On 16 October 1916 Minister of Defence Sir James Allen opened the Wairarapa Anzac Club, on the corner of Bell Street and Birdwood Street. This had been built using funds raised by the local community to provide a recreation facility for men from Featherston Military Training Camp. The club offered its users reading and writing rooms, billiard tables, a card room, a supper room, and a bar and refreshment area.
The building was used as a hospital during the influenza epidemic of 1918-19.
In June 1919 the club committee presented the building to Featherston Borough Council as a memorial to Wairarapa soldiers killed during the war, with the condition that a memorial would be erected outside (this eventually led to the construction of the Featherston First World War memorial). The gift was recorded by a brass plaque which read as follows:
THIS BUILDING WAS ERECTED IN 1916 / BY THE DESCENDENTS [sic] OF THE EARLY SETTLERS OF THE / WAIRARAPA FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE SOLDIERS IN CAMP / DURING THE GREAT WAR OF 1914-1918 AND WAS DONATED / TO THE FEATHERSTON MUNICIPAL COUNCIL IN 1919 AS A / MEMORIAL TO FALLEN SOLDIERS OF THE WAIRARAPA.
From mid-1920 onwards the facility was usually referred to simply as the 'Anzac Hall'. In 1950 the Kiwi Memorial Hall was formed from two rooms within the building as the district's Second World War memorial.
See: 'Featherston en fete: Wairarapa Anzac Club', Evening Post, 17/10/1916, p. 4; 'Wairarapa Anzac Club: annual meeting', Wairarapa Age, 2/6/1919, p.3; C.J. Carle, Gateway to the Wairarapa, Featherston, 1957, pp. 132, 135; Anzac and Kiwi Halls, Heritage New Zealand, 2002; John Tenquist, The ANZAC Club Story, Featherston, 2002; David Yerex, Featherston, the First 150 years, 1857-2007, Featherston, 2007, pp. 120-4 passim; Neil Frances, Safe Haven: The Untold Story of New Zealand's Largest Ever Military Camp, Featherston: 1916-1919, Masterton, 2012, pp. 91-2; Imelda Bargas and Tim Shoebridge, New Zealands' First World War Heritage, Auckland, 2015, p. 130.
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