War memorial gates at St Luke's Anglican church, Pakipaki, c. 1986.
The memorial posts showing names, 2010.
The Soldiers Memorial Church of Saint Luke’s Pakipaki was dedicated on 16 June 1923 by the Right Reverend Vedanayagam Samuel Azariah, Bishop of Dornakal in India, during a tour of New Zealand.
On the same day, Reverend Frederick Bennett consecrated the entrance gates and supporting stone wall as a memorial to soldiers who had died during the First World War. In his opening address, the chief Mohi Te Atahikoia explained that the long side of the wall was dedicated to Pākehā soldiers and the short side of the wall to Māori soldiers.
The church was designed by James Chapman-Taylor and replaced a wooden church from the 1870s. The church was built with a mix of Napier and Pakipaki limestone and red brick, with terracotta roof tiles.
Paraire Tōmoana reported the opening of Saint Luke’s in a dedicated issue of Toa Takitini, available on Papers Past Toa Takitini, Issue 24, 1 July 1923, Waipatu. See a photograph of the event on the Alexander Turnbull Library website.
The memorial plaques read:
ERECTED
TO THE MEMORY OF OUR
PAKEHA AND MAORI
SOLDIERS
WHO GAVE UP THEIR LIVES
FOR
GOD, KING AND COUNTRY
1914 – 1918
ERECTED
16 JUNE 1923
HEI TOHU AROHA
KI NGA HOIA
MAORI, PAKEHA
I TUKU I A RATOU
KI TE MATE
MO TE ATUA, MO TE KINGI
MO TE WHENUA
1914 – 1918
HE MEA WHAKAARA
16 HUNE 1923
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