Day Trip: War in the Wellington Landscape

Join New Zealand’s best-known historian, Jock Phillips for a special day trip around Wellington’s war memorials. This guided tour is intended to highlight the visible evidence of the substantial impact of war on the Wellington region. The tour will begin with a visit to the major sites of war in the Hutt Valley from 1846, including Boulcott’s Farm, Battle Hill, Te Rangihaeata’s pā at Pāuatahanui and the Paremata barracks.  Our attention will then shift to the evidence in Wellington city of later international wars – Fort Ballance, initially built as a response to the Russian scare of 1885 and used again during subsequent World Wars; the memorial to William Massey, New Zealand’s leader in the Great War; the memorial to the Turkish leader at Gallipoli Kemal Ataturk, and the Brooklyn memorial to local soldiers who served and died in World War 1. The tour will conclude at Puke Ahu, the national war memorial.

Itinerary for our day trip:

9:00 am – pick up from Te Papa
9:30 am – second pick up from Petone Train station
9:40 am Te Puni’s grave – Petone – Pākehā arrival
10:15 am – Boulcott Farm memorial – 1846 Wellington war
11:00 am – coffee and snack stop, Janus Bakery
11:20 – Te Rangihaeata’s pā at St Alban’s Church Pāuatahanui – 1846 Wellington war
11:45 – Battle Hill graves – 1846 Wellington war
12:15 – Paremata Barracks

12:30 pm – Lunch at Chocolate Fish, or your own cut lunch

2:00 pm – Massey memorial, Miramar peninsula – 1WW
2:30 pm – Fort Ballance, Miramar peninsula – 1885 Russian scare and later wars.
2:50 pm – Ataturk memorial south coast – Gallipoli, 1WW
3:30 pm – Comfort and snack stop, Brooklyn
3:45 pm – Brooklyn Memorial – 1WW
4:00 pm Carillon and National War Memorial Park – 1WW and 2WW
4:45 pm drop off at Te Papa
5:00 pm second drop off at Wellington Train Station

Jock Phillips is a distinguished historian based in Wellington, New Zealand. Educated at Victoria University, he then studied United States history at Harvard University where he earned a PhD. Phillips was New Zealand’s chief historian for 14 years (1989-2002), before initiating and editing Te Ara: the Encyclopedia of New Zealand (2002-2011). He has published 15 books on New Zealand history, established the Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies, and in 2014 was awarded the Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement. His many governance roles include the National Library Society (president), Fulbright New Zealand (chair for three years), the New Zealand Portrait Gallery, the Victoria University of Wellington Council (2001-2012), and the Guardians/Kaitiaki of the Alexander Turnbull Library.

Above image: Massey War Memorial, Wellington; Alana flickr.com/people/42259422@N00/ Above right: Memorial to the colonial forces lost at the battle of Boulcott’s farm in Lower Hutt, New Zealand. Rudolph89, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons