[VICTORIA CROSS CORNER MEMORIAL]

Rights Information
Year
1956
Reference
F28530
Media type
Moving image
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Rights Information
Year
1956
Reference
F28530
Media type
Moving image
Place of production
New Zealand/Aotearoa
Categories
Amateur
Duration
0:04:13

Unveiling ceremony of the Victoria Cross Memorial, Sunday, 29 January 1956.

The unveiling conducted by Governor-General Sir Willoughby Norrie (exactly 100 years to the day after Queen Victoria instituted the award) was a significant event for Dunedin and the RSA community with a large parade and many government, military and civic dignitaries. It commemorates soldiers who died in “The Maori War 1864; The South African War 1899-1902; The Great War 1914-1918; The World War 1939-1945”.

There were 9 New Zealand VC holders present:
Upham, Charles Hazlitt VC & Bar (World War Two)
Bassett, Cyril Royston Guyton (World War One)
Crichton, James (World War One)
Frickleton, Samuel (World War One)
Grant, John Gilroy (World War One)
Laurent, Harry John (World War One)
Hinton, John Daniel (World War Two)
Hulme, Alfred Clive (World War Two)
Elliot, Rev Keith (World War Two)

The Victoria Cross Corner Memorial was a commemorative project undertaken by the Dunedin RSA to pay tribute to New Zealand's VC recipients. The Memorial, commonly known as "V.C. Corner", was located at the main entrance of the Dunedin RSA, on the corner of Burlington Street and Moray Place. It was a Dunedin landmark from 1956 through to 1996. When the Dunedin RSA sold this building in 1996 the memorial was transferred to ANZAC Square in 1997, in front of the Dunedin Railway Station, but this was found to be unsuitable. It was then shifted to Queens Gardens, adjacent to the Dunedin Cenotaph, and rededicated on Remembrance Sunday, 11 November 2001. (Information from Dr Stephen Clarke, Official Historian and Research Officer, Royal New Zealand Returned Services' Association.)