In 1923 the ‘Old Students’ of Gisborne High School decided that a swimming pool would make a suitable Great War memorial. On 28 February 1927 Mr I.T. Burnard, Chairman of the Board of Governors, opened the Gisborne High School Memorial Bath[s]. The following year memorial gates with pillars bearing marble tablets inscribed with the names of the 36 old boys who had given their lives were unveiled at the entrance to the baths (‘Pro Patria Virtus Repulsae Nescia’).
In 1956 the high school was split into separate boys’ and girls’ schools. During jubilee celebrations held at the Gisborne Boys’ High School in March 1959, a war memorial sports pavilion was opened at one end of the playing fields. This displayed a dedicatory roundel outside and a memorial tablet inside, the latter listing the names of the school’s 36 fallen from the First World War, 112 from the Second World War, and one from the Malaya campaign (‘Pro Patria Mortui’).
A duplicate roll of honour has recently been unveiled in the school hall. At some stage the First World War memorial gates were evidently moved from the baths, since they now stand in somewhat forlorn isolation on the corner of Gladstone and Stanley Roads, on the far side of the playing fields from the pavilion.
Sources: ‘Memorial Baths: Auspicious Opening’, Poverty Bay Herald, 1/3/1927; ‘High School Pavilion’, Gisborne Photo News, no. 53, November 1958, p. 66; ‘Gisborne
High School Reunion’, Te Ao Hou, no. 25, December 1958, p. 61; Gisborne High School Jubilee, 1909-1959, Gisborne, 1959, pp. 7, 16-19, 23; 75th Jubilee, 1909-1984: Gisborne High School, Gisborne, 1984, pp. 5, 9.
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