Otago Military Historical Group

The Amenities Society was pleased to recently provide financial support to the Otago Military Historical Group to attend to a number of gravesites in our cemeteries of military personnel, significant to the Otago region, which due to decades of neglect, were in danger of being lost.

The Otago Military Historical Group sought to clean up, repair, beautify the gravesites and headstones, and fix and paint fences. They had printed information boards erected on these sites to inform the public and retain the military history of our region.

The focus was on the following persons and groups:

1. Sir John Larkins Cheese Richardson, Northern Cemetery
2. Sydney Herbert Davies, Northern Cemetery
3. Duncan Gordan Boyes V.C., Southern Cemetery
4. The 70^th (Surrey) Regiment, Otago Boys High School
5. Ian Grant, Northern Cemetery

Formerly a Dunedin resident, Ian Grant died in the opening exchange of the Battle of the River Plate on HMS Achilles (Royal Navy, New Zealand Division) on 13 December 1939, Aged 18; Otago’s first WWII fatality.       

Following is a photo of the recently erected information board at the commemoration headstone of Ian Grant in Dunedin’s Northern cemetery: