Every year a special service to commemorate the Old Boys of Otago Boys’

High School who were killed in action or died or wounds in the two World Wars is held   in the school

auditorium.

The service is held for the boys

of the senior school.

The Otago Boys’ High School Memorial Archway was opened in 1923, for the school’s Diamond Jubilee. It commemorates the Old Boys who fought and died in the Great War.

There are four bronze plaques – two on the right hand side and two on the left that list the names of those young men who did not return from the battlefields of Gallipoli, Sinai and Palestine and the Western Front.

Each panel lists 50 men with one panel listing 51. There are 201 names in all.

A translation of the Latin inscription

reads…

It is a sweet and honourable thing to die for your country.

Lieutenant John Stuart Reid Otago Regiment, N.Z.E.F.

Died 3 May 1915 Aged 22 years.

Commemorated on the Lone Pine memorial. Gallipoli, Turkey.

Lieutenant Colonel George Hepburn Stewart.

Canterbury / Otago Mounted Rifles, NZEF.

Died of dysentery on Lemnos, Greece, on 20 November 1915, aged 40.

Second Lieutenant Eric Claude Spedding. Otago Regiment. Second Battalion NZEF.

Died 7 October 1917, aged 20.

Interred at Etaples France.

Sergeant John Gilks, Otago Regiment, 1st battalion N.Z.E.F.

Died 21st January 1918 aged 20.

Interred at Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery, Belgium.

Trooper Gilbert Worsfold Throp Canterbury Mounted Rifles, N.Z.E.F.

Died 28 March 1918 aged 29.

Interred Damascus Commonwealth War Cemetery, Syria.

The service begins with a welcome by the principal Mr Clive Rennie and a reading “In Praise of Famous Men” by the Head Boy.

Left: The school choir are accompanied by the school orchestra as they sing “The Lords Prayer”.

The school follows with a rendition of the school song.

The main speaker for the 2008 service was Air Vice Marshall Robin Klitscher who spoke to the boys about the various services - army, navy and air force and the incredible loss of life that was experienced by all the services in both wars.

The service finishes with The Lords Prayer and the New Zealand National Anthem and the Deputy Head Boy reads from the Book of Remembrance.

Such a loss of life was only endurable if subsequent generations did not forget the sacrifice and the reasons for it.

Mementoes for the service include a violin played by A. C. Aitken as the troops landed at ANZAC Cove on Gallipoli. A. C. Aitken survived the war after also serving in France. He has written the names of those battles in which he served inside the violin case.

Also part of the service is a sprig of Rosemary cut from the memorial planting beside the archway. Rosemary represents remembrance.

A.C. Aitken eventually became a professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University. He wrote a book on his experiences of the war, which is also presented as an item of remembrance at the service.

When the service is complete the year 13 boys form lines of honour on each side of the driveway from the memorial archway to the main block.

The Head Boy and the Deputy Head Boy bring wreaths to lay under the archway.

The wreaths are laid under the four bronze plaques that list the men of the school who lost their lives in WW1.

The Last Post and Reveille are hauntingly played by Mr. W. Henderson on the bugle.

The invited guests, staff and boys approach the archway one by one and lay a poppy at the base of the plaques.

The Head Boy lays a wreath on behalf of the pupils of the school and the Board of Trustees (left). The Deputy Head Boy lays a wreath on behalf of the Parents’ Association (above).