Bell no. 36 (Medical Services)

Bell no. 36 (Medical Services)

  • Height  762 mm
  • Width  953 mm
  • Weight  516 kg
  • Note  A
Bell Inscription

(Special Medical Service symbol)
To the glorious memory of the Wellington
Officers and men of the Medical Service
Who fell in the Great War, 1914-18.
‘Allis succurrendo perierunt ipsi’

This bell was given in memory of the Wellington members of the Medical Service who died during the war. The New Zealand Medical Corps was made up of doctors, nurses, medical orderlies and others. More than half of the 700 or so doctors in New Zealand in 1914 served overseas during the war, along with 3248 other men and 550 nursing sisters. 

The Medical Corps suffered a number of losses during the war, as listed in this history of the service during the war, written in 1924. They included the 32 New Zealanders – 10 nurses and 22 male staff – who died as a result of the sinking of the Marquette in October 1915. Others died while assisting the injured in the field at Gallipoli, on the Western Front and elsewhere, or succumbed to disease. The most decorated member of the Medical Corps, Charles Begg, who had left New Zealand in October 1914 in command of the New Zealand Field Ambulance, served for 4½ years in the field, including at Gallipoli and on the Western Front, before his death from influenza and pneumonia just after the end of the war. 

The inscription on the bell contains the motto Allis Succurendo Perierunt Ipsi which means ‘They themselves died by helping others’. The bell also shows the rod of Aesculapius with an entwined serpent, which was used on the badge of the medical service.

In the years following the opening of the Carillon, this bell was sounded, along with the 'Nurses'' bell, on the anniversary of the sinking of the Marquette.

Further reading:

A.D. Carbery, New Zealand Medical Service in the Great War 1914–1918, Whitcombe & Tombs, Auckland, 1924

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