Remembering WW1 in Queensland

ANZAC Day dawn service, 2022

    

After years of pandemic lockdowns, crowds were again free to at­t­end Anzac Day dawn services & ex-servicemen marches on 25th April 2022. And thousands did!! 

But ANZAC/Australian & New Zealand Army Corps Day may have ch­anged over the decades; critical debate and political controversies are being raised now. The divisiveness is about the compulsion to be pa­t­riotic and stand by the historical massacres at any cost. Many think we sh­ould commemorate Armistice Day instead, when world peace was dec­lared at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month. Note however that Remembrance Day never had the nation-building dimension in Australia that Anzac Day has.

The memorials erected in or after WW1 became Austr­al­ia’s first monum­ents, recording the devastating impact of WW1 on a young na­tion. Australia lost 60,000 from only 4 million people. Even before the war ended, memorials became a vis­ible expression of national grief. To those who created them, they were as sacred as grave sites i.e graves for the Austral­ians whose bodies still lay in European and Midd­le Eastern battle­fields. Brit­ish policy decreed its bodies were to be bur­ied where they fell and never taken home.

The Melbourne Shrine was very big and impressive, taking years to complete, and it wasn't officially dedicated until 11th Nov 1934 by the Duke of Gloucester. 300,000 people met to watch that 1934 event, and there was a commitment that the shrine would al­ways have an unimpeded and uninterrupted view from the city.

What about Queensland?  The most prominent building is the circular Shrine of Remembrance and the Eternal Flame which stands proudly and solemnly at the top of the Gardens. It is 10 metres in diameter and consists of a Grecian Doric circular colonnade of 18 columns representing the year of peace, 1918. Written around the top of the structure are the names of the major battles in which Australian units figured prominently such as ANZAC, Cocos Isupoli and Villers-Bretonneux.

Shrine of Remembrance in Anzac Square, Brisbane

Boonah War Memorial (pop 2000) was in a town in South Qld where the foundation stone was laid in May 1920; it was unveiled in July 1920 as part of the visit to Boonah by the Prince of Wales-later King Edward VIII. The marble and granite memor­ial was designed/made by Ipswich masonry firm Williams & Co, honouring local men who served in WW1.

The £600 cost was raised by public subs­crip­­t­ions, organised by a mem­orial committee. Memorial Park in Boonah was enclosed by a brick and wrought iron fence, with wrought iron gates at the front and rear cor­ners, flanked by pillars with ball fin­ials. A central con­crete path led to the memor­ial which was surround­ed by tier­ed garden beds. A flagstaff was located on the south western side. The specifically des­igned memorial park and fence were opened on Anzac Day 1922 by war hero-politician Capt Arnold Wienholt.

ANZAC Day Service, Boonah Memorial, 1924.
State Library Qld.

Australian war memorials were distinctive in that they commemorated the dead lads AND also the survivors. Australians were proud that their first great nat­ional army, unlike other battling armies, was composed ent­ir­ely of vol­unt­eers, men worthy of honour. Many memorials honoured those who served from a local area, providing valuable evidence of community in­volvement in the war. [In my generation, conscription for the Vietnam War was hated].

WW1 soldier statue, 

Boonah Qld

Australian war memorials also displayed imperial loy­al­ty; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects. In Queensland, the soldier statue (above) was the pop­ul­ar choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk (below) prevailed in the south­ern states, ? because of Queensland's larger working-class pop­ulace. The soldier embod­ied the ANZAC Spirit and the qualities of the ideal Austr­alian man: loyalty, courage, youth, informal­ity.

Immediately following the 1918 Armistice, a grateful Com­mon­wealth Gov­ern­ment brought captured machine guns to Aust­ralia, and distributed them to towns and cities. A local display of captured weapon­s was esp­ecial­ly import­ant for this young country, far removed from the Europ­ean battle fields. It was also a nation that had suffered the highest per capita casualty rate of any combatant nation in WW1! After a long public debate, the State War Trophy Committee dec­ided that troph­ies would be allocated on the basis of population, rather than on enlist­ments. For Queensland, this meant that only lar­g­er towns could apply for larger, more valuable guns. Note the Commit­tee believed Boon­ah’s popul­ation to be too small to apply.

Trophy gun from WW1, 

Boonah Memorial park

Great War guns trad­ed on the open market would have been a controver­s­ial process back then, when emotions were still raw and when the dist­rib­ution of war trophies was strictly controlled by State and Commonw­ealth agencies. Thus Boonah be­came the only Australian town ever to buy a privat­ely-owned trophy gun on behalf of community.

The Boona memorial was made of coarse marble, a pedestal surm­ounted by an obelisk and a digger statue, and sitting on a marble base. The columns were surmounted by four marble corner urns, and in the centre of the columns see the marble plates with the names of the 374 local men who served in WW1. The 69 locals who died were named on the front and the rear recorded the names of nurses and chaplains. Projecting from the centre of the pedestal was the tapered marble ob­el­isk, 6 m high. Surmounting the obelisk was the digger stat­ue, the Australian soldier standing at ease with his head bow­ed and his hands resting on his reversed rifle. Queensland War Mem­or­ials provided evid­ence of an era widesp read Australian patriotism & nationalism in WW1.

Boonah Memorial park

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