REMEMBRANCE
REMEMBRANCE
November 2024-25
Volume 14
ISSN 2209-3826
The Shrine of Remembrance embraces the diversity of our community and acknowledge the Bunurong people of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we honour Australian service and sacrifice. We pay our respects to Elders, past and present.
Remembrance is published by the Shrine of Remembrance
Editorial team
Sue Burgess, Sue Curwood, Ryan Johnston, Jessica Trigg and Laura Thomas
Art Director and Production Manager
Janine Dale and Christine Wallace, Paragon Art
Copy Editing
Paula Ruzek, Professional Word Services
Printing Gunn & Taylor
Special thanks Clare O’Connor
© All material appearing in Remembrance is copyright. Reproduction in whole or part, whether storied in an electronic retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, must be approved by the publisher. Contact programs@shrine.org.au for approval.
Every effort has been made to determine and contact holders of copyright for materials used in Remembrance.
The Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne welcomes advice concerning any omission.
KEY PARTNER
KEEP UP TO DATE WITH EVENTS, SERVICES AND EXHIBITIONS AT THE SHRINE SUBSCRIBE TO OUR E-NEWS AT SHRINE.ORG.AU
Stories of service and sacrifice may cause distress. If you or someone you know needs help, please make use of the following resources.
Open Arms: Free and confidential, 24/7 national counselling service for Australian veterans and their families, provided through the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA). Phone: 1800 011 046
Lifeline: Suicide and crisis support. Phone: 13 11 14
Kids Helpline: Australia’s only free (even from a mobile), confidential 24/7 online and phone counselling service for young people aged 5 to 25. Phone: 1800 551 800
Beyond Blue: Free, immediate, short-term counselling advice and referral via telephone, webchat or email 24/7. Phone: 1300 224 636
Suicide Call Back Service: 24-hour counselling service for suicide prevention and mental health. Available via telephone, online and by video for anyone affected by suicidal thoughts. Phone: 1300 659 467
SUPPORTERS OF REMEMBRANCE MAGAZINE ON THE COVER: Dedication of the Shrine of Remembrance on 11 November, 1934
Reproduced courtesy City of Melbourne Libraries/McKenzie Collection
UNFORGETTABLE HOUR by Peter Luby
SHRINE OF REMEMBRANCE AT 90 by Dean Lee 04 14 20 22 26 30 34 40 42 44 46 50
DESIGNING REMEMBRANCE by Neil Sharkey
FROM THE COLLECTION by Toby Miller
BEYOND THE BLUEPRINT by Dr Katti Williams
CONVERGENCES by Garry Fabian
TALES OF THE SHRINE’S TREES by Mary Ward
GUARDING THE SHRINE by Katrina Nicolson
BECOMING A YOUNG AMBASSADOR by Benjamin Bezzina
FROM THE COLLECTION by Tessa Occhino
KIPLING’S ODE TO THE SHRINE by Carolyn Argent
REMEMBER FOR THE FUTURE by Bai Yang Pogos-Hill
Reflections in our 90th Year
DEAN LEE
Chief Executive Officer
Ifirst visited the Shrine in the mid1990s and remember being roundly reprimanded by a uniformed person for the ‘crime’ of sitting on the steps. My father was a Royal Australian Air Force officer and, while I understood our military history and why the Shrine was built, at the time I had little appreciation of what it represented in the hearts and minds of Victorians.
I returned to the Shrine on 14 May 2015. I had just interviewed for the role of Chief Executive Officer. I’d spent the prior 18 months deeply immersed in the commemorative community preparing for Centenary of Anzac events and leading development of the National Anzac Centre in Western Australia. I now understood well what war memorials embodied.
I approached the Shrine from the city, awed by its resolute presence.
Autumn rains washed the monument and Reserve; the chill air was warmed by the vibrant reds and golds of the turning leaves. I lingered many hours and reflected deeply— very deeply. I had successfully led larger and more complex organisations, but the responsibility of stewarding this place would be incomparable.
I joined the Shrine as CEO in July 2015. The task assigned to me by the Trustees was to leverage the $45m State and Federal investment in the Galleries of Remembrance— to attract new audiences and consolidate the Shrine’s operational, governance and financial capacity to advance and secure its future.
Through the combined efforts of so many dedicated people we have made great progress, sensitively threading a path that safeguards the Shrine’s traditional values while
contemporising them in ways that are relatable and engaging in a fastchanging world.
I have served as the Shrine’s CEO for nine years in its 90-year history. There is not a day I approach this place without remembering that day in May 2015. I feel the privilege and the responsibility we shoulder as custodians of our nation’s wartime grief, bound within these walls.
I draw satisfaction knowing that, today, we welcome people from all walks of life and guide their engagement with this remarkable place less through the application of rules and more through education and learning. Yet some restrictions endure: Rocky impersonations running up and down the monument steps are a no go!
CAPTAIN STEPHEN BOWATER OAM RAN
Chair of the Shrine of Remembrance Trustees
Ninety years ago, amid echoes of history and whispers of sacrifice, Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance emerged as a beacon of reverence and resilience. Today, as we mark this significant milestone, we honour the unwavering spirit of those who have served and sacrificed for our nation. Their courage and selflessness are etched into the very stones of this hallowed monument, a testament to the eternal gratitude of a nation forever indebted.
As custodians of this sacred space, the Shrine Trustees, Governors, staff and volunteers are united in our commitment to preserve stories, honour the fallen and educate future generations. May the Shrine continue to stand as a symbol of peace, unity and everlasting gratitude, embodying the values of service and sacrifice that define our national identity.
All Victorians bear the solemn responsibility of preserving the Shrine’s legacy, ensuring that the memories of the fallen are etched into the collective consciousness of our nation. The Shrine is not merely a structure of stone and marble; it is a living testament to the sacrifices made in the name of freedom, democracy and peace.
In commemorating the Shrine’s 90th anniversary, we acknowledge that the world has undergone profound transformations over the decades. Yet, amid the ever-changing backdrop of history, one constant remains—the Shrine’s steadfast commitment to honour, remember and pay tribute to the sacrifices of our servicemen and women.
It remains a timeless symbol of gratitude and unity and serves as a poignant reminder of the enduring values that transcend generations—
values of courage, sacrifice and selflessness that resonate as powerfully today as they did nine decades ago.
Today, the Shrine’s role as a custodian of memory and a beacon of reverence remains as vital as ever. As we look to the future with hope and determination, let us take comfort in the constancy of the Shrine’s mission—to ensure that the sacrifices of the past are never forgotten and that the stories of heroism and valour endure.
On this momentous occasion, we reflect on the past with solemnity, look to the future with hope, and reaffirm our pledge to ensure that the flame of remembrance burns brightly for all eternity.
Lest we forget.
NOBODY WHO WITNESSED THE DEDICATION AND NOBODY WHO LISTENED IN ON THE WIRELESS WILL FORGET ARMISTICE DAY, 1934…
UNFORGETTABLE HOUR
BY PETER LUBY
The Dedication of the Shrine of Remembrance in November 1934 was one of the most impressive and moving spectacles ever seen in Melbourne. It took place during a State Centenary and a Royal Visit, but eclipsed them both. News reports, letters and Shrine records build a picture of a cathartic, overwhelming experience—a ceremony of intense precision and solemn grandeur—as the city held its breath for an unforgettable two minutes’ silence.
Eleventh hour, eleventh day, eleventh month, 1932: the Sanctuary of the National War Memorial of Victoria. For the first time, members of the public watch in silence as a slanting beam of light strikes the ‘Rock of Remembrance’. This was not a formal ceremony: no words were spoken, no bugles sounded. But the presence of this small group of men and women in the Shrine spoke of the magnetic hold the monument already had on the public imagination.
The building was unfinished, despite four years of construction and a decade of planning. Hopes that the formal dedication would take place in 1932 had evaporated in the grimmest year of the Great Depression, a casualty of the slow drip-feed of funds. State Premier Sir Stanley Argyle now proposed that Victoria should invite a Royal Visitor to dedicate the Shrine during the forthcoming State Centenary.
For two more years Victorians kept visiting the Shrine, climbing to the Balcony, watching politicians, veterans and sportsmen lay wreaths in the Sanctuary. But in January 1934
parts of the building were still not ready: the Crypt; bronze cases in the Ambulatory; Pool of Reflection; floodlight pylons; and sculptural groups for the tympana. One month out from the Dedication hundreds of unemployed men on sustenance payments were still landscaping the lawns and approaches.
Anticipation grew as November loomed. Although the Centenary would run until July 1935, the Dedication was being billed as its ‘climax’. Brigadier General Stewart was appointed Marshal of the ceremony and worked with the Shrine Trustees, Melbourne City Council, the Returned Sailors and Soldiers Imperial League (RSSILA), Police and the St John Ambulance Brigade to prepare for the largest public event in the state’s history.
On 18 October, a small fleet of Empire warships escorted HMS Sussex through the heads of Port Phillip Bay, 50 RAF and RAAF planes flying a protective screen overhead.
A flotilla of steamers, launches and yachts collected around the heavy cruiser as it docked at Port Melbourne. At 1.35pm, His Royal
Highness Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, third eldest son of King George V of England, disembarked to a 21-gun salute. Thousands of loyal Melburnians cheered his carriage up Beaconsfield Parade and down the length of St Kilda Road. As he passed the Shrine of Remembrance “he gravely saluted”. On the steps of State Parliament, the Duke read a message from the King. Centenary celebrations had begun.
That evening, the Centenary Illuminations were switched on and the city lit up in a festive blaze. For months, sightseers would flock to central Melbourne at dusk to gaze on the “fairy land” of buildings and monuments flood-lit red, green and tangerine along the axis of Swanston and Collins streets.
That first night of the Royal Visit, the city also endured the dubious spectacle of a mock air raid – an aeroplane trailing magnesium flares onto the Manchester Unity skyscraper and T&G Building, which “exploded” with fireworks, smoke and searchlight beams. Beyond the brilliantly lit pylons of Princes Bridge, the Shrine gleamed white under
IMAGE LEFT Newsreel, press cameras and a sea of upturned faces focus on the Shrine moments before the Dedication.
Photographer Hugh Jones Bull, the Age Reproduced courtesy City of Melbourne Libraries (MCK062)
“A blaze of red and amber glory”: Flinders Street transformed by the Centenary Illuminations. Reproduced courtesy of State Library Victoria (H2017.205/226)
Town Hall and Manchester Unity Building glowed red, green and amber for Centenary Celebrations. City streets were lit up by 600 “Venetian poles”.
Photographer for above three Walter McRae Russell Reproduced courtesy State Library of Victoria (H92.388/144)
Rain and grim weather dogged Melbourne in the weeks before the Dedication. Photographer Hugh Jones Bull, the Age
Reproduced courtesy City of Melbourne Libraries (MCK099)
floodlight in the Domain, safe from air attack. Its moment in the spotlight was a month away.
The weeks leading up to the Dedication were fraught. October was unseasonably wet, drenching Centenary events and the Royal Melbourne Show, and rain was feared on Armistice Day. A plague of grasshoppers descended on crops in the Mallee—millions of insects on a “front” from Mildura to Swan Hill. Newspapers reported on disarmament in Europe and war manoeuvres in Japan.
One week out from Armistice Day, rain and gloomy skies continued to dog Melbourne. On Tuesday, a horse named Peter Pan ran on a very heavy track at Flemington to win the Melbourne Cup for the second time (the Duke of Gloucester presented the Cup). Attorney-General Robert Menzies banned a Czech anti-war activist from entering Australia to prevent him speaking at the AllAustralian Congress Against War. Egon Kisch—a communist—was kept “prisoner” on a ship off Station Pier
until after the Dedication. He had been a prisoner of the Nazi regime and had come to Melbourne to warn about the threat of Hitler.
Saturday 10 November was cloudy with occasional showers and the Melbourne daily newspapers made a last-minute appeal for 30 cars to transport wounded veterans and “cot-cases” from Caulfield Military Hospital to the Shrine tomorrow “so that none of the incapacitated returned men shall be disappointed”. The Duke’s schedule that day was exhausting. He watched the Duke of Gloucester Cup at Flemington, a Grand Military Gymkhana at the Showgrounds, then drove through a traffic jam of well-wishers to the RAAF Air Pageant at Laverton to present a Gold Cup to the winners of the Centenary Air Race.
On Saturday night, he entered the Melbourne Town Hall through lines of 600 cheering ex-servicemen to speak at a RSSILA dinner. Although he’d been too young to serve in the First World War, he was a soldier and to these men he represented
the monarch and cause they had served in that war. All stood in silence to remember departed comrades. The Duke anticipated the next day’s sentiments: It is most fitting that we should have paid our silent tribute to our comrades, but while Armistice Day brings back these solemn thoughts, it is also an occasion for rejoicing for the return of peace. The atmosphere was highly charged. The old Diggers sang Tipperary and There’s a Long, Long Trail, and the Duke joined in, enjoying “the fire of chaff and banter” as he moved between the tables.
Late that night, members of the Victorian Homing Association collected 75 wicker panniers from their metropolitan clubrooms and drove to the Shrine. In darkness they hauled baskets full of 10,000 fluttering pigeons up two flights of stairs to the Upper Balcony, ready for tomorrow’s ceremony. When rain fell in the early hours the pigeon fanciers threw tarpaulins over the panniers to protect their birds.
The Duke of Gloucester and State Governor Lord Huntingfield (centre, front) pictured at Government House a few days before the Dedication ceremony.
Photographer Spencer Shier
Reproduced courtesy State Library of Victoria (H81.281/16)
BUT FROM OUT THE ETHER COMING
I COULD HEAR A VAST CROWD’S HUMMING
HEAR THE SINGING, THEN –THE SILENCE. AND I KNEW THE HOUR HAD COME…
– C.J. Dennis
The sky at dawn was sullen and grim, but when Police contingents arrived at the Shrine at 5am to take up position people were already gathering. The St John Ambulance Brigade had stations and tents set up by 8am. Detachments came from Geelong to bolster total officers and nurses up to 354. The public were advised to be in the city by 9am to allow time to get through the crowds and take up vantage points, but by 8.30am thousands had already found spots on the grassy slopes.
Predictions that half a million would descend on the Shrine had prompted anxiety over transport arrangements. Victorian Railways came to the rescue with a schedule of special trains leaving the farthest edges of the state at 4am to bring country travellers to Melbourne. Return fares were capped at the price of a single fare. The Tramways Board had trams rolling out of depots at 6.30am to reach Flinders Street Station and the Shrine by 7.15am. Every inspector was on duty, extra crews were on standby, and conductors with extra bags of change were stationed on St Kilda Road.
To cope with demand, suburban electric trains were running every 10 minutes. Between 7am and 10am, trains rattled into Flinders Street Station at a rate of one every 53 seconds. Travellers poured through the ticket gates as the half-muffled bells of St Paul’s Cathedral rang out. The solemn chimes followed the “seething mass of people” moving towards the Shrine on foot, in crowded trams, by car. By 9am, the monument appeared to be a great magnet drawing “almost a whole city toward its base”.
The east slope of the southern lawn promised the best view of the Duke, but couldn’t be entered after 9.30am. Holders of colour-coded
tickets were advised to take their places early. Red, Blue and White areas (for the choir, musicians and Shrine guests) were to the west and centre. The Green area for disabled soldiers and “cot-cases” was nearest the steps with a view of the dais, Yellow (widows and bereaved mothers) and Brown (for fathers of the fallen) to the east. On the lawn further east, a field gun stood ready to fire.
A large area in front of the south steps was reserved for the returned men of the AIF. This great “mufti” army had orders to assemble in their divisions in the side streets around Melbourne Grammar by 8.30am. Navy, Air Force and Light Horse veterans, and Imperial troops from Canada, New Zealand and South Africa, formed up nearby. Bands played as columns of men moved off just after 9am in a carefully orchestrated pincer movement, swinging east off St Kilda Road or west along Domain Road then wheeling north toward the Shrine in strictly prescribed order, 120 men abreast.
“The Deathless Army” – 27,500 men led by their officers in dress uniform – moved up the slope in wave after wave, thousands of medals clinking, and swallowed up two acres of green at the base of the Shrine. Twenty Artillery trumpeters and 18 Army buglers marched from the western terrace to the tap of Naval Reserve drums, drawing up in lines on the steps and turning to face the crowd.
The public kept streaming up from the city, up and around the hill, until “the lawns were black with people”. Some climbed trees or threw simple rope swings over branches to get a slightly elevated view. Small boys pushed through the throng hawking unauthorised souvenirs and trays of ice-creams, to the disapproval of many. Cine-cameras from the newsreel companies and press photographers from across Australia stood high up on scaffold platforms, clustered near the dais, or captured the majestic scene from the Balcony.
From a microphone on the steps, Professor George S. Browne was broadcasting a live, descriptive commentary for radio station 3LO.
Shrine Trustees printed 20,000 pasteboard tickets for the colour-coded Reserved enclosures at the Dedication. The Red enclosure was filled by 5,000 choir members and 30 brass bands.
Reproduced courtesy Museums Victoria (SH 990739)
Henry, Duke of Gloucester.
Photographer Raphael Tuck and Sons Ltd. (London) Reproduced courtesy State Library of Victoria (H26147)
The Shrine’s floodlight pylons were converted into giant speaker stands for some of the 32 loudspeakers that broadcast the ceremony to the crowd.
The Melbourne Herald, November 10, 1934
A “splitter panel” on the Balcony fed “distortion-free” sound through eight 20-watt amplifiers and underground cable to 32 Amalgamated Wireless loudspeakers banked on the floodlight pylons or grouped across the hill. Browne, an educator and decorated veteran, asked the crowd to refrain from cheering when the Duke arrived.
His words went out across the Commonwealth, into churches holding morning service, to the radios the RSSILA had set up at country town cenotaphs. In the lull before the Duke’s arrival, the commentary “filled in”, describing the scene at the Shrine for listeners and citing Will Longstaff’s painting Menin Gate at Midnight. In 1927, this famous image of a ghostly army gathering on a field around a great monument had struck a nerve with grieving postwar Australians.
The craze for Spiritualism that blossomed in the wake of the Great War was very much alive in Melbourne in 1934—dozens of churches still advertised seances or promised “overhead messages”
to those yearning for contact with the souls of the Fallen. On the morning of the Dedication, many gazing up at the sculptural group of the south tympanum (‘The Homecoming’) must have felt that perhaps the spirits of the war dead were gathering there, to be laid to rest—symbolically at least—on home soil and “sacred ground”.
10.25am
Thirty military and municipal brass bands began to play Handel’s stately Largo, setting the tone for the ceremony ahead. The smokehaze hanging over the hill from thousands of pipes and cigarettes slowly thinned and disappeared out of respect. The last notes of the Largo faded, the bands played the first line of Lead Kindly Light, and the massed choir of 5,000 led the crowd singing Cardinal Newman’s beautiful prayer for guidance and hope in darkness.
The night is dark, and I am far from home, Lead Thou me on…
“Always a favourite hymn with the soldiers, it was sung wonderfully well,
everyone endeavouring to put feeling into it,” one “Digger” wrote. Voices of widows and grieving parents blended softly with the swell from the great choir.
And with the morn, those angel faces smile, Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile!
The Age reported “there could have been nothing more appropriate”. Nearer My God to Thee followed and “again the multitude burst into song”. Voices “became like the roar of sea surf… volumes of sound rolled on until they broke against one another…”
10.45am
A troop of the 13th Light Horse cantered off St Kilda Road onto Domain Road ahead of the Royal Humber. The Duke stepped from the gleaming car wearing the khaki service uniform of his regiment, the 10th Royal Hussars. State Governor Lord Huntingfield greeted him and they joined the official cortège: Brigadier General Stewart, Chairman of the Shrine Trustees General Sir Harry Chauvel, Premier
Souvenir postcard of the Dedication viewed from the air. The Sun reported that the unpleasant noise of aeroplanes during the ceremony “were like blowflies in a church”.
Argyle, Melbourne’s Lord Mayor George Wales, Victorian President of the RSSILA, Brigadier-Generals, naval and air force Commanders, Sir Alexander Godley who led the New Zealanders at Gallipoli, and Miss Grace Wilson, Senior Matron of the Australian Army Nursing Service and Shrine Trustee.
There were 500 former Army nursing sisters dotted across the crowd in their red-and-white.
“Gangway please! There are some returned nurses with blind soldiers late – wanting to reach their front positions allotted to them, and what a track was made for them. The Prince did not have a more uninterrupted pathway to the Shrine than those nurses and blind men had, passing through hundreds of soldiers.” – A “Digger” from Ouyen
A member of the Father’s Association of Victoria from Shepparton was moved by the “cot-cases”:
“… brought thither in vans kindly furnished for the purpose by city business firms, unable to move, these sorely stricken soldiers were tenderly lifted into positions where they could see and hear something of what was going on. Looking at them, something approaching realisation of what an accursed thing war is came home to the mind, and made one ready to join with heart and soul in the prayer Give Peace in Our Time O Lord.”
The Duke progressed up towards the Shrine through ranks of silent veterans, his path flanked by the fixed bayonets of the Navy and Militia. Armed colour parties of 22 Victorian Infantry Battalions and Light Horse regiments paced behind. Women in the crowd took compact mirrors from their purses, turned, and held the mirrors up to catch a reverse glimpse of the Duke over the heads of the crowd. Several fixed these makeshift periscopes to the ribs of umbrellas and held those aloft to get an advantage.
Secretary of the Shrine Trustees
Jack Barnes and members of the Centenary Committee met the cortège at the south steps. The bands struck up the national anthem—God Save the King—and the Duke stood to attention, saluting. Brigadier General Stewart had timed to the minute how long it would now take for the cortège to proceed via the western terrace, ascend the steps on the north side, and walk through the Sanctuary doors at exactly two minutes before 11am.
Banks of blue-black cloud still blocked the sun. The colour parties spread out across the steps and faced the Shrine. The far-off muffled bells of St Paul’s had stopped. Trumpets sounded two long warning notes of ‘G’. Half a minute to 11.
In the amber glow of the ‘Inner Shrine’, the Duke looked down at the Rock of Remembrance. The official cortège stood behind, heads bowed. Beside the Duke was Captain
Cornetist Roy McFadyen (front row, third from right) pictured in the West Preston School Band. His bandmaster picked him to “echo” the Last Post from the Shrine’s Balcony. Reproduced courtesy of Ian McFadyen
William Dunstan VC, of Ballarat, representing the AIF. Dunstan was awarded the Victoria Cross for “exceptional courage” at Lone Pine. Today he held a wreath of poppies and bay laurel, the tribute of King George V, brought from England. Dunstan handed the wreath to the King’s son.
The Silence
The dark clouds finally shredded and sunshine broke from blue sky. Road traffic around the Shrine slowed, pulled over, stopped mid-street. Tram drivers pushed their control handles to ‘off’ and trams ground to a halt. Electrical current to the entire city tram network was now cut off.
East of the Shrine, the field gun boomed to signal the 11th hour. The echo of the shot drifted across bowed heads and “the great concourse fell into an awed silence, terrifying, profound, sacred”. The wind was at rest. Faintly, the clang of the South Melbourne Town Hall clock marked out 11. After that, only the sound of weeping, “the sibilance of the whispered prayer of a woman standing near,” and the distant drone of aeroplanes high above. For two minutes a city of almost one million was still.
Within the Shrine, a beam of sunlight was falling “like a glittering sword through the semi-obscurity of the upper spaces of the dome”. It “flooded the tablet and softly lit up the Sanctuary”. One account records the Duke was so entranced by the
light moving imperceptibly over the inscription ‘Greater Love Hath No Man’ that Jack Barnes had to prompt him: “Lay the wreath, Sir”. Jogged from reverie, the Duke lowered the wreath to rest on the memorial stone.
At the end of the two minutes there was a mighty, soft sigh from the crowd. Sunlight flashed on bugles rising up to sound “that silver evocation,” the Last Post. Shrill, clear, melancholy, “last bugle call of the soldier’s day, the requiem of the dead”.
High up on the “parapet” of the Shrine was fifteen-year-old cornetist Roy McFadyen, one of four boys recruited from suburban brass bands to “echo” the Last Post from the corners of the Balcony - pushing the sound out over the city and suburbs. He later recalled how his band master “insisted that on this special day I get it right”. As the notes drifted down from the northeast corner, “young as I was I could detect the sadness of the crowd…”
A pause, then the trumpets rang out Reveille, rousing and hopeful and fading again to silence. The south doors of the Sanctuary opened and the Duke emerged. Buglers and colour parties divided to let the cortège through to the dais.
11.06am
Bands played the Old Hundredth and the multitude took up the great hymn, led by the choir. Senior Chaplain A. P. Bladen read the
prayer: “Eternal Father, before whom stand the spirits of the living and the dead… bring us, in this day of remembrance and dedication of this Shrine, into fellowship with those Thy servants who laid down their lives in the time of war…”
11.13am
Sir Harry Chauvel stepped to the lectern to introduce Premier Argyle, who made a short speech of thanks for the Royal presence and then declaimed the words of the Ode written by Rudyard Kipling expressly for this moment. He then asked the Duke of Gloucester to dedicate the Shrine. The Duke moved to the microphone. His voice shook slightly, “for he shared the emotion that stirred the huge assemblage”.
“This noble Shrine, which I am invited to dedicate, has been erected as a token of our gratitude to those who fought for us… they fought to secure to the world the blessings of peace. It is for us to seek to repay their devotion by striving to preserve that peace, and by caring for those who have been left bereaved or afflicted by the war.
To the Glory of God and in grateful memory of the men and women of this State who served in the Great War, and especially of those who fell, I dedicate this Shrine.”
A roll of drums and a fanfare from the trumpets was cue for the Duke to press a button on the lectern, sending
The crowd listens as HRH Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, dedicates the Shrine. Note the women in the foreground using their mirrors as periscopes.
Photographer Hugh Jones Bull, the Age Reproduced courtesy City of Melbourne Libraries (MCK092)
an electric charge to the Union Jack draping the stone pier beneath the portico. The flag that had once hung on the Cenotaph in London jerked aside to reveal the Dedication stone.
Bands struck up Kipling’s Imperialist hymn Recessional and “the vast crowd sang with vigour”, the timeless phrase of remembrance, “Lest We Forget”. Sombre clouds framed the Shrine again. The bands played Chopin’s chilling Marche Funèbre, as if the mood of grief at large on the hill needed any further expression.
Dr Head, Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne, pronounced a Benediction and God Save the King was sung again. The Duke’s entourage promenaded around the eastern terrace to the north side where architect Philip Hudson presented the Prince with “a gold key” to unlock the great bronze door. Thus the Duke became the first person to enter the Shrine after the Dedication, and Hudson conducted him on an inspection of the interior.
Around this time, plainclothes policemen pushed through the crowd at the Pool of Reflection and arrested a man wearing a red antiwar ribbon. Harold Fletcher threw a handful of pamphlets to the ground, kicked them about, yelling “I protest! Down with the warmongers! Release Kisch!” Struggling to break free, he was bundled down to St Kilda Road and into a car, shouting “scurrilous statements”.
Fletcher was later jailed for 23 days for ‘delivering handbills in public places’. He told the court he was at the service out of respect for his comrades who gave their lives in the war. The magistrate said it was lucky he didn’t cause a riot. A local printer was prosecuted under the Shrine of Remembrance Site Act for using “a substantial likeness of the Shrine” (without approval) in the offending pamphlets, which asserted that returned soldiers “built their own monument for 12 shillings a week”.
11.43am
The reappearance of the Duke from the south doors triggered the release of the 10,000 pigeons quivering in panniers on the Upper Balcony. They rose “like a huge puff of smoke”, hovered as they got their bearings, then circled over the Shrine and wheeled away across Victoria to their lofts.
The sight of the pigeons, the meaning attributed to them, captivated the press: to some they were the outbreak of peace 16 years before; to others “the homeward movement that commenced on the day the Armistice was signed”. British Poet Laureate John Masefield watched them circle round the
Shrine against a black cloud lit by the sun. He thought them “the climax of beauty and inspiration of a deeply noble ceremony”.
The press built up the number of birds from 10,000 to 15,000 to 20,000 and the further the newspaper from Victoria, the more fanciful the reports. Perth’s Daily News had promised the spectacle of 20,000 Diggers “acting as one man” throwing 20,000 champion homing pigeons high in the air as the choir sang “a hymn of triumph”. Brisbane’s Sunday Mail claimed the Duke himself would “make an inspection of the Shrine and release 20,000 pigeons from the Upper Gallery”.
As the Duke of Gloucester moved off the eastern terrace to rejoin his car, the crowd broke out with a roar of cheering, especially from the wounded returned men. Cheers followed his car as it headed for Government House, with the Light Horse escort at the trot. The Dedication was over. It had lasted just a few minutes over one hour. Magically, the fog of cigarette and pipe-smoke returned to the Shrine and shrouded the heads of the crowd like a sigh of relief.
Wreaths were now laid in the Sanctuary by Empire dominions and foreign dignitaries. Canada laid a wreath of maple leaves, Scotland a cross of wildflowers and heather. At the special direction of the Japanese Government, Consul-General Mr Murai had come by train from Sydney. Sailors and marines from HMS Sussex carried in a giant wreath in the shape of an anchor. Masefield left a wreath on behalf of the Poets of England; visiting British golfers brought a cross of white flowers and lavender.
“With amazing order”, the crowd outside dispersed or began the march back to the city: “an army of men and women moving on a front hundreds of yards wide, to the conquest of Melbourne”. Thousands surged up into the Shrine, waited silently to inspect the King’s wreath resting on the Rock, or filed down stairwells into the Crypt. When evening floodlights came on, hundreds still lingered around the Pool of Reflection, not wanting to let the day go.
Brigadier Stewart estimated the crowd at the ceremony was 317,500, “probably the largest gathering that has ever assembled in Australia”.
The St John Ambulance Brigade treated 478 cases of fainting and collapse. Civil ambulances attended 70 cases of “emotional prostration” and took eight people to hospital. For many, the Dedication had been the long-delayed or denied ritual of mourning—the funeral service for a loved one, a laying to rest.
Private grief wasn’t resolved or ended by the formal Dedication, but with the building complete Victorians felt they now had a place where their emotions could find public expression and acceptance. A day after the Dedication, the Melbourne Herald published a poem by its resident bard C.J. Dennis. Come Ye Home captured in a dream-like vision the sentiments of that vast crowd before the Shrine on Armistice Day, 1934.
I could see the kneeling thousands by the Shrine’s approaches there. Then, above those heads lowbending,
Like an orison ascending, Saw a multitude’s great yearning rise into the quivering air… There, I saw from out high Heaven spread above the great Shrine’s dome,
From the wide skies overarching, I beheld battalions marchingMates of mine! My comrades, singing: Coming home! Coming home!
Peter Luby is an Education Officer at the Shrine of Remembrance.
AHS R ETHIS ARTIC L E
The “silver grey mass” of the flood-lit Shrine. Thousands lingered after the Dedication, not wanting to let the day go.
Photographer Walter McRae Russell Reproduced courtesy of State Library Victoria (H2017.205/213)
Field Artillery trumpeter Sergeant Holt led the Reveille in the Dedication ceremony. Sun News-Pictorial, November 12, 1934
A vision for Melbourne:
Hope and resilience after the First World War
The shared history between Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation and the Shrine of Remembrance shaped and changed the trajectory of Melbourne to help it become the beautiful and vibrant international city it is today.
In the early 1920s, Melbourne was recovering from the influenza pandemic and the First World War. As soldiers returned home over months and years, they brought with them many health problems and traumas of war. With the public’s charity diverted to the war effort and healthcare costs rising due to inflation and demand, Melbourne’s overcrowded, under-funded public hospitals were struggling.
In the years between 1918 to 1925, maintenance costs for hospitals increased by 50 per cent, and funding was never certain as government funding for hospitals was limited.
Melburnians were generous donors, but fundraising collections could be haphazard. In 1922, the city took a major step forward. The Lord Mayor of Melbourne, Sir John Swanson, assembled a committee of councillors, philanthropists, business owners and hospital staff to address hospital fundraising.
Sir John Swanson was a visionary businessman who could see the need for improved public access to
hospital care after the war, and the need to publicly honour returned service men and women. He established the Lord Mayor’s Fund for Metropolitan Hospitals and Charities in 1923, whilst also serving as Chairman of the National War Memorial Committee. This committee was responsible for selecting the design entry that would ultimately become the Shrine of Remembrance.
These two important projects provided Melbourne with the hope it needed to recover from the First World War. They provided the people of Melbourne a trusted place to make donations for hospitals and a special place to honour and commemorate Australians in service.
Community efforts after the First World War paved the way to also address the devastation of the influenza pandemic.
Today, Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation continues to support the health and wellbeing of Greater Melbourne through grant making and donor services, and the Shrine of Remembrance is one of Australia’s most important memorials, honouring the service and sacrifice of Australians in war and peacekeeping.
Learn more about Melbourne’s incredible history at shrine.org.au and Imcf.org.au
The Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation is a supporter of Remembrance magazine
Above: A view of Melbourne’s CBD from the Shrine of Remembrance. Image reproduced courtesy Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation Archives
Left: Melbourne’s Lord Mayor Sir John Swanson established the Lord Mayor’s Fund for Metropolitan Hospitals and Charities in 1923. Today, Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation continues to have a significant positive impact on the health and wellbeing of Greater Melbourne. Image reproduced courtesy Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation Archives
Right: The Lord Mayor’s Fund for Metropolitan Hospitals and Charities received special permission from the State Government to continue fundraising for Melbourne’s hospitals and charities during the Second World War. Image reproduced courtesy Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation Archives
Designing
REMEMBRANCE
BY NEIL SHARKEY
The Shrine of Remembrance’s special exhibition, Designing Remembrance: Alternative Visions for Victoria’s War Memorial, tells the story of the fateful 1920s architecture design competition that determined the form of the National War Memorial for Victoria. Designing Remembrance reveals the competing visions for the state’s war memorial, in particular the six shortlisted designs, and for the first time in a century presents alternatives to the Shrine of Remembrance—the competition’s winner.
It was on 4 August 1921, at a public meeting at the Melbourne Town Hall, that the Minister for Public Works, Frank Clarke, first moved a motion for a national war memorial for Victoria. Clarke proposed a nonutilitarian monument that would commemorate ‘the services of those who enlisted and fought in the Great War’. An architectural competition would determine the memorial’s form.
The conditions, devised in consultation with the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects, were circulated just under a year later in July 1922, together with a survey map of the preferred site—an elevated section of Crown Land at the corner of Domain and St Kilda roads known as ‘The Grange’. The site had been associated with the earliest phase of
European settlement and was, as it remains, important to the peoples of the Kulin nation.
The competition was open to ‘Australasians and British Subjects resident in Australia’ and the Lord Mayor’s office had received 83 preliminary designs by the competition’s closing date on 30 June 1923.
General Sir John Monash, wartime commander of the Australian Corps, was appointed competition judge together with George Godsell and Kingsley Henderson—presidents of the Federal Council of the Australian Institute of Architects and Royal Victorian Institute of Architects, respectively. These men selected a shortlist of six designs in July 1923.
Revealing the winners
Only Sir John Swanson, the Executive Committee’s Chairman, knew the identities of the architects of the six shortlisted entries when the competition judges passed final judgement on 9 December 1923. The winner, Philip Hudson and James Wardrop’s ‘A Shrine of Remembrance’, was publicly announced four days later.
More than a month passed before ordinary Victorians got to see the competition entries for themselves at an exhibition held at the Melbourne Town Hall between January and February 1924. A large plaster model and 15 drawings of ‘A Shrine’ were the highpoint among the ‘piles of costly plans and drawings’ arrayed around the hall.
The Shrine’s Doric porticoes echoed those of the Parthenon, while its stepped pyramidal roof referenced then-contemporary artistic reconstructions of the long-destroyed Mausoleum at Halicarnassus—one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. By employing the famous tomb as their starting inspiration, Hudson and Wardrop were acknowledging the Shrine’s solemn, funereal purpose.
Shrine pilgrims would arrive at a column-lined inner sanctum, enriched with carefully placed sculptures and friezes. A ‘quiet soft light’ would stream through a glassed opening in the steeply tapering ceiling, illuminating a ‘Rock of Remembrance’. This stone, sunk beneath floor level, forced pilgrims to look down—as if into an open grave—to contemplate the absent war dead.
General Sir John Monash enthused that one could walk into and through the Shrine, which would facilitate marches, pilgrimages and commemorative events. The Shrine provided ‘a soul … an interior (as well as an exterior) where an atmosphere of solemnity and reverence would be established’.
An original set of reproductions of the Hudson and Wardrop winning design and an actual 1923 watercolour by Philip Hudson, depicting the original concept for the Shrine of Remembrance’s Sanctuary, occupy pride of place in the new exhibition, just as they did in the Melbourne Town Hall exhibition a century ago.
Unfortunately, few visual records of the other 83 entries submitted to the design competition are so well represented by original material, not even the most important—the other five shortlisted designs.
All unplaced submissions were returned to their creators soon after the selection of the shortlist. No final list of names—not of the architects or their designs—was ever kept. The drawings and models for all six shortlisted entries became the property of the selection committee. The winning plans went into a Melbourne City Council strong room. The other five designs are recorded in a Shrine Committee minutes book
as being placed in a storeroom off the Town Hall. This storeroom was destroyed by fire in 1925.
Designing Remembrance may not have been possible at all if images of all six shortlisted entries had not been published in a 1924 Art in Australia journal article titled ‘The designs for the Victorian War Memorial’, by Australian artist Blamire Young. Copies of each of the shortlisted architects’ ‘statements of intent’, meanwhile, have survived in the private papers of General Sir John Monash.
Young’s article remains our only visual record for most of the designs featured in the exhibition. The team behind Designing Remembrance hope that the new exhibition will help uncover other competition entries, plans and images that may lay hidden in forgotten archives and family collections.
The roads not taken
Designing Remembrance features several interesting unplaced competition designs that showcase important early 20th architectural movements. The American ‘Prairie School’ designers of Canberra, Walter Burley Griffin and his wife Marion Mahony, entered the competition with a young Australian protégé Eric Nicholls. The trio envisioned a glittering modernist edifice comprised of rows and columns of five-foot modules that could be ‘increased or decreased at will by adding to, or subtracting from, the five feet’. Arts and Crafts champion Louis Williams, meanwhile, created a grand medieval tower of flying buttresses and Gothic arches.
However, all of the entries that were eventually shortlisted, including the Shrine of Remembrance, employed Classicism in formal or abstracted form. Consciously derived from the architecture of ancient Greece, Classicism stresses symmetry and proportion. It dominated Western architecture, particularly monumental architecture, from the Renaissance to the Second World War and the style appears to have resonated strongly with the competition judges.
Bust of Phillip Hudson – one of two architects of the winning design by Paul Montford (1868 - 1938).
Reproduced courtesy of National Gallery of Victoria
Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin 27 July 1930.
Castlecrag, New South Wales. Photographer Jorma Pohjanpalo (1905–91)
Reproduced courtesy of the National Archives
The competition runner-up, William Lucas, an Imperial patriot, employed an abstracted classical style common throughout the British Empire in his design, ‘Place of Remembrance’. The vast open-air Greco-Roman-style theatre sought to accommodate rituals of mourning and cultural rejuvenation.
The circular plaza faced what is now the intersection of Domain and St Kilda roads and its northern edge terminated in large sculptural groups and broad stone steps. Behind these, and oriented towards the city, a large stone monolith pierced by an archway. A stone ‘Seat of Remembrance’ beneath served as a semi-private place for the contemplation of the ‘Tomb of an Unknown Warrior’, lying at the plaza’s centre.
The third-place winner, Donald Turner, was, at the time of the competition, serving with the Graves Detachment at Gallipoli. His ‘Pylon’ incorporated a tapering vertical form, anchored to the ground by gently curved colonnades. Its sweeping curvature echoed the contour of St Kilda Road to the west and directed the pilgrim’s path. Turner’s design brought Gallipoli’s cemeteries home to Melbourne,
evoking the state’s war dead ‘lying in foreign fields’.
Roy Lippincott and Edward Billson’s fourth-placed ‘Sanctuary of Peace’ comprised a towering campanile with a forward-projecting colonnade. Its forms were informed by Classical Greece, the Prairie School, but also Australia’s unique botany—indeed it was the only shortlisted design to explicitly reference the nation to whose dead it was dedicated.
‘Sanctuary of Peace’ is the only shortlisted design, other than the Shrine of Remembrance, for which Designing Remembrance’s curators have uncovered original visual records. There is a photographic reproduction of a competition drawing and a pencil tracing, donated to the State Library by the Billson family, which likely dates to the drafting phase.
The partnership of Arthur Stephenson and Percy Meldrum submitted the two entries ranked fifth and sixth—‘Cenotaph’ and ‘Victory Arch’ respectively. A collaborator on the latter design, Harold DesbroweAnnear, appears to have been the main creative force of that design.
Among Designing Remembrance’s outstanding exhibits is William Beckwith McInnes’s dark, tonal portrait of Harold DesbroweAnnear—the first-ever winner of the Archibald Prize in 1921.
Fifth-placed ‘Cenotaph’ comprised a shrine surrounded by colonnade on three sides, which Stephenson and Meldrum described as holding out ‘welcoming, all-embracing arms to pilgrims to the holy of holies’. The ‘arms’ cupped a central mass rising 175 feet above sea level. This ‘sublimated burial mound’ containing an inner chamber housing a ‘Stone of Remembrance’—the ultimate focal point of pilgrimage.
‘Victory Arch’ was, as its name suggests, a memorial in keeping with the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Placed at the intersection point of The Grange site, the arch would not have permitted cars but been accessible to a steady stream of pedestrians. These pilgrims would have approached from multiple directions and moved unimpeded through and around the landmark’s pathways. Symbolically, it implied a second procession—an army of the dead—marching victorious through the arch’s massive portals.
Second place – ‘A Place of Remembrance’ 1923 by William Lucas. Reproduced from: William Blamire Young, ‘The designs for the Victorian War Memorial’, Art in Australia: A Quarterly Magazine (Series III, Number 7, 1924)
A difference of opinion
The Shrine was, by all accounts, a popular winner of the competition, certainly among visitors to the 1924 exhibition—but not universally beloved. The month-long information vacuum between the announcement of the winner and the Town Hall exhibition had upset many influential stakeholders.
The war memorial committee judges had always intended to release authorised photographs of the winning design to newspapers at the launch of the exhibition—so that ‘the public…might be able to estimate correctly the great beauty and artistry of the winning entry’. The Age broke the photograph embargo, however, putting chief editor of The Herald, Sir Keith Murdoch, in a retributive mood.
Murdoch initiated a public vote on the design in February 1924, encouraging dissatisfied readers to publicly vent their disapproval with the winning design—and disapprove they did. Construction of the Shrine of Remembrance was held up for years. The Returned Sailors and Soldiers Imperial League of Australia pushed to build a war memorial at a proposed ‘Anzac Square’ near Parliament House and in September 1924, the Prendergast Labor state government indicated it might not honour the previous government’s funding pledge of £50,000.
It wasn’t until the influential head of Legacy, Colonel Sir Alfred Kemsley, and Lieutenant-Colonel Donovan Joynt VC, persuaded General Sir John Monash to publicly support the Shrine at an RSL reception for the Duke of York on 24 April 1927 that the Shrine project gained the necessary
traction. The Governor of Victoria laid the foundation stone for the Shrine of Remembrance on Armistice Day the same year.
There was one stand-out critic of the Shrine, however, whose opposition to the winning design demonstrated just how contested the competition had become. Second place-getter William Lucas absolutely refused to accept the worth of the Hudson and Wardrop winning design and almost immediately resolved to bring others around to his viewpoint.
Lucas authored a document evaluating each of the exhibition entries in turn, which he deposited in the Melbourne Public Library (now State Library Victoria). He heaped scorn on Hudson and Wardrop, accusing them of architectural plagiarism. The allegations, and Hudson’s responses, were sensationally reported in the press.
Third place – ‘A Pylon’ 1923 by Donald Turner.
Reproduced from: William Blamire Young, ‘The designs for the Victorian War Memorial’, Art in Australia: A Quarterly Magazine (Series III, Number 7, 1924)
Fourth place – ‘A Sanctuary of Peace’ 1923 by Roy Lippincott and Edward Billson.
Reproduced from: William Blamire Young, ‘The designs for the Victorian War Memorial’, Art in Australia: A Quarterly Magazine (Series III, Number 7, 1924)
Ultimately, Lucas’s efforts to convince his peers were poorly received. He was removed as editor of the Journal of the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects, convicted of professional misconduct and expelled from the association. Records of Lucas’s sensational hearing are featured in Designing Remembrance, as is his competition precis. These documents demonstrate the passion and competitive spirit that accompanied the design competition for the National War Memorial for Victoria.
Visitors to Designing Remembrance have the opportunity to reflect on the Shrine of Remembrance they love and imagine the alternatives that Melbourne might have had in its place.
Unplaced entry – ‘Anzac Memorial’ 1923 by Eric Nicholls, Walter Burley
and Marion
Reproduced courtesy of the National Library of Australia
DESIGNING REMEMBRANCE IS ON DISPLAY AT THE SHRINE UNTIL AUGUST 2025.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE DESIGNING REMEMBRANCE PODCAST SERIES, WHERE WE DELVE INTO THE DESIGNS THAT COULD HAVE BEEN, AND THE ARCHITECTS BEHIND THEM. LISTEN
Neil Sharkey is a curator at the Shrine of Remembrance.
Fifth place – ‘A Cenotaph’ 1923 by Arthur Stephenson and Percy Meldrum. Reproduced from: William Blamire Young, ‘The designs for the Victorian War Memorial’, Art in Australia: A Quarterly Magazine (Series III, Number 7, 1924)
Griffin
Mahony.
William Lucas, 1893. Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. photographer unknown Reproduced courtesy of The Baptist Union of Victoria Archives
From the Collection
BY TOBY MILLER
Alexander Colquhoun’s painting of the Shrine of Remembrance under construction was purchased for the collection in 2022. Read on to explore Colquhoun’s personal connection to the Shrine.
Alexander Colquhoun (1862–1941), Building the Shrine c.1932, Oil on canvas on board, 36.0 x 31.4 cm. Shrine of Remembrance Collection
Portrait of Private Quentin Colquhoun, 23rd Battalion c.1915. Reproduced courtesy the Australian War Memorial (H06535)
Sometime around the middle of 1932, Scottish-born Australian painter and art critic Alexander Colquhoun made a painting of the Shrine under construction. It is not surprising that Colquhoun, a ‘well known as a painter of Melbourne streets and buildings’, should choose the nascent monument for a subject. The rising mass of brick and stone in the middle of the Domain was in the process of altering the ‘landscape’ of Melbourne.
Colquhoun’s small sketch-like painting, acquired by the Shrine in 2022, reveals this transformation in progress. A scotch derrick, used for slewing stone and other materials to the upper level, is located where the North Tympanum now stands. A thin scaffold extends vertically through the middle of the painting, indicating where the Shrine’s now-iconic ziggurat roof will reach.
In the background, rendered by a stroke of paint, is the main tower crane. Horizontal lines across the middle of the painting depict what remains of the scaffolding around the colonnade. The Shrine’s external façade would be completed by year’s end and the first formal ceremony, featuring the Shrine’s iconic ray of light, would take place on Armistice Day the following year.
The painting may be Colquhoun’s Building the Shrine, which was exhibited at Grosvenor Gallery in December 1932 alongside 33 other modestly sized urban scenes. Blamire Young, himself a skilled watercolourist who, like Colquhoun, wrote art criticism for The Herald, commented: …it is possible that the Shrine was more paintable when broken with the elaborate scaffolding that surrounded it during the earlier stages of its construction than it appears today when the scaffolding has been removed. At any rate, Alexander Colquhoun has seized upon a satisfactory subject in Building the Shrine. His management of the greys and the contrast of the heavy shadows makes a pleasant picture. Like many of Colquhoun’s late works his painting lends the Shrine a restive quality while still capturing its monumental presence as it rises out from the Domain.
Harold Herbert, another fellow painter turned critic, noted in The Australasian that Colquhoun’s ‘appreciation of greys is well exemplified in a sketch of the Shrine of Remembrance’.
Such early painterly interest anticipates the transformative effect the Shrine would have on Melbourne’s physical and psychological geography. C.J. Dennis, writing under his pen name The Roustabout, suggested the Shrine finally furnished Melbourne with a European-style boulevard, comparing the new building’s prominent location on the Domain, facing Swanston Street, to the view from the Rue Soufflot towards the Panthéon in Paris. Dennis even suggested that the Panthéon’s revolutionary inscription – Aux grands hommes la patrie reconnaisante –which Dennis translated somewhat freely as ‘The grateful motherland pays homage to her illustrious dead’, would be fitting for the Shrine.
However, Melbourne in the 1930s was a far cry from revolutionary Paris. The collective suffering caused by the First World War was deeply felt, dispelling any notion that the Shrine might be dedicated to an illustrious few. Instead, General Sir John Monash’s words, inscribed on the east wall, succinctly captured the community’s sentiment:
THIS MONUMENT WAS ERECTED BY A GRATEFUL PEOPLE TO THE HONOURED MEMORY OF THE MEN AND WOMEN OF VICTORIA WHO SERVED THE EMPIRE IN THE GREAT WAR OF 1914-1918
As skilled with a pen as much as a brush, in December 1914 Colquhoun penned the following reflections about the early course of the war.
…the world is caught in the black war cloud, so dense, all-pervading, it cannot be lifted or pushed aside from home or hearth. A mother puts a wee babe in my arms, and the thought comes “And the child has come into the world at this dark time”…Nations fight nations, statistics lately given show that a third of the inhabitants of the globe belong to belligerent countries, battle lines extend over snow, ice and slush for hundreds of miles –the old world has changed from summer to winter since the sound of the first war trump, changed also in our hearts, which are trenched even as the miles of land.
Towns lie in blackened ruins, death-dealing machines are dragged over God’s fair earth, so many acres now have become cemeteries to cover the bodies of fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons; thousands of men have been
disabled for life. Men kill as fast as their machines will work, motorbuses have left their well known routes and are whirling along strange lanes carrying armed men and equipment. One reads in the paper “The lines were quiet yesterday, only shelling continued”! A rare day for these times. Unless an isolated and striking event occurs, such as a warship being sunk or a whole army corps annihilated, the sensibilities are too blunted to react, and one reads in a stupefied way of so many thousand being killed, men fighting behind the piled-up bodies of comrades, rivers choked with dead.
Less than two years later, Colquhoun would learn that his own son, Private Quentin Colquhoun, had died on the Western Front. As they did for many Victorians, details of his son’s death arrived slowly, facilitated largely through correspondence with the Australian Red Cross Wounded and Missing Bureau. ‘Queenie’, one eyewitness report stated, ‘was not in my platoon but he had come up to see his friends. He was standing in the trench, when a shell exploded between him and another man killing both outright’. Buried where he fell, his personal belongings, consisting of a can opener, shaving brush and tin, were all that was returned to his parents. In a letter to the Victorian Barracks in July 1917, Colquhoun reported that they would be grateful if someone could try and recover his son’s diary, carefully written and up to date.
It is doubtful the Colquhoun’s received any such final moment of intimacy. But it is another question whether any of this finds expression in Colquhoun’s painting. Stylistically, the painting owes much to Colquhoun’s friendship with fellow Scot and renowned pacifist Max Meldrum. Colquhoun’s simple sketch-like construction employs Meldrum’s much-vaunted use of tone to create mass and perspective without resorting to academic design. The result is a scene imbued with quiet dignity; given what is now known about Colquhoun’s personal experience during the First World War, it is perhaps more than just a ‘pleasant picture’.
Toby Miller is the Collections Coordinator at the Shrine of Remembrance.
THE
BEYOND BLUEPRINT
UNCOVERING THE STORIES OF THE SHRINE’S ARCHITECTS
BY DR KATTI WILLIAMS
View of the Shrine interior, by Philip Hudson, 1923. Reproduced courtesy of Cathy Rowland and Nick Wardrop
Dr
Katti Williams reflects on meeting the descendants of the Shrine’s architects, Philip Hudson and James Wardrop, and discovering the family treasures that are featured in Designing Remembrance: Alternate visions for Victoria’s war memorial.
It’s definitely a memorable way to spend Anzac Day. I’m kneeling on the carpet, next to Cathy. Our grandfathers were both young signallers who served in the cloying, nightmarish mud of France and Flanders in the latter half of the First World War. But while mine was a bank clerk, hers was an architect. An architect named James Wardrop.
Carefully placed on the floor in front of us is an original competition drawing of the Shrine, lovingly and carefully framed. In the corner of the work is a postdated attribution: ‘Philip B. Hudson, 1923’.
Gazing at its rich sepia toning, exquisite detailing and evocative perspective, I’m momentarily lost for words. The original competition drawings, meticulously prepared by the Shrine’s architects Philip Burgoyne Hudson and James Hastie Wardrop, haven’t properly seen the light of day outside of Cathy’s family for decades, possibly nearly a century. Kneeling in front of this object—an architectural holy grail of sorts—seems peculiarly appropriate.
For the past year, Shrine curator Neil Sharkey, with assistance from the Shrine’s Education and Volunteer Manager Dr Laura Carroll and myself have been working on an exhibition that delves into the forgotten designs for Victoria’s War Memorial. We share a love for the architecture of the Shrine and a passion for deep and sustained historical research. It has been an ever-broadening and at times frustrating hunt for documentation and objects through which to tell the story. As the months tick by, we’ve raided what feels like half the archival repositories on the eastern seaboard. We’ve painstakingly chased down tangents and often drawn blanks; other times, we’ve uncovered previously unseen material: a letter here, a report there. We start to weave these challengingly varied strands of knowledge and evidence into a cohesive and interesting visual narrative. But we’ve done this without original competition drawings for any of the six placed entries—a situation we became resigned to.
Until first one email, then a second, arrives from the United Kingdom, via a genealogy website. The kindness of strangers (who are, admittedly, fellow history obsessives, sharing family trees online) yields names and contact details. Thankfully, family members of both Hudson and Wardrop are happy to speak to us, aware of the great significance of their grandfathers’ achievements and rightly proud of their legacy. Family lore tells of both architects and, later, teams of draughtsmen (they were mostly men in those days), tirelessly preparing the drawings before and during construction.
Thus, I find myself in Cathy’s living room, frantically texting Laura and Neil, who respond with excitement. Cathy gets her brother Nick (who is based on the other side of the country) on speakerphone. We talk eagerly, seated in Cathy’s studio, opposite Wardrop’s own plan drawer, with his drawing board and T-squares still sitting on top.
Philip Hudson (far right) and James Wardrop (next to Hudson) beside the model of the Shrine of Remembrance at the exhibition of designs. The Herald, 21 January 1924
As Wardrop died in 1975, both Cathy and Nick have strong memories of him: a man with an exceptional eye and an enquiring mind, honed through pre-war travel and study in America and England and a long career in his home town of Melbourne. While he was nicknamed ‘The Duke’ for his height and somewhat imperious manner, he also had a wonderful and wicked sense of humour.
This is clearly expressed in one of the items Cathy shares: a sketchbook Wardrop carried throughout his time on the Western Front. Beautifully preserved, this rare treasure is one of the most evocative objects ‘on display’ - the exhibition is now open, featuring sharply satirical cartoons alongside sketches of everyday life in the trenches amid war-shattered surroundings. As a signaller, Wardrop was thrown into the task of repairing communication lines under horrific conditions, witnessing the chaos and carnage of the battlefields first-hand. After one particularly arduous incident on 10 August 1918 at Harbonnières (for which he was awarded the Military Medal), he was hospitalised in England suffering ‘debility’ or ‘effort syndrome’. A photograph from this time shows Wardrop partaking of a meal in bed in a British military hospital. While visibly exhausted, he still has a characteristic twinkle in his eye. He returned home in early 1919 to his love and future wife Lucia Hankinson, as well as to his profession.
A few days later, I spend several hours with Philip Burgoyne Hudson’s grandson, Tim, and fly interstate to meet with Tim’s brother, Andrew. Hudson collapsed and died while playing his beloved golf in December 1951, so neither Andrew nor Tim have first-hand memories of him. Hudson was a member of the Australian Club, a personal friend of John Monash, and a fixture in the social and sporting pages. Photographs from the time show a stocky, determined figure standing with the much taller Wardrop next to the model of the Shrine of Remembrance, or walking around the site. A bronze bust by Shrine sculptor Paul Montford, meanwhile, depicts an intense gaze.
What Andrew and Tim—like Cathy and Nick—do remember are the stories of their grandfathers’ unceasing devotion to the project, from design to completion. ‘I spent 11 years on the Shrine; it was my whole life,’ Hudson stated in 1947.
For Hudson, the project was acutely personal. He had served in France, first as a driver with the supply column, then with the 4th Pioneer Battalion. In 1918, with his wife seriously unwell, Hudson was torn between his duty as an enlisted man and his duty to his family, making repeated requests to return home on compassionate grounds. Yet when these were finally granted, his ordeal continued. En route to Australia, he caught the Spanish flu and was hospitalised in South Africa, then further delayed by an epidemic embargo. Six months after he left England, he finally arrived home.
His sister Pamela and his wife’s sister Marjorie were army nurses in India and France. Most significantly, his two younger brothers both fought in France—and died.
John, a medical student serving with the Australian Field Ambulance, survived a serious wounding in the Dardanelles. After a lengthy recovery, he was granted a commission in the Yorkshire Regiment, only to die in action on the Somme on 25 October 1916. His body was never found. Two months later, Roy—a gunner with the AIF’s 2nd Field Artillery Brigade— was gravely wounded by a shell while walking along a duckboard near Delville Wood. He was taken to the 36th Casualty Clearing Station at Heilly but died the following day, and was hastily buried at an adjoining cemetery.
Laura, Neil and I have long discussed the probable effect of these deaths on Hudson, serving so close nearby, but Andrew is finally able to provide definitive answers. He places a folder containing some of Hudson’s own war letters on the dining room table. It includes a powerfully emotional missive to his wife Elsie (née Yuille), written in Hudson’s small, precise hand, in which he describes being informed of his brother Roy’s death.
It was heartrending to me as I think that I was not more than a mile off from where he was killed. I think it was at Flers for I know that he was in that district at the time.
The ‘Victory Draft’, Hitchin, UK, March 1917, showing signallers James Wardrop (standing) and Roy Williams (author’s grandfather, seated). Reproduced courtesy of Katti Williams, with the kind assistance of Brian Rowland
… Roy was one of our most gallant heroes. – A true soldier & one of nature’s gentlemen. He hated the life – loathed it all, but I am proud to say always jealously guarded ‘Duty’ as his watchword. When we last met he was longing for our victory, which must & will come, and a happy & peaceful return to dear old Australia. However I know that in spite of all the hardships that he suffered that he was proud to have done his duty. His death has been a terrible blow to me (following so shortly after our dear old John’s death) but it had to be. We must face it all bravely. Better by far to do one’s duty than be a shirker. His lot was a hard one – a very hard one. But now his work is over & he is at rest. I thank God that he has done his duty. Dearest I know that you will tell the children some day what brave & gallant uncles that they once had. – Men who went out to fight for right & the freedom which is going to benefit humanity in the future.
Andrew and I pause and ponder these heartfelt words, in which grief is interwoven with a sense of duty. These are concepts which underpin the design of the Shrine: the expression of sacrifice alongside pride, and furthermore, the impulse to create a soulful, evocative physical structure in the absence of the bodies of the dead.
This absence—of John and of Roy, among the 19,000 Victorian First World War dead the Shrine commemorates—is alluded to in another family treasure, which Tim
brings along to our meeting. It’s an artist’s impression of the Shrine, etched by a young architect, Arthur Baldwinson, in 1929, when only the foundations and lower portions of the building had been constructed. The Shrine emerges from the shadows as if at dawn. In the foreground is a ghostly army, wearing tin helmets and carrying heavy packs and weapons.
Reflecting on the design process, Hudson famously wrote that he believed that the Shrine ‘must embody a soul, and this I realised could only be accomplished by designing a memorial with an interior (as well as an exterior) where an atmosphere of solemnity and reverence would be established’. His conception of an architectural ‘soul’ is a perceptive response to the nature of Australian grief, of which he had tragic firsthand knowledge. The Shrine, Baldwinson’s etching seems to state, carries the souls, the memories, of the dead with it. We don’t yet know whether Baldwinson’s etching was a commission, a gift, or a happy purchase, but Hudson clearly treasured it—as Tim does today.
The items of family history that Tim, Andrew, Cathy and Nick have carefully kept have tremendous personal meaning for their families—but they also have real historical importance for the Shrine of Remembrance. They provide wonderful insights into both Hudson and Wardrop and their profound experiences of the reality and tragedy of war, serving to illustrate
the story of the competition in a more vivid manner than Laura, Neil and I had hoped was possible.
A week after meeting Cathy, rereading Wardrop’s service record, a date and place jumps off the page: Hitchin, March 1917. I go through my own grandfather’s records, then his war photographs, until I find it: a shot of the signallers taken just before leaving the signal training school for attachment to different units across the Western Front. Seated on the ground is my grandfather, the soles of his hobnailed boots pointing towards the camera. Standing just behind him is a tall, lanky figure with a distinctive face and stance—the ‘Duke’, James Wardrop.
I quickly text a snapshot to Cathy and Nick. This time, it’s their turn to be lost for words.
With great thanks to Cathy, Nick, Tim and Andrew for so generously sharing their family treasures, and for many hours of enjoyable and illuminating conversation.
Dr Katti Williams is a research fellow in Australian architectural history in the Australian Centre for Architectural History, Urban and Cultural Heritage in the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning at The University of Melbourne.
James Wardrop (at right) in Barry Road Hospital, Northampton, 1918.
Reproduced courtesy of Cathy Rowland and Nick Wardrop
Right: The National War Memorial of Victoria: an etching by Arthur Baldwinson, 1929.
Reproduced courtesy of Tim Brown
CONVERGENCES
BY GARRY FABIAN
Garry Fabian was born in 1934 in Stuttgart, Germany. Sharing his 90th birthday year with the Shrine, Garry reflects on his journey through conflict and the importance of sharing his story with younger generations.
Convergences – The Cambridge Dictionary defines it as: The fact that two or more things, ideas, etc become similar or come together.
This year–2024–the Shrine of Remembrance is 90 years old. This year, I also celebrated my 90th birthday. While the beginning of our journeys through time are quite different, they do eventually converge.
At the centre of almost every Victorian city and town stands a war memorial, obelisk and arch, broken pillar or a stern upright soldier, gateway, hall or avenue of honour. Most were raised in the 1920s and 1930s to commemorate the sacrifices made by Victorians in the First World War. The Shrine was a bit of a latecomer, opening on 11 November 1934.
My life journey travelled a different path. My Jewish family history traces back to the 13th century in Germany on both my maternal and paternal lines. I was born in January 1934 in Stuttgart, BadenWürttemberg, when the dark clouds of Nazi Germany started rolling in with rising anti-Semitism and associated restrictions. These
conditions worsened in 1935 when the Nuremberg laws imposed negative rules, including the loss of German citizenship on Jews.
These developments convinced my parents that there was no future for us in Germany and our wellbeing was in danger. We emigrated to the Czech Republic and settled in Sudetenland, a German enclave, in 1936. However, this proved to be a short-term solution; after the infamous Munich conference in September 1938, this area was ceded to Nazi Germany.
We packed up and fled four hours before the German Army occupied the area and headed to Prague, the Czech capital. Being stateless, we lived a very unstable existence as the local authorities were not accommodating to the swelling number of refugees. Often action was carried out to expel them from the country. When Nazi Germany invaded the Czech Republic on 15 March 1939, Jews became subject to extensive persecution and harsh rule, curtailing their daily lives. In 1941, deportations to
the concentration and later extermination camps started.
Our turn arrived in November 1942 when we were transported to a concentration camp, Theresienstadt, some 50 kilometres from Prague. This was basically a transit camp for transports to extermination camps in Eastern Europe.
In normal times, Theresienstadt had a population of some 3,500. But operating as a concentration camp, some 30,000 people occupied the town at any time, creating overcrowded and unsanitary conditions. This left us with an acute loss of privacy and lack of food, as well as constant uncertainty of what the next day or week would bring.
We were among the small minority who survived in the camp until liberation by the Red Army on 5 May 1945. During the four years from 1941 to 1945, some 140,000 people went through the camp. Of the 15,000 children under 14, between 120 and 150 survived. The odds for my survival were very long indeed.
But then another question arose: would we be able to return to normal life?
The Fabian family in 1947.
Returning to Germany, the home of our family for 700 years, would be impossible after what had happened. We instead returned to the town in the Czech Republic where we settled in 1936 as a
temporary measure, but the dark shadows of those years made it imperative to move as far as possible from Europe. At that point in time, I felt no affiliation to Germany, but over many decades I have drawn
closer, trying to establish bridges with today’s generation.
That’s how we came to Australia— the other end of the globe. Two of my uncles had settled here just before the Second World War in 1939. Both had served in the Australian Army, one in the Employment Brigade, the other as a doctor in the Army Reserve. That was an early connection—a convergence— between cultures.
We arrived on the 20 September 1947 with almost no knowledge of Australia and certainly not of its history, either civil or military. My late father served in the German Army as a loyal citizen in the First World War on the Western Front. He told me that he faced Australian Diggers in the trenches opposite, and they were regarded with some respect, but that was the extent of my knowledge of Australian involvement in that war. We landed to encounter a strange language and culture, but soon adapted and welcomed the opportunity to start a new life.
Up to this point, aged 14, I had only been to school for three years, and so I enrolled in Year 7 at Preston
Top Left: Garry in 1937. Bottom Left: The crew at HMAS Cerberus. Garry is on the far left of the front row.
Top Right: Garry and his wife Evelyn on their wedding day, 24 December 1959.
All images reproduced courtesy Garry Fabian
Technical School. My first lesson in Australian military history was in April 1948 when Anzac Day was commemorated, which prompted me to obtain more knowledge. During that year I also visited the Shrine on a school excursion. While it only gave me a very superficial impression, the various exhibits provided some harsh and lasting lessons of what transpired on the battlefield. This set me further on a path to learn more. The following year I attended Caulfield Technical School, obtaining a Junior Technical Certificate.
With my missed school years, higher education was out of the question so I entered an apprenticeship to become an electrician. In 1956, my connection with the military took another step forward when I was called up for National Service in the Australian Navy. I regarded this as part of being an Australian citizen, as all 18-year-olds shared this commitment. The fact that I had experienced conflict did not have any impact on this.
I later took up study at a mature age, obtaining a Bachelor of Arts at Deakin University and a Master of Arts at Monash University, with a major in Australian history in both instances. This allowed me to extend my knowledge and appreciation of Australia and its military history.
Our society has always had a strong desire to remember important events from our past. This has manifested in the establishment of museums and places of remembrance to provide personal stories of those affected so we can recall and relate, and educate future generations. Following my own desire to pass on memories, I have been involved in telling my story to school groups at the Melbourne Holocaust Museum, to school and community groups on my many visits to Germany over the past 40 years, and to school groups at the Shrine for more than a decade.
This makes an extraordinarily strong case for the convergence of different activities, that while serving a variety of representations I have had a strong relationship with preserving the history of our nation and educating future generations.
Sharing a significant birthday with the Shrine opening provides me with the opportunity to reflect not only of the passage of time, but how the impact of both personal and community reflections can tell a common message. Volunteering gives me a strong link to return something to the community that welcomed me and my family and provided a new life after the experiences of the Holocaust. It also allows me to connect with future generations to share a message that oppressors and tyrants must never be allowed to triumph.
Garry Fabian has been a volunteer at the Shrine of Remembrance for 10 years and a volunteer at the Melbourne Holocaust Museum for 20 years.
When speaking to school groups at the Melbourne Holocaust Museum about my journey and experiences during the Holocaust, the question that is frequently asked is ‘What are your final words?’. The answer can be summed up in two words –never again.
Speaking to school groups at the Shrine, my message is along similar lines about ordinary people performing extraordinary feats when called on, and that war brings out the best and worst in humanity. As final words, I ask them a favour: tell those who did not come to the Shrine and their families about your impression of the Shrine and encourage them to come and visit and learn about our history.
Click here to listen to more of Garry’s story.
LIVING MEMORIALS: Tales of the Shrine’s trees
BY MARY WARD
The landscape of the Shrine’s sweeping gardens, which now include some 320 memorial trees, has evolved significantly over the past 90 years.
The Shrine of Remembrance Reserve has changed dramatically over the past 90 years.
Photographer John Gollings
By the time construction of the Shrine of Remembrance was completed in 1934, the surrounding area was essentially barren. The vision of architects Philip Hudson and James Wardrop was of a landscape with paths radiating out from the centre as a series of axes, with blocks of planting and views in each direction. It has taken 90 years for the Shrine Reserve we have today to develop and much has changed in that time. Unlike a building, which is essentially static in form, a landscape evolves and changes constantly.
The 123 hectares encompassing the Domain Parklands was put aside by then-Superintendent Charles La Trobe in the early 1840s. Before the arrival of European settlers in 1835, the area would have been predominantly grassy woodland with light tree cover, mainly eucalypts, particularly Yellow Box, Eucalyptus melliodora, and River Redgum, Eucalyptus camaldulensis. This changed when much of the Domain was cleared of trees in the 1850s after gold was discovered and a tent city sprang up to help cope with Melbourne’s rapidly expanding population.
Following the establishment of the Botanic Gardens in 1846, the Domain, including the 13 hectares of what would become the Shrine
Reserve in 1933, came under the management of the Directors of the Botanic Gardens, first with Baron von Mueller in 1856 and then with William Guilfoyle in 1873. An arboretum was established, with planting and landscaping reflecting that of the Botanic Gardens, particularly under Guilfoyle.
Many hundreds of trees had to be removed for the construction of the Shrine and for the proposed landscaping to be developed. This caused consternation among sections of the community, particularly as many of the oaks and elms had been planted by Guilfoyle and Mueller. The Botanic Gardens Committee warned that the trees’ removal destroyed the link to the ‘people’s garden’. An aerial photo taken during early construction shows considerable tree cover on the northern aspect and the route of the old South Yarra Drive, sweeping across the front of the building before following a path similar to that of the current approach from St Kilda Road. The road was later realigned to the east and renamed Birdwood Avenue, in honour of LieutenantGeneral Sir William Birdwood.
At the end of construction the first memorial trees were planted. On 4 August 1934, to commemorate the
20th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War, more than 100 saplings were planted across the northern side of the Shrine Reserve and dedicated to Victorian units. Around 3,000 people gathered for the funeral-like ceremony, with the trees helping to fill the role of absent graves. A year before that, however, a very significant tree was planted –the Lone Pine seedling.
Following the Battle of Lone Pine in August and September 1915, Thomas Keith McDowell of the 23rd Battalion collected a pinecone from the solitary Lone Pine on the Gallipoli Peninsula. On his return to Australia in 1916 he gave it to his wife’s aunt, Emma Gray. After about 10 years, she successfully grew four seedlings.
One was dedicated in Wattle Park, Burwood, home ground of the 24th Battalion, in May 1933. The second was dedicated to the 24th Battalion at the Shrine in June 1933. The third was also planted in June 1933 at The Sisters Memorial Hall, near Mortlake, and the fourth was planted in Warrnambool’s Botanic Gardens in January 1934. The pine is a species that is native to the Gallipoli Peninsula, Pinus brutia, the Turkish or Calabrian Pine, which grows mainly around the coast of the eastern Mediterranean basin. The trees in Wattle Park and Warrnambool are
An aerial view of the Shrine in 1946. This image shows the immature landscape immediately after the Second World War, along with the trench scars, poplars and a young Lone Pine tree.
Reproduced courtesy State Library Victoria (H2009.12/48)
The Shrine of Remembrance in 1940 with the original Lone Pine pictured just right of the lamppost in the small cage. Reproduced courtesy State Library Victoria (H83.96/281)
still standing, but the tree at The Sisters unfortunately succumbed to strong winds in July 2016.
The original Lone Pine at the Shrine had to be removed in August 2012 because of a fungal infection. A seedling grown from that tree, a grandchild tree, had been planted in 2006 but had to be removed in March 2016 because of waterlogging. The area was built up and a second grandchild tree was planted in April 2017 and again dedicated to the 24th Battalion. This grandchild of the original Lone Pine on Gallipoli provides a living link, nearly 110 years on, to those men who were there.
Details of the original commemorative planting on 11 June 1933 were written up in The Age newspaper the following day.
The little plant cultivated from a seed of the famous Lone Pine on Gallipoli was planted with full military honours yesterday afternoon, in the presence of a column of the 24th Battalion of the militia forces and lines of war veterans who saw service with the renowned regiment.
Headed by the battalion’s band … the column marched from the Domain, north of Government House gates, to the plot marked to receive the plant.
Archdeacon Lamble was in attendance to dedicate the plant. Mrs. Gray, of Grassmere, who grew the plant from the seed brought from Gallipoli, placed the first spadeful of soil around the tree in its new bed.
Wandering through the trees dedicated to First World War units is a journey through the human devastation left by that conflict. The importance of memorial trees, even in their infancy, to the men and families intimately involved can only be imagined, but it would take around 50 years and many more changes for the Shrine Reserve as envisaged by the architects to be fully realised.
The northern slopes heading towards St Kilda Road were the site of slit trenches in the 1940s, dug as air raid precautions for workers at Victoria Barracks. Construction of the Second World War Memorial Forecourt in the 1950s resulted in the removal or re-siting of earlier Memorial Trees, and many of the Reserve’s tall, stately spotted gums, Corymbia maculata, date from that time. Following the Forecourt construction, the Reserve was divided into sections dedicated to the Army, Navy, Air Force and Allied Forces, and to different conflicts, with First World War and allies on the north-eastern side and Second World War on the western side.
The widening of the northern approach from Anzac Avenue in the mid-1960s led to more changes, but the avenue of Bhutan cypresses, Cupressus torulosa, was planted following that work. Now standing tall at either side like a guard of honour, they certainly give that sense of solemnity and pilgrimage the architects were looking for as people approach from the city.
Different tree species had been used along that approach from the time of construction, with earlier cypresses replacing the initial Queensland Brush Box and Queensland Kauri.
The more lightly treed southern section of the Reserve had been left clear to allow for crowds to gather. The complementary avenue of Bhutan cypresses along the approach from Domain Road was not planted until 1981.
The inner row of English elms, Ulmus procera, on the northern side of the Shrine date from the 1950s and ’60s. The mature elms that grow in Melbourne’s parks and gardens, with their striking yellow autumn foliage, are some of the most significant in the world following the loss of tens of millions of trees across Europe after the onset of Dutch elm disease in the 1970s. That mix of deciduous and evergreen trees brings intentional variation and colour to the planting blocks, with autumn colour from mature oaks, elms and plane trees a feature around Anzac Day.
The central focus of the Legacy Garden of Appreciation is the bronze statue of a mother and her children by sculptor Louis Laumen. The mother is a widow and her son is holding a wreath to lay at the Shrine of Remembrance. Shrine of Remembrance image
Victorian Governor David de Kretser planting the new Lone Pine on 24 April 2006. Photographer James Mepham
Three external memorials have been added to the Reserve over the past five decades. The Legacy Garden of Appreciation on the east (1978) is planted with red-flowering salvias for Anzac Day and Flanders poppies for Remembrance Day. To the west, the Garden of Remembrance and Post 45 Memorial (1985) is dedicated to conflicts and peacekeeping missions since the Second World War. It is backed by a magnificent spreading Turkey Oak, Quercus ceris, and features mainly dry-land species. The Women’s Memorial Garden (2010), with its concrete violets blooming by a grove of purple-flowering jacarandas, commemorates 85 years of women’s service. Visitors entering from Birdwood Avenue along the north-east axis now walk through the Gallipoli Memorial Garden. This softens the approach and gives context to the Gallipoli campaign and the Lone Pine.
In the past 20 to 30 years, the changing climate has led to failing trees being removed and replaced by species chosen for their ability to cope with hotter, dryer conditions. The design of axes and views envisaged by Hudson and Wardrop will be strengthened and maintained, but with more resilient planting. Recent additions include a row of Queensland Kauri, Agathis robusta, marching down the path to the St Kilda Road steps while Stone Pine, Pinus picea, and Sawtooth Oak, Quercus acutissima, dot the western slopes.
Following years of drought and water restrictions, Lombardy poplars, Populus nigra ‘Italica’, planted along the Birdwood Avenue perimeter during the 1930s were removed in 2005 and again in 2010. They were replaced by 130 lemon-scented gums, Corymbia citriodora, trees that are sustainable on a dry ridge without irrigation. Commemorative plaques affected by the poplars’ removal were reinstalled in the Reserve under existing or replacement trees.
All the Memorial Trees are significant, especially to those who relate directly to them for commemoration, but there are also trees significant because of what they are. On the National Tree Register, and surviving on Birdwood Avenue where the poplars did not, is a Brazilian Pepper Tree, Schinus terebinthifolius. On the western slope, the stately Golden Poplar, Populus canadensis ‘Aurea’, commemorating the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam, defies climate expectations. An English Oak, Quercus robur, planted in 1954 to represent the United Kingdom, was sourced from an acorn from Windsor Great Park and is an example of an exotic that is continuing to cope well with local conditions.
Along with the grandchild Lone Pine, two other living links connect us to conflicts far from home. The Tobruk Fig, Ficus carica, was grown from a cutting from the original fig tree in Tobruk. The Gallipoli Oak, Quercus coccifera, is linked directly to acorns collected on the Gallipoli Peninsula. Moreton Bay figs, Ficus macrophylla, on the southern boundary along
Domain Road have stood witness to years of change and construction. One in particular, dedicated to 33–38 Squadrons, is thought to date from the 1880s and was probably planted by the stables of the grand Victorian Mansion known as ‘The Grange’, which stood on the site until around 1910.
Trees form a key component of the memorial itself and walking through the Shrine Reserve today you are surrounded by mature trees and native birdsong in a landscape 90 years in the making. Although there is a mix of native and exotic trees across the area, it is easy to imagine what the men of the Australian Imperial Force had in mind in the 1920s and ’30s when they expressed a clear preference for native trees to be planted in memory of their colleagues. Do we feel their ghosts among us as we walk? They missed the sights, sounds and scents of home that we can all enjoy today as we wander through the Shrine Reserve.
This is a place to pause and reflect, to appreciate how important the landscape is to the essential purpose of the place and why it is regarded as Melbourne’s most prominent memorial landscape. It is truly a place of sanctuary and solace.
Mary Ward has been a volunteer at the Shrine of Remembrance for the past 10 years and at the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria for 20 years.
The Legacy Garden of Appreciation is planted with red-flowering salvias for Anzac Day and Flanders poppies for Remembrance Day. Shrine of Remembrance image
The Women’s Memorial Garden showcases concrete violets blooming by a grove of purple-flowering jacarandas.
Photographer Susan Gordon-Brown
The emu feather was added to the Shrine Guard slouch hats around 1959, lending the guard the look of the Australian Light Horse. There have been various modifications in the years since, but the essential flavour of a Light Horse uniform has been retained.
is Protective Services Officer Senior Sergeant Katrina
the
GUARDING THE SHRINE
BY KATRINA NICOLSON
Pictured
Spackman at
Victorian Aboriginal Remembrance Service in 2024.
Photographer James Henry
The Victoria Police Shrine Guard has been protecting the Shrine since August 1935.
Ona frosty August morning in 1935, the newly formed Victoria Police Shrine Guard started its first watch. Its members came from an elite group of highly decorated First World War veterans selected by Thomas Blamey, then Chief Commissioner of Police, to protect the Shrine of Remembrance and its environs from petty pilferers and vandals. Two were already police constables; 12 others especially volunteered to join Victoria Police for service at the Shrine.
Their appointment followed much debate as to how the Shrine should be guarded and by whom. Following a request from the State Government, in February 1933 Victoria Police tasked a three-man guard to provide temporary security while a permanent solution was decided.
The Premier, Sir Stanley Argyle, took the view that a military guard would be most appropriate as it would maintain the Shrine’s links with Defence forces and could be drawn from men who had seen active service during the war. The Federal Government advised, however, that as military guards held no powers of arrest such a deployment was inappropriate. It instead granted permission for suitably qualified members of the Victoria Police to wear the uniform and equipment of an Australian soldier while on guard duty.
The Shrine employed returned servicemen whenever possible and the Shrine Guard was to be no exception. In addition, the Guard must be experienced men of the highest calibre with military
decorations. There were not enough serving police who met the requirements, and civilians who did were over the normal police recruitment age.
The Police Regulations were altered to allow for older recruits and to extend the retirement age to 60, specifically so the guard would be eligible for police pensions. On 14 December 1934, the following advertisement was placed in the Government Gazette and daily newspapers:
Applications are invited for Appointment to the Police Force from Returned Sailors, Soldiers and Airmen, who served with distinction in the late war. The distinguished nature of the service will be an important factor in the selection of candidates. Appointments will be made primarily for special guard duty, but successful applicants will be sworn in as members of the Police Force, and be subject to police discipline and general police duty as required …
More than 250 men applied. For some, such as George Ingram VC, it was the culmination of a long-held ambition to work at the Shrine, doing a ‘soldier’s job’. For others, such as George Blyth MM, it ‘looked like a good job’ and better than the ‘slave house’ (General Motors) where he had been employed. Fourteen men were finally selected and sworn in as Victoria Police on 8 April 1935. Following several months of training in their special responsibilities and police duties, they commenced guard on 21 August 1935.
Blyth Collection, Shrine of Remembrance
Original Shrine Guard 1935
Shrine Guard provide ceremonial support in major services including Anzac Day and Remembrance Day. Photographer Susan Gordon-Brown
Following police protocol, they were led by Senior Constable Herbert Leslie Newland, and James Joseph Brady MM, both veterans.
As it is today, protecting the Shrine was the guards’ primary task, but they also guarded Government House. They worked over three shifts to cover the monument and grounds 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, enforcing the Shrine Reserve’s regulations. They also provided ceremonial support for the increasing number of memorial services and pilgrimages to the Shrine.
The Shrine Guard maintained its service throughout the Second World War, with recruits replacing those who retired. By the mid-1950s, however, numbers began to dwindle, with only a few original guards left and few eligible men to replace them. In a stopgap measure, their retirement age was increased to 65. Enrolment was then opened to men who had served in British or other Allied forces. By the end of the 1960s, the rule requiring overseas service was relaxed, and in 1969 the first National Serviceman was recruited.
Melbourne was the site of some of the largest moratorium marches protesting the war in Vietnam. The marches had passed the Shrine on St Kilda Road, but until 23 April 1971
it remained inviolate. Shortly after midnight, Constable T. Wratten allegedly disturbed two men daubing the word ‘Peace’ and peace symbols on the Shrine’s northern columns. He alleged they and two co-offenders assaulted him before they ran off. Such instances are few in the history of the Shrine.
As Jim Penna, former Shrine Guard and later Shrine volunteer, put it in a 1999 interview: It is as if the Shrine has an aura. When people approach the Shrine, they seem to recognise this and respect it.
By the late 1980s, Victoria Police itself was experiencing staff shortages and the role of the Shrine Guard was questioned. Various options were canvassed, from disbanding the Guard to increasing its number to 25 personnel. In 1990, the Shrine Trustees accepted Victoria Police’s solution to transfer Shrine Guard personnel and duties to the newly formed Victoria Police Protective Services Unit (PSU). In a further major shift, the requirement for the new Protective Service Officers (PSOs) to be ex-service personnel was removed.
This change was not without difficulty, as PSOs were also tasked with guarding other significant government buildings such as Parliament and Treasury. Special
arrangements were made to train new PSOs in ceremonial drill. It was agreed that trained personnel would wear the Shrine Guard uniform during the day and the PSU uniform at night.
The uniform has evolved, but has always paid homage to both military and police service. The first guards wore the uniform and equipment of a private from the First World War, with the addition of Victoria Police insignia. Their collars held their Registered Number, their buttons were police issue, and their slouch hats displayed a Victoria Police ‘VP’ badge surrounded by a laurel wreath. (This badge was a surplus Victoria Regina (VR) badge from Queen Victoria’s reign, with the leg of the R modified into a P.) They carried the Lee-Enfield 303 rifle with bayonet, which is still carried on ceremonial duty today.
A summer-weight Australian Army uniform was permitted in 1945, and over time puttees gave way to gaiters over breeches. In around 1959, the emu feather was added to slouch hats, lending the guard the look of the Australian Light Horse. At night, the guards wore standard Victoria Police uniform. There have been various modifications in the years since, but the essential flavour of a Light Horse uniform has been retained.
The National War Memorial of Victoria 1934 (frontispiece) Signed by the Shrine Guard, including the constables in charge, Herbert Newland and James Brady MM, and Walter Peeler VC, Shrine Custodian.
Blyth Collection, Shrine of Remembrance
The Shrine Guard on parade in 1935.
Blyth Collection, Shrine of Remembrance
The Shrine Guard happily pose for photos with the public. Pictured is PSO Senior Dave Rose’Meyer, PSO Senior Siew Cho and PSO Sergeant Graeme Crispe. Photographer Corman Hanrahan
The original Shrine Guard. Blyth Collection, Shrine of Remembrance
Field Marshall Montgomery 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein reviews the Shrine Guard in 1947. Blyth Collection, Shrine of Remembrance
The Shrine lit blue for Blue Ribbon Day. Photographer Trevor Bergman.
Shrine Guard George Blyth greets Shrine visitors c1935. Photographer unknown Shrine of Remembrance Collection
Maintaining the equipment and uniform is a challenge. In the 1980s, a shortage of emu feathers led to an Australia-wide call for assistance, with plumes arriving from as far away as Queensland. In the 2010s, the Guard was glad to accept donations of Lee-Enfield rifles—one formerly used by the King of Siam’s personal guard in the 1920s.
Dressing for ceremonies takes an experienced person 20 to 30 minutes, but applying the spit polish shine to boots and ensuring all accoutrements are in order is a lengthier task.
The Guard now has a dedicated space within the Shrine with lockers for changing. It is a far cry from the days when the Shrine Trustees paid to have the path between the Government House guardhouse and the Shrine paved to prevent mud splashing on the Guards’ boots and gaiters before arriving for ceremonies.
While policing activities—such as ensuring people behave respectfully at the Shrine and do not exercise on the steps or skateboard on the forecourt—are generally benign, the weather is less so. Foggy mornings when the Eternal Flame can’t be seen from the North Door, freezing Melbourne nights with rain and hail, or stifling 40-degree summer days are all part of the experience.
The ceremonial function of the Guard is the most obvious to the public. They have participated in thousands of ceremonies at the Shrine and elsewhere over the years. These range from small ceremonies at unit trees with only one or two Guards, to services in the Sanctuary to significant events such as Anzac Day and Remembrance Day.
Every day, regardless of the weather, they raise and lower the flags on the Shrine Forecourt and, each Sunday, they provide ceremonial support for the Last Post Service. They have travelled overseas to Montbrehain, France, the site of Ingram’s Victoria Cross and Blyth’s Military Medal, to commemorate the centenary of that battle, to the Australian War Memorial in Canberra as an honour guard for the Unknown Australian Soldier’s burial, to the MCG for the Victoria Police and Emergency Services Games, and to many other towns across Victoria in support of commemoration. Significantly, each year they mount guard at the Police Memorial on Blue Ribbon Day, in honour of all Victoria Police who have died in the line of duty.
For many members of the Shrine Guard, their positive interactions with the public are a highlight of their role. They sometimes develop bonds with people they meet at specific services year after year, fostering a sense of unity, and happily pose for photographs with the public.
The Shrine Guard has evolved over the years. Protective Services Officers from diverse backgrounds now fill the ranks and, as with other areas of policing, women are included in their number. No longer required to be veterans, they are trained in the military drill required to maintain their ceremonial function.
They demonstrate a sense of pride and commitment to their role.
Perhaps PSO Marie-Anne Thomas, the first female Shrine Guard, said it best when interviewed in November 1995: No other place compares with the Shrine, the atmosphere is so serene. ...and my job is to make sure the peace of the Shrine is never jeopardised.
Operational requirements may mean they only don their iconic uniform for ceremonial occasions, but the Shrine Guard continues to protect the Shrine and its visitors 24 hours a day, every day of the year, just as those original men did in 1935.
Katrina Nicolson is the Exhibitions Coordinator at the Shrine of Remembrance.
George Blyth, c.1935. Blyth Collection, Shrine of Remembrance
Every Sunday, the Shrine Guard provides ceremonial support for the Last Post Service. Photographer Corman Hanrahan
Every year, the Shrine appoints a team of Young Ambassadors who participate in programs and commemorative services. Benjamin Bezzina reflects on his experiences in the 2024 cohort.
BECOMING A SHRINE Young Ambassador
BY BENJAMIN BEZZINA
Prior to October 2023, I had never so much as stepped foot within the Shrine of Remembrance. I, of course, knew of its existence and that it was an important place. My mum had said many times that she would take me there one day, but it was one of those things that we just kept putting off until we reached the point where it felt like it was just never going to happen.
I never had a personal connection to remembrance; my family had come from Malta in the late 1940s and I had no relatives who had served in the First World War or the Second World War. My grandfather had tried to enlist at the height of the Vietnam War, feeling a compulsion
to serve the country that had taken him in after Malta was destroyed by German and Italian bombers during the Second World War. However, he was turned away for medical reasons—he was flat-footed.
I had been to the Australian War Memorial in Canberra twice— once with Cadets and once alone on Vietnam Veterans Day (purely coincidental that our trip in Canberra coincided with 18 August)—and had felt the magnitude and solace of the memorial overwhelm me. The feeling one gets when the Last Post echoes through the Honour Roll is hard to describe. You turn and see the rows after rows of poppies and names, and it feels so unreal to think
Ben Bezzina at the Anzac Day Service in Gisborne, Victoria, in 2014. This was his first proper introduction to remembrance.
Image reproduced courtesy of Benjamin Bezzina
Benjamin Bezzina with the Shrine Guard, piper and bugler after a service.
Image reproduced courtesy of Eileen Bezzina
that every single one of those names on that board was a brother, a son, a father, a friend, a husband or any other person that loved, or was loved, as Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae put it in his poem In Flanders Fields.
This all changed in October 2023, when during a routine school assembly on a dull Tuesday first period the prospect of the Shrine Young Ambassadorship was brought up by my school’s Assistant Head of Senior School. During any given assembly at 9am on a weekday, I was half asleep in my chair semiconsciously tuning in and out of the monotonous information that seemed to go on for much longer than could possibly be necessary. However, as I heard about the program, I seemed to snap out of my routine trance and suddenly lock in on the speech, taking great interest in it.
Later that day, in the middle of a slow history class, I began to write up my application for the Shrine Ambassadorship. My history teacher caught me at it and asked what I was doing. I somewhat nervously responded, explaining that I was applying for the ambassadorship mentioned in the assembly. To my delight, he was very positive and encouraging about it, telling me to absolutely go for it. This felt like all the reassurance I needed, and I finished writing up a small blurb about who I was and why I wanted to join. I nervously submitted my application and proceeded to forget about it.
Eventually, against my expectations, joining a group of nine other Young Ambassadors at the Shrine for the first time during the school holidays. Since then, I have been able to do so many wonderful and amazing things that would have never been possible without the help of the Shrine. I read the poem We Shall Keep the Faith by Moina Michael during the Young Ambassador handover ceremony. I assisted in school holiday activities for young kids, laid wreaths on Sunday’s Last Post ceremonies and Legacy Day, and I assisted visitors on Anzac Day.
The first time I visited the Shrine it was a nice summer day and I was going to an induction and welcome ceremony—a nerve-wracking experience that I didn’t feel 100 per cent prepared for. I remember what it felt like to walk up the path approaching the right side of the building near the Education Centre. I remember the text on one of the walls, the very first thing I saw of the Shrine:
THIS MONUMENT WAS ERECTED BY A GRATEFUL PEOPLE TO THE HONOURED MEMORY OF THE MEN AND WOMEN OF VICTORIA WHO SERVED THE EMPIRE IN THE GREAT WAR OF 1914-1918.
It was a quote that resonated with me and profoundly and positively impacted my feelings going into this ambassadorship.
Today, more than 100 years on from the First World War, it’s often easy to forget just how important this war was to the creation of the Australian identity, forged by the ANZACs at what became known as Anzac Cove, at Gallipoli. Loyalty, mateship, humour, courage and determination are all now key aspects of what makes us Australian today. It is institutions such as the Shrine that help pass on the torch of remembrance to the younger generations, ensuring that we as
a nation and society never forget the brave young men who embarked ships leaving Australia in 1914, as well as all who have served in subsequent wars such as the Second World War, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan as well as peacekeeping operations across the world.
I am forever grateful for the opportunity I had to be part of the Shrine Young Ambassador program. I have met people who I would otherwise never have come across, and I have had the opportunity to build experiences that have stuck with me and that I would never have had the chance to enjoy otherwise. I have been involved in programs and activities that helped me learn to be a leader and I have learnt, expanded and grown my knowledge and felt more thankful than ever for the sacrifices made by servicemen and women.
The Young Ambassador Program is supported by the Freemasons Foundation Victoria.
Ben Bezzina is a Year 10 student from New Gisborne, Victoria, who has been volunteering as a Shrine Young Ambassador since October 2023.
YOUNG AMBASSADORS HAVE VARIOUS OPPORTUNITIES DURING THEIR TIME WITH THE SHRINE, INCLUDING SPEAKING AT ANZAC DAY AND REMEMBRANCE DAY SERVICES, VISITING OTHER MEMORIALS AND TAKING PART IN COMMEMORATIVE PROJECTS.
To learn more, visit shrine.org.au
Shrine Young Ambassador Group, 2024 (back row, left to right) Marcella Lee, Selina Shen, Matthew Threlfall, Patrick Dickinson, Benjamin Bezzina (front row, left to right) Halima Chowdary, Liana Loney, Jasmine Xu, William Mulhauser. Shrine of Remembrance image
CALLS TO SERVICE
BY TESSA OCCHINO
Albert Dawe (centre) in his Victorian Scottish Regiment uniform playing at the Shrine Dedication, 11 November 1934. Shrine of Remembrance Collection
Bugles have a long history in the military, being used as a signalling and communication device in the British Army from around 1764. The Australian military adopted this tradition, as well as many others, from the British. By the beginning of the First World War the introduction of telegraphs, telephones and wireless signalled the end of the practical use of bugles, but they were kept for ceremonial uses and are still used in this capacity.
Today, our most widely known bugle call is the Last Post, played at Anzac Day and Remembrance Day before the minute of silence. The Last Post is just one of many bugle calls that have been used in military tradition to direct men to particular duties and signal events. One guide, Trumpet and Bugle Calls for the Australian Army, published in 1916, lists 128 different bugle calls, all with accompanying lyrics.
The Last Post signifies the end of the day’s activities. It has been
Bugle calls are an iconic part of Anzac and Remembrance days, signalling to all the sacrifice of thousands of Victorians in war. But where do these come from and what do they really mean? Discover more through Albert Dawe’s bugle, one of the first bugles ever played at the Shrine.
adopted at services to acknowledge all those who have died in war. It is also sounded at military funerals, symbolising that the duty of the dead is over, their day has drawn to a final close and they can rest in peace.
During the Dawn Service, Reveille is played to break the minute of silence. Its original purpose was to wake up sleeping soldiers but today, when played on Anzac Day, Reveille symbolises the awakening of the dead in the next world. In Australian military tradition, Reveille is only used at the Dawn Service or for waking the troops on military bases. Rouse, used to call soldiers to their duties, is used at Remembrance Day, memorial services and military funerals.
Albert ‘Bert’ Dawe played his bugle at the Dedication of the Shrine in 1934, 90 years ago. He was one of three Victorian Scottish Regiment buglers who played at the service. Dawe’s bugle differs from the classic Australian bugle as it is nickel plated, rather than the traditional brass. It is not clear if the bugle was brought back from England or purchased in Australia, but it was made by Henry Potter & Company of London, which was known for making fine military instruments.
Dawe enlisted in the 1st Australian Imperial Force on 27 January 1916 at the age of 19, after threatening his parents that he would use a false name if they didn’t give consent. He trained in Egypt and England before heading to France as a reinforcement for the 58th Battalion.
The 58th Battalion was part of the 15th Brigade and saw action at Bullecourt, the third battle of Ypres and Villers-Bretonneux, where Dawe
was both wounded and gassed twice. He returned home after 1,153 days of service with shrapnel still in his body and was discharged in 1919. When Japan entered the Second World War, Dawe enlisted again, serving on the staff of the Recruit Reception and General Detail Depot at Royal Park until 1947. In 1967, Dawe was awarded the British Empire Medal for meritorious service for his bugling.
Dawe played this bugle on every Anzac Day and Remembrance Day at the Shrine of Remembrance until his death in 1974.
Tessa Occhino is the former Exhibitions and Collections Officer at the Shrine of Remembrance.
Albert Dawe holds up his bugle for a young boy scout to play, c.1970s. Shrine of Remembrance Collection
Albert Dawe playing at the Shrine, c.1960s. Shrine of Remembrance Collection
Kipling’s Ode for Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance reads:
So long as memory, valour, and faith endure
Let these stones witness through the years to come, How once there was a people fenced secure Behind great waters girdling a far home.
Their own and their land’s youth ran side by side Heedless and headlong as their unyoked seasLavish o’er all, and set in stubborn pride
Of judgment nurtured by accepted peace.
Thus, suddenly, war took them-seas and skies
Joined with the earth for slaughter. In a breath
They, scoffing at all talk of sacrifice,
Gave themselves without idle words to death.
Thronging as cities throng to watch a game,
Or their own herds move southward with the year, Secretly, swiftly, from their ports they came,
So that before half earth had heard their name
Half earth had learned to speak of them with fear;
Because of certain men who strove to reach,
Through the red surf the crest no man might hold,
And gave their name for ever to a beach
Which shall outlive Troy’s tale when Time is old;
Because of horsemen, gathered apart and hidMerciless riders whom Megiddo sent forth
When the outflanking hour struck and bid
Them close and bar the drove-roads to the north;
And those who, when men feared the last March flood
Of Western war had risen beyond recall, Stormed through the night from Amiens and made good,
At their glad cost, the breach that perilled all.
Then they returned to their desired land-
The kindly cities and plains where they were bredHaving revealed their nation in earth’s sight
So long as sacrifice and honour stand,
And their own sun at the hushed hour shall light
The Shrine of these, their dead!
AN ODE TO MELBOURNE’S SHRINE OF REMEMBRANCE
BY CAROLYN ARGENT
Rudyard Kipling. Photographer unknown
An Ode to Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance was written for the building’s dedication in 1934. Ninety years on, we reflect on its significance.
There are many hidden gems within the walls of the Shrine. Looking back over the 90 years since the Shrine was dedicated, one item that stands out was specially created for the opening of the building.
The then Premier of Victoria, Sir Stanley Argyle, wrote to the British poet Rudyard Kipling, hoping he would pen some suitable verses that could be read out at the dedication ceremony. Kipling agreed and wrote a poem, which was known by various titles but more formally recognised as Ode for Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance.
Kipling was an unsurprising choice to create an ode as he was worldrenowned in the literary field, being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907. Most British and Commonwealth soldiers who served in the First World War were
familiar with his poetry and he became the first Literary Advisor to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres, Belgium, bears an inscription written by Kipling: To the armies of the British Empire who stood here from 1914 to 1918 and to those of their dead who have no known grave.
Kipling was also the composer of the words Their name liveth for evermore on the Stone of Remembrance at various Commonwealth War Grave cemeteries and the words Known unto God, which can be seen on many unknown soldiers’ gravestones. There is a street named after Rudyard Kipling behind the Menin Gate in Belgium, which upholds the link between the memorial and Kipling’s desire to commemorate war.
Beyond his professional accolades, Kipling had a personal connection to the purpose of the Shrine. He was devastated by the death of his son in the First World War and suffered the grief of this loss for the rest of his life. John Kipling, known as Jack, was the third child and only son of Caroline Starr Balestier and Rudyard Kipling. Although he was rejected by both the Army and the Navy for being short-sighted, Rudyard Kipling used his influence within the British Army and John was commissioned into the Irish Guards the day before his 18th birthday.
Six weeks later, on 27 September 1915, John Kipling was reported missing and later presumed dead during the battle of Loos. It wasn’t until the 1990s that a body was found that is believed to be his. Now, John Kipling has a grave bearing his name at St. Mary’s A.D.S. Cemetery, Haisnes, France.
The Victorian Government at the time offered to pay Kipling for his poem, but he declined to accept any money. The Ode was recited by Sir Stanley Argyle at the Dedication of the Shrine of Remembrance on Armistice Day, Sunday 11 November 1934, and was later set in bronze and erected in the Sanctuary of the Shrine where it remains to this day. It stands, 90 years on, as a place to pause and reflect and as testament to those who served, those who sacrificed their lives and those who still serve today.
Argent is an Education Officer at the Shrine of Remembrance.
Carolyn
The grave of John Kipling at St. Mary’s A.D.S Cemetery, Haisnes, France. Photographer Carolyn Argent
Rudyard Kipling’s son, John (known as Jack), was killed during the Battle of Loos. Reproduced courtesy of National Trust Images (UK)
for the Remember FUTURE
BY BAI YANG POGOS-HILL
The Premier’s Spirit of Anzac Prize is an annual competition open to students enrolled in Years 9 to 12. The Prize encourages students to explore the Anzac legacy post-First World War and its relevance in twenty-first-century society.
This year’s entrants were asked to explore the significance of the Shrine or a local community’s war memorial in honouring Australians who have served in war and peacekeeping. Bai Yang Pogos-Hill responded to the prompt by writing a speech for the opening of a new imagined memorial, ‘Remember for the Future’.
The 2024 Spirit of Anzac Prize recipients at the Lone Pine Memorial in Gallipoli, Türkiye. Image reproduced courtesy of the Victorian Government
Wominjeka! This means to ‘welcome and to come with purpose’. It’s from the Woiwurrung language of the Wurundjeri people.
Thank you, Aunty Jude, for the smoking ceremony and for giving us permission to use the image of the Indigenous Warrior Pemulwuy.
My name is Bai Yang, and I’m very proud to be speaking here at the opening of this Garden Memorial ‘Remember for the Future’.
This memorial is set in a garden of rosemary, a plant which is a symbol of fidelity and remembrance, and which grows wild in the fields of Gallipoli. The memorial consists of three parts: four figures at the back, two children at the front, and a canopy of birds.
First, I would like to talk about these four figures at the back.
The man on the right is Pemulwuy, an Indigenous warrior and one of 60,000 First Australians who died in massacres or fighting the British settlers in the Frontier Wars.
Indigenous Australians have served in all wars. In the First World War, it is estimated that around 1000 to 1300 Indigenous Australians served in the Australian Imperial Forces, of whom 250 to 300 died.
In the middle, we have Dr Lillian Cooper, standing beside her lifelong partner Josephine Bedford.
In the First World War, due to the Australian Minister for Defence only allowing women to join the Australian Army Nursing Service, Lillian and Josephine travelled from Brisbane to join the Scottish Women’s Hospital so Lillian could work as a doctor to support the Allies. Lillian operated in Serbia in outposts close to the front line, so the soldiers had a better chance of survival. Josephine worked day and night transporting the wounded, as well as supplies. These Australian women, like thousands of others, went to war to serve our country.
Finally, the person on the left is Private Ronald Baden Thomas, who served in Indonesia during the Second World War. He died on 20 February 1942, at the age of 15, the same age as me. It is important to remember that 10 per cent of men who enlisted in the Second World War were under the age of 20, and 40 per cent were under the age of 24.
‘Remember for the Future’ was planned, funded, and built by the community. Local artists were chosen to create ideas for the memorial, then the community voted to pick the one they preferred.
Our design brief took guidance from Sir John Monash, who in 1926 noted that the Shrine of Remembrance should be “a beautiful conception, eminently suited as a memorial of great service and sacrifice, without that ridiculous note of victory and conquest”.
Community groups and businesses came together and raised money for the project. The local Scouts and Cadet groups ran sausage sizzles. There were trivia nights, fundraising dinners, working bees, raffles, and donation boxes were placed in restaurants. Each fundraising activity was a memorial event in its own way. People connected with each other, reflecting on the past and working together with a common community goal. Strong friendships have been forged over the past two years. Even during the current cost of living crisis, people opened their hearts and their wallets to build this memorial.
But we live in a new suburb with a new library behind us and a new Community Centre across the road. Why was there such commitment to building this memorial in 2024?
You can understand how during and after the First World War, people needed a place to mourn. Pretty much everyone at the time would have known someone who had served in the Armed Forces. Two thirds of people who served returned injured or didn’t return at all.
Communities were driven to build memorials as a place to go to reflect and remember those who died or were injured, especially because there were no graves. One of the first memorials was erected in Adelaide in September 1915, less than six months after the Anzacs first arrived in Gallipoli. The memorial was a granite obelisk shaped like the hills that the soldiers climbed.
Communities were constructing memorials at such a high rate, a War Precautions Act prohibited building memorials costing more than 25 pounds until the war was over, so as not drain funds from “more urgent patriotic efforts”. But after the war
concluded, communities around Australia constructed thousands of memorials.
Memorials took many forms. In Ballarat, an Avenue of Honour was created; a memorial of trees that lined the streets with each tree representing one of the 3801 people who served in the First World War. It runs for 22 kilometres and also recognises immigrants who adopted Australia as their home and fought to defend it. There are 22 Australians of Chinese heritage commemorated in Ballarat’s Avenue of Honour, five of whom were killed in action.
But why here and now?
Memorials are still important now. If anything, they are even more important. According to the War Memorials Trust, memorials “act as historical touchstones. They link the past to the present and enable people to remember and respect the sacrifice of those who died, fought, participated or were affected by conflict”.
We still have a huge number of Australians joining our armed forces to serve our country. According to the 2021 Census, more than half a million Australians had served, or were currently serving, in the Australian Defence Force.
Memorials are also a place for younger people to learn about the history of war in Australia, and to gain an understanding and appreciation of the sacrifices made.
And for our new immigrants, many who have fled conflict and war, these memorials serve them by respectfully offering a place for their own quiet reflection.
In front of the four figures there are these two children, a young boy in a wheelchair, and a JapaneseAustralian girl. They hold between them a birdbath and the girl has an outstretched hand offering feed to the birds. Those who fought for us stand behind them, looking over them and protecting them.
The girl represents the multicultural aspect of our country and reminds us that those who once were our enemies can become our friends.
The boy has a physical disability. After thousands of soldiers returned from the wars, suffering amputations and disfigurement or blinded by shrapnel, the Australian government
introduced proper systems and programs for those with disabilities. With the increased numbers of people with disability they all couldn’t be institutionalised, and this demographic change acted as a step towards disability as a better recognised condition.
Finally, I would like all of you to look up at the canopy of birds. We have different native birds from all over the world: Australia, Spain, Columbia, the United States, South Africa, India, China and Egypt. These birds remind us that we all share the same sky. We, as a community, want to acknowledge and thank all of those who went to war for us to have a free and fair country, as well as those who served in peacekeeping operations around the world, helping other countries out in times of conflict and unrest.
Sir John Monash encourages us to “adopt as your fundamental creed that you will equip yourself for life, not solely for your own benefit but for the benefit of the whole community”.
This memorial celebrates those who did just that.
Before you go, please feel free to wander around these beautiful figures and pick some rosemary to take home. We also have bird seed on
sale. All profits will be utilised in the upkeep and maintenance of this memorial.
Thank you all for attending and don’t forget: we must look to the past and remember for the future.
was
of the
Image reproduced courtesy of the Victorian Government
Personal statement: I was born in China, I have albinism, am legally blind, and have prosopagnosia, so cannot recognise faces. At 16 months old I was adopted and came to Australia. My parents sent me to Richmond West Primary School, which taught in Mandarin and English. Growing up I became interested in Asian culture and history.
I love languages and after becoming fluent in Mandarin, started learning Vietnamese and became interested in the Vietnam War. I started researching and asked my parents if we could visit the Australian War Memorial. We went in January 2023 and I spent time mostly in the Vietnam War section. My interest expanded to other wars, including both World Wars, the Frontier Wars and global conflicts involving Australia. I convinced my parents to visit there again this year, and also the Shrine of Remembrance. I’ve been watching documentaries and reading articles. I recently watched a Shoah Foundation video featuring my Jewish Grandfather, who joined the Red Army to fight the Nazis when he was 19. He marched on Anzac Day every year until just before he died in 2021. I also learned his father, my Great Grandfather, fought the Germans during the First World War. In wars, men and women place their lives on the line for their country. I find that incredibly powerful.
To learn more about the Premier’s Spirit of Anzac Prize, including information on the 2025 competition, visit vic.gov.au/premiers-spirit-anzac-prize
Back row (L-R): Sophie Birrell, Owen McCoughtry, William Muhlhauser, Bai Yang Pogos-Hill, Kylinda Zhang, Benjamin Bolton, Chloe Lawson, George Whitford
From row (L-R): Mahdia Qasimi, Consul-General of Türkiye in Melbourne Doğan Ferhat Işık, Minister for Veterans, The Honourable Natalie Suleyman MP, Freshta Watanyar, Ruby Pearce, Carys Murray.
Image reproduced courtesy Department of Families, Fairness and Housing
Bai Yang Pogos-Hill
one
2024 recipients of the Premier’s Spirit of Anzac Prize.
HONOURING THE PAST, SHAPING THE FUTURE: THE SHRINE OF REMEMBRANCE AT 90
BY DEAN LEE
As the Shrine marks its 90th year, the Trustees look ahead with a master plan for 2025–2045.
In1923, a dedicated committee representing a grieving community was tasked with creating a monument to honour the 114,000 Victorians who enlisted to defend the Empire during the First World War. Their efforts culminated in the establishment of the Shrine of Remembrance, a beacon of sacrifice and service.
Following the Shrine’s dedication in 1934, this committee evolved into what we now know as the Shrine of Remembrance Trustees. Ninety years on, a group of ten men and women, appointed by the Governor upon the recommendation of the Victorian Minister for Veterans, continues to uphold the original mission. They serve as custodians of this most special place at which we reflect on the way of life we value, defended by the service of so many.
Over the years, the Shrine has expanded to recognise continued service and sacrifice in global conflicts and to meet the evolving needs of the community. Significant
additions include the Second World War Memorial Forecourt in 1954, The Garden of Remembrance and Post-45 Memorial, the Shrine Visitor Centre in 2003, and the Galleries of Remembrance in 2014.
Now, as the Shrine marks its 90th anniversary, the Trustees are looking ahead with a master plan for 2025–2045. This forward-thinking plan will guide development leading to the Shrine’s 100th anniversary in 2034 and beyond. Created in consultation with veterans and civic stakeholders, the master plan is not just about construction. It’s a thoughtful examination of the Shrine’s role as a civic and cultural icon in Melbourne, ensuring it integrates seamlessly with its surroundings, including the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Parklands.
Central to this plan is a visionary ‘psycho-graphic’ model. This establishes the Shrine as the soul of Melbourne, a source of resilience, comfort and renewal for the community.
Key aspects of the master plan
Commemoration
Since 1934, the Shrine has symbolised remembrance for those who served in the First World War and all subsequent conflicts. The master plan seeks to enhance this by reimagining the Second World War Memorial Forecourt. At present, it is often used as a thoroughfare by cyclists and runners. The enhanced design will deliver a three-dimensional aspect to distinguish the memorial forecourt from its surroundings. It includes a perimeter path to reduce disruptions during services and bring visibility to relocated memorial tree plaques that are presently isolated outside the Shrine Reserve.
The Garden of Remembrance and Post-45 Memorial, originally focused on the period from 1945 to 1975, has become a catch-all for conflicts from 1945 to the current day, diluting its purpose. The master plan proposes restoring its initial intent and adds a larger commemorative plaza near St Kilda Road to honour all service and sacrifice post-1975. This will also make the memorial more visible to passersby.
Looking ahead, the plan designates a future memorial site on the southern lawn, ensuring space for new tributes without obscuring the principal Shrine monument.
Place
Preserving the Shrine’s visual prominence is key. The master plan emphasises careful landscape management, including measures to address climate change impacts, and will seek to respect and give visibility to First Nations Peoples’ interests.
Access
The master plan includes improved access from the new Anzac Station, benefiting both the Shrine and the Royal Botanic Gardens. It also suggests relocating the No. 19 tram stop adding a new stop closer to the Shrine’s northern approach to enhance accessibility.
Capacity
Previous developments in 2003 and 2014 created valuable spaces beneath the monument for visitors, a museum, student facilities and offices. The new plan envisions extending these areas to the east and west, adding a large multi-use space for exhibitions and events, therefore boosting the Shrine’s ability to self-fund and support its mission. Additional facilities will be included to house the growing collection of museum objects and records, as well as provide for staff and the Shrine Guard.
Looking forward
Key master plan elements will be displayed at the Shrine Visitor Centre in November 2024, where the public will be encouraged to view and comment.A public presentation is also scheduled.
The vision of the National War Memorial Committee from 1923 could not foresee today’s world, yet their commitment has guided the Shrine well. As we celebrate this 90-year milestone, today’s Trustees remain dedicated to preserving the Shrine’s purpose, directing it to meet the needs of all Australians while reflecting the evolving values of our community.
Dean Lee is the CEO of the Shrine of Remembrance.
Thank you
TO OUR FRIENDS
Your support ensures that we continue to remember service and sacrifice.
BECOME A LIFE MEMBER OF THE SHRINE
As a Friends Life Member, your generous commitment helps us to care for the Shrine and deliver our ceremonial services and free educational programs, ensuring future generations continue to honour Australian service and sacrifice.
Able Seaman Hiram Ristrom at a Last Post Service 26 January 2020. photographer Cormac Hanrahan
