and the four memorial tablets from the Domain gates were transferred there.
The new memorial was unveiled on Anzac Day 1955. It is a low concrete wall set on a podium and surmounted by a flagstaff. At the base of the flagstaff is a granite plaque inscribed: LEST WE FORGET / ERECTED TO THE MEMORY OF / THE HONOURED DEAD OF THREE WARS / 1899-1902: 1914-1918: 1939-1945. Below is a marble plaque which was transferred from the town’s South African War memorial: BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA / 9TH NOV. 1900.
Three tablets set into in the central panels of the memorial list the names of 31 local men who died during the Second World War; these are flanked by the First World War memorial plaques, two on either side. For a transcription of all the names, see ‘Patea & District War Memorial’, Kete New Plymouth.
See: ‘Patea Borough Council’, Patea Mail, 11/5/1921, p. 2; ‘Local and General’, Hawera & Normanby Star, 26/7/1921, p. 4; ‘Patea Anzac Celebrations’, Patea Mail, 26/4/1922, p. 2; ‘War Memorial Committee’, Patea Mail, 10/5/1922, p. 2; ‘Patea Borough Council’, Patea Mail, 24/5/1922, p. 2; Margaret Leslie, Livingston Baker and Leslie Church, Patea: a centennial history, Palmerston North, 1981, pp. 48, 50; Patea heritage inventory, Hawera, pp. 17-18, 31-2.
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