TARAWERA ERUPTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22908, 16 June 1936, Page 4

TARAWERA ERUPTION

COMMEMORATION SERVICE

MEMORIAL TO BE ERECTED

(Per United Press Association)

ROTORUA, June 15

An interesting ceremony took place at Te Wairoa, overlooking Lake Tarawera, on Sunday, when the Bishop of Aotcaroa, the Right Rev. F. A. Bennett, conducted a commemoration service for the 150 Maoris and Europeans who perished in the Tarawera eruption on the night of June 10, 1880.

The service was held in a small bush clearing on the site of the old church, which was one of a number of buildings demolished by the eruption. Among the congregation were a number of elderly Maoris who were living at Te Wairoa at the time of the eruption as young men" 0 and women, but who subsequently removed with.their tribe, the Tuhourangi, to Whakarewarewa when their lands were laid waste by volcanic ash. and mud.

The old bell which was sounded before the service was recently recovered from the ruins of the old church by Mr Cecil Way,', a grandson of the Rev. S. M. Spencer, who commenced work among the Maoris at Te Wairoa nearly 100 years ago. At the conclusion of the ceremony Mr Way entrusted the bell to tils care of Bishop Bennett, who at a subsequent meeting of the Tuhourangi tribe discussed plans for erecting a suitable memorial on the site of the church. This will probably take the form of a suitably carved canopy, under which the old church bell will be hung. A 175-years-old wakahuia, or carved Maori casket, which survived the eruption, was used to take up the collection, which will form the nucleus of the fund for the erection of the memorial.