Mahara bell

Mahara bell

• Height  464 mm
• Width  559 mm
• Weight  129 kg
• Note  G

One of two bells in the National War Memorial Carillon with a te reo Māori name, ‘Mahara’ was likely used to signify ‘memory’ or ‘remembrance’. Frank and May Marshall gave the bell in memory of their sons Frederick and Albert who died in the First World War.

Frederick and Albert Marshall

The two men were the eldest of May and Frank Marshall’s five children. The Marshall family lived in Wellington, where Frank worked as an Evening Post reporter, and were members of the local Catholic community. Separated in age by one year, Frederick and Albert both worked as clerks, Frederick in the accounts department of the Union Steam Ship Company and Albert for the New Zealand Farmers’ Cooperative Association.

The brothers were living at the family home in Aro Valley when they went to the recruitment office together on 23 August 1915 to sign up for service with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. Both became gunners with the New Zealand Field Artillery (NZFA), though they served with different batteries, and by April 1916 they had arrived on the Western Front with the newly reorganised New Zealand Division.

After a short period in the Flanders region, the New Zealand forces moved to Armentières, a so-called ‘quiet’ sector of the front. While there, they engaged in patrols of no man’s land, raided enemy trenches and bombed enemy positions. They also faced retaliatory action from the Germans. On the morning of 9 July 1916, Frederick’s third battery of the NZFA was subjected to a three-hour enemy bombardment. Frederick was killed in action that day, possibly during that bombardment.

Following his elder brother’s death, Albert remained with the NZFA, which participated in some of the New Zealand Division’s major actions on the Western Front, including the 1916 Battle of the Somme and 1917 capture of Messines. Throughout August 1917, the NZFA faced frequent enemy shelling, resulting in damage to their heavy guns and many casualties. On 23 August 1917, two years to the day after he enlisted, Albert was killed in action. 

Remembering the brothers

Frederick was buried in the Cité Bonjean Military Cemetery in Armentières, while Albert was buried in the La Plus Douve Farm Cemetery in Belgium. For more than ten years following their deaths, the Marshall family remembered Frederick and Albert by placing memorial notices in the local newspaper on the anniversaries of their deaths. In 1926, Frank and May secured a permanent memorial for their sons by purchasing one of the Carillon bells. 

Further information

Auckland War Memorial Museum Online Cenotaph record – Frederick Marshall

Commonwealth War Graves Commission record – Frederick Marshall

Auckland War Memorial Museum Online Cenotaph record – Albert Marshall

Commonwealth War Graves Commission record – Albert Marshall

'Personalia', New Zealand Times, 27 July 1916, p. 3

'Personal items', Dominion, 27 July 1916, p. 4

'Personal items', Dominion, 7 September 1917 p. 4

'Local and general’, Evening Post, 21 January 1918, p. 6

Lieutenant J. R. Byrne, New Zealand Artillery in the Field, 1914–18, Whitcombe and Tombs Limited, Auckland, 1922, p. 111