New Display Commemorates Gallipoli

Dunedin (Monday, 20 April 2015) – The experience of Otago soldiers at Gallipoli in World War 1 will be the focus of a Toitū Otago Settlers Museum display opening on Anzac Day.

When 1700 of Otago’s sons marched away to war in September 1914, the Ottoman Empire was not even involved in the conflict. Seven months later, however, those same young men found themselves invading Turkey. Their baptism of fire would be at Gallipoli rather than at the Western Front.

From 25 April, Toitū OSM will have the first of its WW100 change-outs in the Call to Arms military history display. Each of the next four years will see a new focus on the major campaign involving Otago’s troops in the equivalent year a century ago. This begins with a Gallipoli campaign display this year.

Like the Museum’s very popular Dunedin’s Great War exhibition (which closes on 10 May), these annual campaign reviews will offer a special take on how Otago residents experienced the war. More than 300 Dunedin soldiers died during the Gallipoli disaster. The display will explain how the southern soldiers began to earn their nickname “the unlucky Otagos” within a week of the landing.

Toitū OSM Curator Seán Brosnahan says, “Gallipoli has become a symbol, a name that resonates with meaning for New Zealand. But we want to tell people what actually happened there to the men from this place. This is the story of Otago’s Gallipoli.”

Also being unveiled as part of that display are about 2000 knitted poppies created by local knitters in recent months.

Scarlet poppies have long been a symbol of the soldiers who died during WW1. The knitted poppies have been stitched to a black fabric backdrop which will be draped across the end of the Call to Arms display. This is in remembrance of more than 1900 men and women from Dunedin who perished in WW1 and whose names are listed in the adjacent Roll of Honour.

This war centennial project was organised by the Otago Settlers Association in partnership with the Museum. It echoes the work of the Otago and Southland Women’s Patriotic Association, which had its headquarters in the museum buildings throughout WW1. In 1915 alone, Otago women knitted and sewed more than 47,000 items sent on to troops overseas.

Mr Brosnahan says, “The war was a frustrating time for women wanting to ‘do their bit’. Apart from the 500 or so New Zealand nurses who served overseas, most women had to be content with patriotic activity like knitting. The prodigious quantity of material they produced is testimony to their enthusiasm, just like our modern knitters with these poppies.”

As on other Anzac Days, the Museum will open immediately after the Dawn Service in Queen’s Gardens, Dunedin, providing morning tea for those who attend the service.

ENDS

© Scoop Media