Auckland City Council archives

War-related material

This page is dedicated to providing background information to records held by the archives that relate specifically to war. Some of these records are from series that relate directly to war. There are also a number of records about war located in more general series.

Wage Book for Men in Service in WWI

The wage book records the wages paid to some Auckland City Council employees serving in World War I and covers the period from 1916 to 1919. There are no earlier or later wage books for the First World War period. The wage book contains the following pieces of information:

name of employee
their designation
their address
departure date
length of service
weekly wages
who the order was payable to and their address
plus any remarks that were recorded.

Search the Wage Book

This database is a partial transcript of the record. For full details of entries in the wage book, visit the Auckland City Council archives' research room.

Where possible, images of the listed employees have been obtained and included in the database.

Borough of Newmarket
WWI Roll of Honour Board

War Memorials and Honour Boards

Auckland City Council archives currently houses two WWI-related honour boards in its research room. One lists those members of the Auckland Mounted Rifles Club who served in WWI, the other is the Borough of Newmarket WWI Roll of Honour Board.

Borough of Newmarket WWI Roll of Honour Board

The Newmarket Borough Council minute books held in Auckland City Council archives (NMB 100) record that a firm of signwriters was appointed to paint names on the Council's Roll of Honour in June 1918 and it was decided that 'a + against the names of those who have made the supreme sacrifice be placed on the Roll of Honor'. A year later, the Newmarket Town Clerk was in communication with the Officer Commanding Auckland Military District 'with a view to obtaining a complete list of all men who had enlisted and entered camp from Newmarket'. In November 1919, the Council agreed 'That the Council immediately take steps to have the Roll of Honour placed in a prominent position', but the unveiling ceremony by the Prime Minister The Hon. William F. Massey, which also included the unveiling of a memorial arch on Newmarket Domain, did not take place until 8 June 1924. It is thought that the Roll of Honour was housed in the Newmarket municipal building on Newmarket Broadway until the building was demolished in 2002 and was given to Auckland City Council around that time.

Borough of Newmarket
WWI Roll of Honour Board

First World War Roll of Honour of the Auckland Mounted Rifles Club

To date, no information has been found to explain either when or why Auckland City Council acquired the First World War Roll of Honour of the Auckland Mounted Rifles Club. C. G. Nichol's The Story of Two Campaigns: Official War History of the Auckland Mounted Rifles (1921) shows that only a handful of the 333 men killed during the war are included on the Club's Roll of Honour, which lists sixty-five men. Of these sixty-five, a significant number survived the war.

Auckland Mounted Rifles Club.

Marivare Reserve, Epsom

Marivare Reserve Arch

In addition to the roll of honour boards, we also hold records pertaining to the donation of land for a memorial to fallen soldiers in Epsom. This land subsequently became the Marivare Reserve, upon which a memorial arch was constructed.

Marivare Reserve is on the corner of Manukau and Ranfurly Roads, Epsom, Auckland. Part of the reserve was donated by Ada Margaret Nolan Carr in 1919 to Auckland City Council specifically for the memorial¹. She placed conditions that the oaks were not to be damaged and no buildings were to be erected on the land. The council purchased three adjoining allotments bringing the area up to one acre and the reserve was named after a house in which Ada lived, Marivare.

Seven magnificent mature oak trees line the street boundaries of the reserve and a memorial stone archway erected at the entrance to the reserve bears memorial plaques to the 28 soldiers from the district who gave their lives in the Great War 1914-1918. "Their Name Liveth For Evermore 1914-1918" appears on top of the plaques bearing the soldiers' names. The plaque in the centre of the arch bears the following inscription:

This reserve was dedicated forever to the Citizens of Auckland in honoured grateful memory of the soldiers from the district who gave their lives in the Great War 1914-1918.

Auckland Harbour Board War Memorial Beacon

This memorial obelisk, commemorating the services of the staff of the Auckland Harbour Board in World War One, was erected at the launch landings on the waterfront west of the Auckland Ferry Building in 1915.

The obelisk was to be used as a daylight beacon and a guiding light at night. In 1969, it was dismantled and put into storage due to the development of the Auckland Downtown Shopping Centre.

It was not until 1999 that the memorial was discovered in Shed 51 on Bledisloe Wharf and moves were made to re-erect the memorial, with assistance from an anonymous benefactor.

The red beacon orb that stood on a wrought iron mounting on top of the memorial was never found. In April 2000, the rest of the memorial was unveiled near the Maritime Museum at the entrance to Princes Wharf.




Harbour Board War Memorial Beacon

Onehunga and Mangere Boer War Volunteers

Volunteers from Onehunga and Mangere who served in the various Contingents of Mounted Infantry in the Boer War 1899-1900.

Volunteers from Onehunga and Mangere
who served in the various Contingents
of Mounted Infantry contributed by
New Zealand to the support of the
British Arms in the Boer War 1899-1900

The South African War (1899-1902), often called the Boer War, was the first overseas conflict to involve New Zealand troops and was fought between the British Empire and the Boer South African Republic (Transvaal) and its Orange Free State ally.

This index stems from a photomontage of volunteers from Onehunga and Mangere.

The database contains the following pieces of information transcribed from the memorials:

Name of soldier
Indication if the soldier was killed whilst in service.

Additional research into those listed has also been conducted and this information is displayed where available. For more information, please contact us.

Search the War Memorials and Honour Boards online index

Search the WWI index databases

Please use the options below to search and view the World War I related material held by Auckland City Council archives.

Search the Wage Book for Men in Service in WWI

Search the War Memorials and Honour Boards online index

Search all World War I related indexes

Document and image gallery

This gallery contains images and descriptions of additional war-related material held by Auckland City Council archives. It currently only contains WWI-related material but in future may be extended to include material related to other wars.

View the document and image gallery

1 Letter from Ada Carr, 15/2/1919, ACC 275 19/206 Box 29.

Updated April 2010