Location: Former Timaru Main School area, Grey Road / Arthur Street area
Access: Memorial visible from public edge, school site access by permission if required
Associated years: 1919, 1921, Second World War memory
Associated people/groups: Timaru Main School teachers and ex-pupils, Henry Lawson Leah, school children, families
Timaru Main School has one of the strongest school-war stories. NZ History records that about 360 teachers and ex-pupils served in the First World War, and 70 were killed. Timaru District Council’s heritage assessment gives more detail: a public meeting in July 1919 discussed an old boys’ memorial, the corner site was chosen so it could be viewed by the public, and in 1921 the memorial was erected to commemorate 70 former teachers and pupils who died and 361 others who served and returned.
This place also carries a Second World War childhood memory. A local oral-history recollection records children practising air raids at Timaru Main School, going into trenches dug in the school grounds, with chewing gum and corks used as part of the drill. That local memory should be labelled as oral history unless confirmed in school records. Nationally, school air raid trenches and drills are well documented. NZ History records that after Pearl Harbor, the policy shifted towards keeping children at school during attack, building trenches and holding routine air raid practices.
Find a WuHoo: This place links two generations: older pupils who went overseas, and younger pupils who practised for war coming home.
Side Quest: Timaru Main School History
Timaru Main School opened in October 1874 on its Arthur Street/Grey Road site, following an earlier Anglican church school founded in 1859. Its original bluestone Gothic Revival school building was designed by Francis J. Wilson in 1873–74, while the surviving headmaster’s house, later known as Bluestone House, was built in 1877–78. The school closed in 2004 after merging with Timaru West School to form Bluestone School.
Note: I was told that after the schools demolition, some of the bluestone that was part of the school was used to construct a picnic area at Patiti Point.