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Ohawe Military Cemetery

Memorials	:	1
Location	:	Ohawe Beach, South Taranaki District, New Zealand
Coordinate	:	-39.5835138, 174.2003758
Description	:	This memorial cairn stands in Ōhawe Military Cemetery, which is located above Kepa St in the small town of Ōhawe, 6 km west of Hāwera. The cairn commemorates 45 imperial and colonial servicemen who died in south Taranaki during the second half of the 1860s. The cemetery’s preservation was primarily the work of local settler James Livingston (1840–1915). In partnership with a cousin, Livingston bought 250 acres of land in the northern Pātea district in 1867. When the partnership was dissolved a decade later, ownership of the half bounded by the Waingongoro River – including the cemetery – fell to Livingston. In... Read More	This memorial cairn stands in Ōhawe Military Cemetery, which is located above Kepa St in the small town of Ōhawe, 6 km west of Hāwera. The cairn commemorates 45 imperial and colonial servicemen who died in south Taranaki during the second half of the 1860s. The cemetery’s preservation was primarily the work of local settler James Livingston (1840–1915). In partnership with a cousin, Livingston bought 250 acres of land in the northern Pātea district in 1867. When the partnership was dissolved a decade later, ownership of the half bounded by the Waingongoro River – including the cemetery – fell to Livingston. In a letter to the Department of Internal Affairs on 22 December 1913, Livingston claimed to have attended to the cemetery ‘for the last 45 years’. In 1915, just before his death, the Department granted Livingston £5 a year for maintenance. Livingston initially erected a ditch and bank fence planted with gorse around the cemetery’s perimeter. Inside he planted shrubs and trees compatible with the coastal environment. After these plantings were swept away by a storm around 1900, Livingston surrounded the cemetery with a boxthorn hedge inside a barbed wire fence. The cairn was erected in about 1907, when the wooden slabs that originally marked the graves showed signs of decay. The builder, Hugh Whittington, was a Hāwera borough councillor. The sculptors were Russell & Son. The inscription on the original marble plaque is thought to be based on Livingston’s own knowledge. The plaque, positioned to face the setting sun, lists the names of 19 men buried in the cemetery and acknowledges seven others ‘now lost to memory’. Many of these men were killed in the battle of Otapawa, the most notable engagement of Major-General Trevor Chute’s West Coast campaign. A combined force of imperial, colonial and kūpapa (pro-government Māori) attack the strongly fortified Otapawa pā, which stood on the Tangahoe River about 8 km east of present-day Hāwera, on 13 January 1866. Livingston was himself a veteran of the New Zealand Wars. As a sergeant in the Patea Field Force he had distinguished himself at the third and ill-fated attack on Te Ngutu o te Manu on 7 September 1868. This may, in part, explain his dedication to Ōhawe Military Cemetery. Further changes took place after Livingston’s death. A second plaque with three additional names was added to the cairn in 1925; a fourth name was added at a later, unknown, date. A new wall was erected around the cemetery in 1926. Over the years, the remains of servicemen buried nearby were reinterred in Ōhawe Military Cemetery. The last group was transferred from Manawapou on 27 April 1945. The cliff-top military cemetery, precariously situated on a tongue of land surrounded on three sides by the tidal portion of the Manawapou River, was found to be eroding into the sea. This reinterment is commemorated on the third and final cairn plaque. On 14 January 1926, Wellington’s Dominion newspaper reported that the new (second) plaque and the cairn had been unveiled by the Minister of Internal Affairs, the Hon. R.F. Bollard. The ceremony on the 60th anniversary of the battle of Otapawa was attended by about 20 veterans. According to the report, the cairn had not been unveiled earlier because Livingston shunned publicity.

frequently asked questions (FAQ):

Where is Ohawe Military Cemetery?
Ohawe Military Cemetery is located at Kepa Street Ohawe Beach, South Taranaki District ,Taranaki , 4671New Zealand.
Ohawe Military Cemetery cemetery's updated grave count on graveviews.com?
1 memorials
Where are the coordinates of the Ohawe Military Cemetery?
Latitude: -39.5835138
Longitude: 174.2003758

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Ohawe Military Cemetery

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