World War I Cenotaph, Mackay

About

World War I Cenotaph is a heritage-listed memorial at Jubilee Park, Alfred Street, Mackay, Mackay Region, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by Stephen Harvey and built from 1928 to 1929 by Melrose & Fenwick. It is also known as Mackay War Memorial and Jubilee Park. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 August 1992.

The Cenotaph at Mackay was first unveiled on the southern bank of the Pioneer River adjacent to the Sydney Street Bridge in 1929. It was designed by Townsville architect Stephen Harvey and commemorates the 159 men from Mackay and its district killed in action during World War I (WWI). In 1945 the memorial was moved to the northern edge of Jubilee Park, which had been constructed during 1935–6 to honour the jubilee of King George V, on the southern half of a block bounded by Albert, Wellington, Gordon and Nelson Streets. Again, in 1973 when the Mackay City Council was planning its civic centre complex, the cenotaph was moved to the opposite side of the park fronting Albert Street. Here it has remained as a focus for Anzac and Remembrance Day services, other war memorials having since been erected around it.

Mackay, briefly called Alexandra, was named after John Mackay who led the European discovery and settlement of the Pioneer River and its district. The township was surveyed in June 1863, with the first allotments being offered for sale in Bowen in October. Two years after Mackay's establishment, the first sugar cane was planted on the Pioneer Plantation, introducing to the region its key agricultural product and industry. The settlement and the port declared there otherwise served the district's pastoral industry. The first local government body formed in the region, the Mackay Municipal Council, held its inaugural meeting on 1 December 1869. Mackay was declared a town in 1902 and then a city in 1918.

The pre- Federation defence force drawn from the male citizenry of Mackay and its district formed a company of the famous Kennedy Regiment, which was the first Australian infantry unit mobilised at the outbreak of WWI (1914–1918). Many of its members volunteered to join the First Australian Imperial Force and a number distinguished themselves during the conflicts at Gallipoli and in France.

From Mackay, 1,594 men volunteered to serve, with another 36 coming from the nearby Nebo district. Mackay's cenotaph lists the names of 159 who were killed during active service; eight of whom were awarded military decorations.

Australia and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before WWI, the memorials erected in its wake becoming our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Whereas the few memorials commemorating the deaths associated with the Boer War (1899–1902) had been sited in cemeteries, these were erected at prominent sites in towns and cities around the country where they would serve as aides to memory. Memorials took a range of forms other than statuary, including honour boards, memorial gates and halls, and avenues of trees. Australia lost 60,000 lives from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on it.

Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them they were sacred; substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East, British policy having decreed that its Empire's war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word cenotaph, commonly applied to war memorials at the time, means "empty tomb". As well as being symbols of national mourning these memorials were also affirmations of nationhood, the new nation and its army having proved its value on an international stage.

War memorials provide valuable evidence of a community's involvement in the war; not so readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit. Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste.

Before the construction of the Mackay cenotaph in 1929, Anzac Day in the city was commemorated by a procession of returned servicemen and the gathering of crowds around a Cross of Sacrifice, a temporary structure usually placed in a central location. Wreaths and floral tributes were laid around the cross and a simple ceremony performed, with music provided by local bands and speeches given by local dignitaries. By the mid-1920s a Fallen Soldiers Memorial Committee had formed to raise funds and organise the design of a more permanent monument, comprising about 20 members, including Mr G Hoffman, a returned soldier.

Several sites for this monument were considered by the committee, the preferred option being to secure a portion of the drill shed grounds for a memorial park and erect it there. Bounded by Gordon, Nelson, Alfred and Wellington streets, the area occupied by the drill shed and its grounds had always been intended as public open space, labelled a "square" in the first survey of the new township of Alexandra (later Mackay) by Surveyor Thomas Henry Fitzgerald in 1863. In 1881 the land was gazetted as a temporary drill shed ground reserve and had passed to the Commonwealth Government around the time of Federation for use by its Defence Department. Since the early 1920s the City Council had made several attempts to regain control of the land, bringing the matter before Prime Minister Stanley Bruce during his visits to Mackay in 1924 and 1927. But the conditions imposed by the Defence Department for releasing it, involving land swaps and improvements to the site, proved to be beyond the means of the council. Thus the memorial committee relinquished the drill shed site and an alternative one was chosen on a small reserve on the southern bank of the Pioneer River, opposite the Customs House and next to the Sydney Street Bridge (approx 21°08′21″S 149°11′13″E  /  21.1391°S 149.1870°E  / -21.1391; 149.1870  ( Original location of the Mackay War Memorial ) ).

In April 1928 it was announced that the design of Archibald Selwyn Harriss, a young architect working in Mackay, had been chosen for the monument. It was described in the Mackay Daily Mercury as "a vertical design with four steps supporting a beautiful column of polished granite 30 ft (9.144 m) high". Tenders were advertised in various newspapers, including the Brisbane Courier ; however after tenders closed on 23 May the committee decided not to proceed with Harriss' design. In July, it was reported that a Townsville architect, Mr Stephen Harvey, had visited Mackay and submitted a design for the monument, which was accepted. His design, of matching height to the earlier one, took the form of a column of white marble on a granite base. During a subsequent visit Mr Harvey measured levels at the River Street site before returning to Townsville to finalise details in preparation for calling tenders. These were advertised in late July.

Stephen Harvey was born in Sussex, England in c. 1878 and immigrated to Australia with his family in 1912–13. A joiner by trade, he had completed drawing and construction courses, and became an instructor in drawing for the Sussex County Council. [ clarification needed ] After working for an architect Harvey began practicing in the early 1900s. Upon arrival in Australia, he worked in Toowoomba for two years before moving to Townsville, where he remained until his death in 1933. During his career in Townsville, Harvey was a well-known local architect who worked on a variety of civic and commercial projects. The Townsville Masonic Temple is one remaining example of his work (completed after his death). In 1918 he designed a large timber Roll of Honour board for the Townsville Town Hall, listing the names of all those who had served from the district (no longer surviving, name plaques alone re-installed in the new Town Hall).

The tender for constructing the Mackay fallen soldiers' memorial was won by the well-known monumental masonry firm Melrose and Fenwick. Established in Townsville in the mid-1890s, Melrose and Fenwick grew to become the leading monumental masonry firm in northern Queensland, with branches in major centres such as Cairns and Charters Towers. The firm enjoyed continued success into the late 20th century and produced many war memorials including the: Finch Hatton War Memorial (erected 1921), Townsville War Memorial clock tower (completed 1924, part of Anzac Memorial Park and adjacent Banyan trees), and Cairns War Memorial (completed 1926).

Mackay's Anzac Day celebrations in 1928 were held at the site of the proposed memorial with crowds filling the surrounding streets and balconies, and lining the Sydney Street Bridge. By November construction was well underway, with Melrose and Fenwick engaged on the stone inscriptions. However, due to shipping delays in Sydney, the foundation stone did not arrive in time for Remembrance Day. A ceremony for its laying was held a week later, a large gathering in attendance. Mr G Hoffman, secretary of the Returned Soldiers League, addressed the crowd, paying tribute to the contributions of the Fallen Soldiers Memorial Committee members such as the Mayor of Mackay, Alderman George Albert Milton, and Mr F Moore, its secretary. The Reverend AD Thorpe blessed the stone prior to its being laid by the Mayor.

The completed monument was unveiled on 24 April 1929, the day before Anzac Day. Its cost was approximately £2,000, of which £1,750 had already been subscribed. As reported in the Mackay Daily Mercury, during the unveiling ceremony the gratitude of the committee was expressed towards the architect, Mr Harvey, who, after supervising the erection of the monument, had forgone his fee. The various parts of the monument have symbolic meaning. The column was approached by three steps, which were always indicative of the approach to a shrine. Then came a solid base foundation surmounted by the plaque bearing the names of the heroic dead. Above that was the strong Doric column on top of which was the round symbol of empire, held in strong bands. Thus the sacrifice of the dead heroes was supported by a strong foundation of Christian faith, with the column of strength and right holding up the empire, which was banded together in bonds of unity.

In addition to these remarks about the cenotaph's symbolic elements, the three steps may correspond to those found on a Calvary cross used to mark Christian graves, which symbolise faith, hope and love (or charity). The granite pedestal was formed like a mausoleum, in this instance empty to recall the men buried where they fell. The pedestal and its flanking wall were decorated with Latin crosses, which are empty to remind observers of the resurrection of Jesus and the hope of eternal life.

The Mackay cenotaph is a good example of a large civic memorial, designed by an architect and crafted by a prominent firm of monumental masons. This type of monument-a pedestal and classical column surmounted by a sphere or orb-is one of a wide variety of symbolic forms employed after WWI throughout Queensland. Many symbols used were already familiar in grave monuments and included urns recalling the ancient Greek practice of placing cremated remains in funerary vessels, and broken columns representing lives cut short. One of the earliest WWI monuments in Australia took the form of a column and surmounting globe; that erected at Manly in Sydney and unveiled in 1916. Other examples of this type in Queensland include the Cardwell War Memorial (1922, masons Melrose and Fenwick) made from sandstone with a cross on top of the orb (symbolising Christian dominion over the world); Graceville War Memorial (1920) made from polished grey granite with a map of Australia and the word "ANZAC" etched on the polished granite ball; the Mitchell War Memorial (1927) with a polished red granite sphere supported by a simple granite column; and the Weeping Mother Memorial at Gatton (1922) made from polished and unpolished trachyte with a wreath around the surmounting globe. In other memorials the surmounting globe symbolised the broader concept of humanity.

The Mackay WWI memorial has some unique features, such as a bronze relief sculpture of the side profile of a helmeted head (symbolism unknown, possibly that of the Greek goddess of wisdom and warfare, Athena ), not known on any other monument in Queensland. Also unusual is the low wall flanking the monument, a feature appropriate to its original location on the river bank, which clearly delineates a front to the cenotaph.

Efforts by the council to secure part of the drill shed grounds for a public park continued into the 1930s. The City of Mackay Town Planning Scheme of 1934, Queensland's first town planning scheme that went on to serve as a model for other of the state's cities, recognised the need for the local authority to provide ample recreational areas for the city's growing population. An analysis of its existing parks at the time found them to be inadequate. The drill shed ground was identified in the Town Planning Scheme as an ideal site for a neighbourhood playground, due to its central position in a densely occupied residential area.

These efforts came to fruition with the construction of Jubilee Park during 1935–36, one of several projects carried out in Mackay by depression relief labour. It was built on the southern half of the block opposite the drill shed and was named to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of the reign of King George V. Jubilee celebrations were held in the park on 24 May 1935, when it was officially named by the Mayor, Mr G Moody, and a Jubilee tree was planted by his wife (this tree, a type of kauri pine, no longer exists). The band rotunda was officially opened later in the year on 22 December, again by Mayor Moody, who congratulated the city engineer and workmen for the design, solidity and finish of the structure.