WW1 Honours Board

When Richmond School closed in 2013, three honours boards were donated to Avebury House for safe-keeping. The school had been a central part of the Richmond community for over 100 years. Originally the school was located in Stanmore Road, on the site that is now Richmond Green. The school outgrew that site and in 1925 moved to a new location on what was then Cumberland St (now Pavitt St).

Like many communities around the world, Richmond saw many of its young men leave to fight in WW1. The names of those servicemen (and one woman) who had a connection with Richmond School are recorded on this honours board, which is now housed in the Gordon Prince Room at Avebury House. The story of the sole woman, Jessie Maddison, is told briefly in Andrea Grieve’s article for the April 2018 Richmond Community News: (www.aveburyhouse.co.nz/uploads/4/7/2/0/47203855/rcn_118-april-2018.pdf).
         
The wooden board measures 1560 mm wide & 1955 mm high. There are 325 names recorded in five columns. Forty-seven names have a silver star beside them, which indicates the person died while on service. A small metal plaque (116 x 71 mm), attached at the top centre, reads "Presented by Pupils and Friends, 16-2-1918".

It's interesting that the board was presented in Feb 1918, when the war was still far from over. Perhaps it was the empty board itself that was donated at that date, and the names were added later.

The board itself is terse; it doesn’t state specifically that these are WW1 servicemen. Was there another element to the memorial in its previous location? And the names appear to be in no particular order; there are several people sharing a surname, but they aren't grouped together.

There are not many other WW1 memorials in Richmond; there is a memorial stone in the grounds of the Richmond Working Men’s Club, commemorating club members who were killed in the world wars. The nearest conventional memorial is the obelisk outside the Burwood School site on the corner of New Brighton Rd and Lake Terrace Rd along with the memorial gates to Wilding Park in Woodham Rd.