AN INTERESTING GAVEL

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 143, 19 June 1935, Page 14

AN INTERESTING GAVEL

MEMENTO FROM H.M.A.S,

SYDNEY

"I have here a very useful little weapon," the Dominion president of the New Zealand, Returned Soldiers' Association (Major-General Sir Andrew Russell) said when the annual conference of delegates from the affiliated associations throughout New Zealand opened in the Council Chamber in the Town Hall today. Sir Andrew was referring to a gavel made from a piece of the teak decking of H.M.A.S. Sydney and presented to the association by the Australian War Memorial Board of Management. ■ A letter from General Sir Harry Chauvel, G.C.M.G., X.C.8., who is chairman of the board, was read by Sir Andrew as follows: — "My colleagues and I hope that the gavel will be kept for the use of the chairman of the New Zealand Returned Soldiers' Association, and will serve as a memento of the stirring days in 1914 when the Sydney escorted the New Zealand and Australian transports across the Indian Ocean until she left them to fight her historic action with the Emden. With best wishes, Harry Chauvel." Both the head and the handle of the gavel are octagonal in shape, the former bearing a. small plate of silver and blue enamel bearing the legend: "Wood from H.M.A.S. Sydney," surrounding an anchor.