Stories

After 45 years abroad, one set of World War I medals will be returning to Auckland in time for Anzac Day 2025. This story was recently shared with the Online Cenotaph team by Scott Blanks, whose grandfather’s medals made their way across the Tasman and are now in the care of Scott’s son, Nicholas.

In towns and cities across Aotearoa New Zealand, war memorials stand as quiet witnesses to sacrifice, loss, and remembrance. The story of a lamp-post in Rakaia, gifted in memory of one young soldier, reminds us of the deeply personal motives behind these public memorials.

While stories of New Zealand’s prisoners of war during WWII are plentiful, there has been little focus on the experiences of Māori POW. Their stories reveal that despite hardship, significant displays of Māoritanga broke through the mundanity and hopelessness of their time as prisoners and demonstrate the importance of their experiences in New Zealand’s history.

Pou Maumahara volunteer Judy Owen shares a story written by her father Malcolm (Dick) Cunningham Owen about his experience in the Arctic Convoys during World War II.

Wally Ware served in the Royal New Zealand Navy during World War II, witnessing key moments aboard HMNZS Achilles and Gambia. His remarkable experiences, from naval battles to coded letters home, shaped his post-war life as a pioneering farmer and community leader.

Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira houses and cares for a collection of approximately 50,000 Sparrow Industrial Pictures negatives. Donated to the Museum in 1982 by Commercial Photographers Ltd, these negatives depict images taken, predominantly in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, from 1945 to 1966.

The Royal New Zealand Fencible Corps is often viewed as a blip in the history of New Zealand. The initiative, created in response to Governor George Grey’s call for more troops, was active for about ten years, from 1847-58. In this article we learn more about the experiences of one fencible Doctor John Thomas Watson Bacot.

In the depths of the wet collection in the entomology department at Tāmaki Paenga Hira, a termite collection was recently rediscovered that had been given to the museum by John Mackgill Kelsey in March 1975. These have recently been catalogued by our IDEA project team.

“Those who are acquainted with the working of the Museum are aware that it has arrived at a stage in its history when the growth of its collections has altogether overtaken the existing accommodation ... one conclusion remains:- to erect a new Museum for Auckland, planned on such a scale, and equipped in such a manner, that it may adequately serve for the recreation, instruction and intellectual advancement of the people of Auckland.”

The palaeontology collection at Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum is home to approximately 23,000 fossil specimens from Aotearoa and abroad. This includes the bones of ancient sea monsters, ammonites the size of tractor tires, and tiny foraminifera no bigger than a grain of sand.