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Regional Memorials

Australian regional memorials have long been at the heart of community commemoration of our servicemen and women. This role is felt to be so significant that Saluting Their Service Commemorations Program Grants[1] are available to restore, preserve, upgrade and improve access to community war memorials and also to build new memorials where none exists and the memorial will be the focus of community commemoration.

It is perhaps at the local, regional level that war memorials are the most accessible and personal. After all, it is the local community that knows, or knew, as individuals the men and women who left home to defend the cause of freedom, not just as names or statistics; and it is the local community that gathers around the town memorial on Anzac Day and Remembrance Day to commemorate them, together with all who have served.

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Memorial at Eight Mile Plains State School, Queensland

Memorial at Eight Mile Plains State School, Queensland 4

Students from Baimbridge College, Hamilton, Victoria, lay wreaths at the Hamilton Cenotaph, Anzac Day 2006

Students from Baimbridge College, Hamilton, Victoria, lay wreaths at the Hamilton Cenotaph, Anzac Day 2006. 5

 

Origins

Many regional war memorials were originally raised after WW1 and their existence demonstrates the widespread impact of the war. Even those towns that were settled after WW1 have usually erected a memorial for commemorative purposes. Since WW2 and subsequent conflicts, many of these memorials have been updated and more have been raised. Until 1966, when the policy was introduced of repatriating war dead for burial if possible,2 local war memorials were especially important in giving family and friends a focal point for remembering.

The names inscribed on monuments and honour rolls, their names are preserved in the local memory. In Australia, while the named are generally only those who served and died, some monuments also include the names of people from the district who served and returned.3

Significance today

Regional memorials continue to play a vital role as a focus for commemorative ceremonies today. Even though those of us with personal experience of war are fewer, Anzac Day and Remembrance Day services draw steady, even increasing crowds.

As Australia's population grows and settlements expand, more regional memorials are necessary to service community needs and indeed many more are being raised, in such places as local parks, in schools and other places easily accessed by the community. Saluting Their Service commemorations grants are available to help raise new community war memorials.

Forms

Australian regional war memorials come in a multitude of forms, both sacred and functional. The memorial obelisk is a familiar sight in town centres and parks, as are columns, gates and memorial stones and cairns. 'Digger memorials' (statues of mostly WW1 soldiers mounted on monuments) are a distinctive feature in towns across Australia, each digger as unique as those servicemen they represent and commemorate.

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Frequently Asked Questions

The Nominal Rolls Team often receives enquiries from local organisations or councils wishing to construct a Honour Board or Roll of Honour in their particular locality.

In particular, they wish to know:-

  1. If formal permission is necessary to use the data displayed a Nominal Roll website published by the Department of veterans’ Affairs as an avenue of research; or
  2. The criteria to be followed in constructing such an Honour Roll or Honour Board, eg, are they confined to listing veterans born in the particular area, or those who enlisted from the area etc.

The answer to 1. is that you may download, display, print and reproduce this material for your personal, non-commercial use or use within your organisation.  The Department of Veterans’ Affairs asks that you acknowledge the source of any material used.

In relation to 2. as the Roll of Honour or Honour Board is not an ‘official’ memorial, that is, one for which the Australian Government takes responsibility, it is up to the instigators of the project to set their own criteria.  The only requirement is the need to obtain permission from the Department of Defence to use the Service badge/s.

Footnotes

  1. Subject to eligibility requirements.
  2. Cabinet decision of 19/1/1966.
  3.  In this Australia differs from British military tradition, which gives individual honours on monuments only to the dead.
  4. Memorial at Eight Mile Plains State School, Qld, constructed as part of the Sunnybank RSL's Anzac Memorial Program for Schools, with some help from a Saluting Their Service commemorations grant.
    (No connection with OAWG)
  5. Students from Baimbridge College, Hamilton, Victoria, lay wreaths at the Hamilton Cenotaph, Anzac Day 2006. The school's attendance at the ceremony formed part of the activities that comprised their entry for the DVA Anzac Day Schools Awards in 2006. Baimbridge College won the secondary school category for Victoria.- Awards & Competitions

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