There are many fascinating and moving stories of New Zealanders who fought in the First World War. The recent Love & Loss exhibition at Auckland War Memorial Museum showcased one such tale, with a lovelorn Richard Grace (Ngāti Tūwharetoa) writing back home to his ‘dear little girl’ Alice Crump from the Western Front. Richard’s two brothers, Thomas and Lawrence, also served during the First World War and the stories of the three Grace brothers show both the devastating effects war can have on the lives of those who fight, and the struggles they faced whilst on the front lines.
“Dear little girl, Once more in the trenches, and the weather is intensely cold. Outside the ground and everything is white with snow four inches deep…”
![First aid post dug-out, March 16, 1916, sketched by Richard Grace, Auckland War Memorial Museum \u003ca href =https://www.aucklandmuseum.com/]()
First aid post dug-out, March 16, 1916, sketched by Richard Grace, Auckland War Memorial Museum PD-2017-8-p37
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It was 26 February 1916, Richard Fairfax Tukino Grace (Ngāti Tūwharetoa) is on the front lines, freezing along with many others as they waited out the harsh winter in northern France. Back home in New Zealand is his ‘dear little girl’, lifelong friend and confidant Alice Crump. He constantly wrote letters to her, describing what life was like in the war, his longing for her and home, and what life was like in World War One with its oddities and banalities intact.
Richard was the youngest of three brothers, who would all serve in the First World War. Their father was Lawrence Marshall Grace, briefly MP for Tauranga and one of the men responsible for the founding of Tongariro National Park in 1887, New Zealand’s oldest national park. Their mother was Te Kahui Te Heuheu, daughter of Ngāti Tūwharetoa chief Te Heuheu Tūkino IV. Their eldest sister, Bessie Te Wenerau Grace, was the first Māori woman to earn a degree from a university.1
![Sons of Lawrence Marshall Grace and Te Kahui Grace. Photograph taken in 1911 by S P Andrew Ltd. Grace brothers (L-R) Haami (Thomas), William Henry (Lawrence) and Richard Grace. Image kindly provided by Alexander Turnbull Library, \u003ca href =https://www.aucklandmuseum.com/]()
Sons of Lawrence Marshall Grace and Te Kahui Grace. Photograph taken in 1911 by S P Andrew Ltd. Grace brothers (L-R) Haami (Thomas), William Henry (Lawrence) and Richard Grace. Image kindly provided by Alexander Turnbull Library, Ref: 1/1-013938-G.
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The three brothers were just as impressive. Lawrence William Te Heu Heu Grace was the eldest, born in 1888, and at the outbreak of war was a solicitor at Earl & Kent in Auckland. The middle brother, Thomas Marshall Percy Grace, born in 1890, was a civil servant in Wellington when he enlisted on 13 August 1914, only nine days after Britain’s official declaration of war. Richard, the youngest brother, born in 1896, was only seventeen in August 1914. He had met Alice whilst attending Ocean Bay School in Marlborough, which was run by her aunt and uncle. At high school he had been the handsome, young sports star, with eyes only for Alice. A short two years later he left for Edinburgh to pursue a career in medicine, leaving his young love behind.2
"Alice, do you know what I wish I had done before I left NZ? I wish I had got a ring for you. What do you say to that? I really mean it, dear girl. Anyway, though we haven’t one, yet everything is alright, isn’t it dear? I could feel then that you were mine for sure."
![At Sea on the board the RMS Corinthic, April 2, 1915, sketched by Richard Grace. \u003ca href =https://www.aucklandmuseum.com/]()
At Sea on the board the RMS Corinthic, April 2, 1915, sketched by Richard Grace. PD-2017-8-p6
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The war changed the lives of all three brothers. Thomas enlisted first, he had served in the College Cadets and with the Territorials for four years, prior to the war, and was able to join up as an officer upon enlistment. He left New Zealand on 14 October 1914, along with the main body of the first New Zealand Expeditionary Force, where he was posted to the Wellington Infantry Battalion, 17th (Ruahine) Company.3 After arriving in Egypt that December the company settled in to training and waiting. Seeing off an Ottoman raid against the Suez Canal in early 1915, the ANZAC forces received word they were shipping out. Thomas and the Wellington Infantry Battalion were there for the initial invasion of Gallipoli and stormed the beaches along with the rest of the ANZAC forces on 25 April 1915. He appears to have performed admirably, because he was promoted to Second Lieutenant on the 29 May and mentioned in dispatches.
The stalemate between the Allies and the Turks on the surrounding hills dragged on until August when the high command decided on a major offensive. On the 7th of August, after a couple of days of mixed results, the Auckland Battalion was cut to pieces and failed to take the key highpoint of Chunuk Bair. Thomas’ commander, Lieutenant-Colonel William Malone, refused the order to attack again with the Wellington Infantry Battalion, insisting they wait until nightfall. That night Thomas rushed the entrenched Turkish position alongside the men of his battalion. They took the ridge but the fighting was fierce, and they had to hold their ground for 24 hours before they were finally relieved. In the end 690 of the unit’s 760 men lay dead on the ridge. Thomas Grace was one of them.
![The Battle of Chunuk Bair, 8 August 1915. Brown, Ion G (Major), 1943?-. The battle of Chunuk Bair, 8 August 1915. The sesquicentennial gift to the nation from the New Zealand Defence Force. Image kindly provided by Alexander Turnbull Library \u003ca href =https://www.aucklandmuseum.com/]()
The Battle of Chunuk Bair, 8 August 1915. Brown, Ion G (Major), 1943?-. The battle of Chunuk Bair, 8 August 1915. The sesquicentennial gift to the nation from the New Zealand Defence Force. Image kindly provided by Alexander Turnbull Library Ref: D-001-035
Image may be subject to copyright restrictions.
The eldest son, Lawrence, was marked down as Thomas’s next of kin. Like his middle brother, he had also served in the College Cadets and was well prepared for service. Receiving word of Thomas's death must have affected him deeply, because he left his successful legal career and wrote to Dr Māui Wiremu Pita Naera Pōmare, the representative for the Western Maori [sic] electorate in cabinet, on the 12 May 1916 requesting a placement in the Maori Contingent.4 However, he eventually chose to stay with the Infantry Reinforcements, rather than join the Maori Reinforcements, and in November 1916 he was enlisted as a Second Lieutenant. He didn’t arrive in France until September 1917, narrowly avoiding one of New Zealand’s darkest days, at the battle of Passchendaele. He served on the Western Front for the next year, being wounded twice during the German spring offensive in early 1918. The second of these wounds proved too damaging. In September 1918 he was recorded as unfit for duty due to injuries sustained from a bomb explosion, and returned to New Zealand in December 1918.
Richard was working hard studying medicine in Edinburgh, but he seems to have also felt the urge to serve. Shortly after his arrival in Scotland, he enlisted as a Medic with the Royal Scots 16th Battalion. It would be only a few months before Thomas would die on the hills of Gallipoli. He wrote to Alice with news of his enlistment his reluctance, in telling her, was clear.
"Well, Alice, I should have come to the point before and told you sooner, but I have joined the 16th Battalion, Royal Scots, and am now a full-blown private…”
After several months training in York, he was deployed to the front lines in early 1916. Stuck in the horrific scenes of the trenches, his letters to Alice became filled with nostalgia and melancholy.
“Alice, it would be beautiful to be back with you – away from this feverish and unnatural existence, to walk out along the country road on a fine warm day of sunshine or go for a little scramble through the bush.”
![Drawing depicting barren landscape with leafless trees on the left, sketched by Richard Grace. Auckland War Memorial Museum, \u003ca href =https://www.aucklandmuseum.com/]()
Drawing depicting barren landscape with leafless trees on the left, sketched by Richard Grace. Auckland War Memorial Museum, PD-2017-8-p31
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“The forests here… are cold and without the colouring that we know of our own bush. To see that all again, and be back with you is a great longing, Alice.”
As the war went on Richard’s letters began to show the fear and desperation that permeated the last year of the war. On 28 April 1918, during the same Spring Offensive that wounded his brother Lawrence, he wrote to Alice again.
“It is long since I wrote to you last… You see dear girl ever since March 21st we have been fighting as the British have never fought before… It has been a heart-breaking, desperate and grim succession of battles against a momentarily superior foe… The heart-rending scenes and episodes that I have witnessed and lived through during the last month and a half will not seem credible to those who are out of it, nevertheless they are as true as death… Goodnight dear girl. You are always in my thoughts.”
![Drawing depicting planes flying over ruined building and barren trees. Sketched by Richard Grace, Auckland War Memorial Museum, \u003ca href =https://www.aucklandmuseum.com/]()
Drawing depicting planes flying over ruined building and barren trees. Sketched by Richard Grace, Auckland War Memorial Museum, PD-2017-8-p41
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After the war Richard returned to Edinburgh to finish his studies, specialising in psychiatry and psychotherapy, graduating in 1922. He twice briefly held a commission in the Royal Air Force (RAF), serving again during the Second World War, where his work on operational strain in pilots was widely praised. Lawrence had died in New Zealand in 1932, so Richard was the only brother to serve again in World War Two.
Richard and Alice went on to marry other people. Richard married an Englishwoman, Miss Lucy MacKay, in 1925 and Alice married Wilfrid Osborn Hardwick Smith in 1921. Despite this their friendship was constant. Richard continued to write to Alice until his death in 1963 and visited New Zealand over the years. Alice kept all the letters he had written her and it was these letters that formed part of the Love and Loss exhibition held at the Museum, along with his sketchbook.5
Their exchanges give us a look into the human side of the conflict, a side often talked about but easily forgotten amongst the campaigns and statistics. It is a touching account, though it is worth of course remembering Richard Grace was still a practical man, not just a young romantic swept up in his dreams. He ended one of his letters from Edinburgh,
“P.P.S. I have to stick two stamps on the envelope every time I write to you, dear. I think I shall have to shorten my letters, or else I shall be ruined.”
Auckland Museum holds the sketchbook compiled by Richard Fairfax Tukino Grace and facsimiles of the letters by Richard to Alice you can see these below.
REFERENCES
[1] Matthews, K.M., Mane-Wheoki, J. (2014). Mana Wahine: Boundaries and Connections in the Career of a Māori Educational Leader: Bessie (Wene) Te Wenerau Grace (Sister Eudora CSC). In: Fitzgerald, T., Smyth, E.M. (eds) Women Educators, Leaders and Activists. Palgrave Macmillan, London.
[2] Hardwick-Smith, Margaret, (2016) Goodbye Dearest Girl: WW1 Letters and Sketches, Auckland, pp.14-18
[3] NZ History, 'Main Body of NZEF sails to War'
[4] Military Personnel file of Lawrence William Te Heu Heu Grace. New Zealand Archives.
[5] Auckland War Memorial Museum, PD-2017-8.
Cite this article
Bennett, Nelson.
Always in my thoughts. Auckland War Memorial Museum - Tāmaki Paenga Hira. First published: 20 April 2022. Updated: 13 July 2022.
URL: www.aucklandmuseum.com/war-memorial/online-cenotaph/features/Grace-Brothers