BATTLE MEMORIALS

Southland Times, Issue 19859, 3 May 1926, Page 10

BATTLE MEMORIALS

NEW ZEALAND. AN INTERESTING LECTURE. As a large majority of the people of the Dominion will never have an opportunity of seeing the New Zealand Government Battle Exploit Memorials erected in France, Belgium and Gallipoli, the announcement that the Minister of Internal Affairs (the Hon. Mr R. F. Bollard) has arranged a lecture tour on the subject by Mr Hurst Seager, R.F.1.8.A., F.N.Z.1.A., will be welcomed, not* only by returned soldiers, but by the relatives and friends of those who fell in the Great War. Mr Seager, who designed and supervised the erection of these handsome memorials will speak at the theatre on May 4, and admission will be free. The council' has offered the use of the theatre free of cost and the local branch of the Returned Soldiers’ Association is taking a hand in the arrangements. It is six or seven years since the work on the memorials began, but Mr Seager with commendable foresight composed a pictorial story of the development of the monuments, and the country surrounding them. The lecture will be illustrated by some 230 lantern slides reproduced from photographs taken by Mr Seager as the work proceeded. The speaker will also describe much of the excellent work in the overseas cemeteries as carried out by the Imperial War Graves Commission. Although the monuments and cemeteries are the principal subjects in a series of 60 slides on Gallipoli, the general condition of the Peninsula as it appears to-day, is made quite clear. To those who fought on these battlefields, the pictures should prove exceedingly interesting. Those who have only visualised the country should have the satisfaction of correcting their mental impressions. In the Western theatre of the war a series of 17 slides relates to the Longueval Memorial, showing in particular the unveiling ceremony held on October 8, 1922. Another series of 35 shows the’ country about Messines before the restoration of the soil began, the panorama from the site of the Messines Memorial and the events of the unveiling of His Majesty the King of the Belgians on August 1, 1924. The unveiling of the Gravenstafel Memorial on the following day by Sir James Allen, High Commissioner for New Zealand, is well illustrated. A series of some 90 slides is devoted to the Le Quesnoy Memorial. These show the pictorial surroundings of the site, the process of construction of the New Zealand garden and the beauty of the garden when completed. The marble panel, photographs of which have appeared in the illustrated papers in New Zealand, has a series to itself, and one sees the material lying in the Nebrasain Quarry in Italy, then in the sculptor’s studio in Paris, follows its journey from Paris to Les Quesnoy up to the fortification walls, until the work is completed. A further series illustrates the unveiling ceremony on July 15, 1923, when the people of the town marched in procession to the memorial site. The French Memorial in the centre of the town is also illustrated, showing the French inscription on their own memorial “And to the memory of the officers, N.C.O.’s. and men of the New Zealand Division, who died in the deliverance of this village on November 4, 1918.”