Location: Lamp of Remembrance on Timaru Council clock tower; South Canterbury RSA Service Group, 99 Douglas Street, Highfield
Access: Clock tower visible from public streets; RSA operates from Timaru Town and Country Club, access as appropriate
Associated years: 1916, 1946, 1975, 2020
Associated people/groups: South Canterbury Returned Soldiers’ Association, returned and service personnel, Mayor Hanan, families of service people
The Lamp of Remembrance brings Second World War remembrance into civic Timaru.
Aoraki Heritage records the Lamp of Remembrance as a Second World War memorial on the Council clock tower, erected in 1946 by Mayor Hanan. This is a different kind of memorial from a cemetery, school plaque or battlefield wall. It places remembrance above the town in the civic centre.
The RSA completes the tour because war does not end when people come home. South Canterbury RSA records that it began on 25 May 1916 as the South Canterbury Returned Soldiers’ Association, first operating from rooms on Church Street. Its later site opened on 30 August 1975, the Wai-iti Road Club closed on 31 January 2020, and the current service group is based at Timaru Town and Country Club, 99 Douglas Street. Nationally, the RNZRSA was formed in 1916 to care for returning soldiers and assist families of those who died, and remembrance remains central to RSA life.
Find a WuHoo: End here by asking what society owes people after service: welfare, friendship, health care, work, respect, remembrance and truth.