St Andrew's College Centennial Chapel

St Andrew's College Centennial Chapel was dedicated in 2016. The chapel incorporates features of the school's original 1955 memorial chapel, which suffered irreparable damage during the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. These include a book of remembrance and roll of honour panels, commemorating staff and ex-pupils who served during the Second World War.

St Andrew’s College, a Presbyterian school for boys, was opened in 1917. More than sixty former students and members of staff gave their lives during the Second World War. 

The school’s first war memorial building was the Bowker-Hyndman Memorial Science Block, opened on 30 November 1949. The chemistry and physics laboratories were dedicated respectively to the memory of old boys Peter Hyndman and Dudley Bowker, both killed on active service in Italy. Fund-raising for a war memorial chapel soon afterwards began. The St Andrew's College Memorial Chapel was dedicated on 27 March 1955. It incorporated a memorial shrine which housed both a book of remembrance, hand-lettered by W.A. Sutton, and memorial tablets, designed by John Handley. which listed the names of 59 old boys and two former members of staff who had died (three more old boys' names were later added).

A memorial communion table was presented to the chapel on 19 October 1958 and memorial stained glass windows were unveiled on 4 October 1959.

The memorial chapel was severely damaged in the 2011 Christchurch earthquake and was deconsecrated in October 2013. The new St Andrew's College Centennial Chapel was dedicated on 25 October 2016. It featured both a memorial niche, which housed the book of remembrance and the roll of honour, and a memorial wall, which incorporated bricks and other building materials salvaged from the old chapel.

See: 'The Bowker-Hyndman memorial laboratories at St. Andrew's College' [photograph], Press, 8/9/1949, p. 3; 'St. Andrew's College: science block opened', Press, 1/12/1949, p. 9;  'St. Andrew's College Chapel: dedication ceremony tomorrow', Press, 26/3/1955, p. 8; "St. Andrew's College Memorial Chapel" [photograph], Press, 28/3/1955, p. 13; St Andrew’s College, 1916-1966: History and School List, ed. F.J. Bennett, Christchurch, 1968, pp. 51-2, 58-69; Gordon Ogilvie, High Flies the Cross: The 75^th Jubilee History of St Andrew’s College, 1917-1992, Christchurch, 1992, pp. 109-112; StAC 100 Commemorative Issue, 1917-2017, Christchurch, 2017, pp. 17, 22-3, 48-9;  'The Memorial Chapel' (St Andrew's College website); Ian Lochhead, 'St Andrew's College Centennial Chapel', Architecture NZ, March/April 2017, pp. [49], 50-60 [61]; St Andrew's College Centennial Chapel, ed. John Walsh, Auckland, 2018.