Memorial Obelisk, Marine Parade, Napier, Hawke's Bay, New Zealand.
Posted by: 
greysman
S 39° 29.209 E 176° 55.167
60H E 493073 N 5629195
A memorial to the heroism of ten local men who lost their lives trying to save others in danger.
Waymark Code: WMH40M
Location: North Island, New Zealand
Date Posted: 05/18/2013
Views: 7
Good Friday 1897, 16th April, started like any other, fine and sunny but during the day a gale like no other sprang up with torrential rain falling over much of Hawke's Bay. The rain continued all day causing river levels to rise at an alarming rate and over three-fifths of the Heretaunga Plains was flooded, even as far north as Napier where the water was 600mm deep in Carlyle Street.
The settlers in the area took cover wherever they could which included the Clive Bridge and Clive Hotel where 236 refugees ended up sheltering.
In order to help the stranded settlers men set out in three boats from Waitangi, near Clive, but disaster struck as a weak spot in the river bank broke allowing the dammed flood waters to race out to sea. The first of the boats got clear but the other two were capsized and were swept out to sea, the two crews, ten men, losing their lives by drowning.
A memorial was erected by Napier residents in commemoration of the men's heroic attempts to help the settlers and can be seen on the Marine Parade by the new Te Pania hotel.
The memorial is unusual in that both the dedication and the name panels are repeated. The dedication panel on the north and south of the monument and the name panel on the east and west.
The dedication panels read:
THIS MONUMENT
was erected
by the people of Napier
to commemorate
a deed of Heroism
by which ten men lost their lives
on Good Friday 16th April 1897
in attempting to rescue the
flooded out settlers of Clive.
..with the name panels giving the names of the deceased:
Arthur McCartney
Frederick Cassin, John Rose,
Herbert G.Oborn, John Prebble,
Lorence O'Donovan, Alfred Stephenson,
George Chambers, Henry Brierly,
Frederick James Ansell,
Greater love hath no man than this,that a man
lay down his life for his friends.
Two settlers also lost their lives. They were J.Waitangi Broadbent and James Chesterhope Cunningham.
The memorial is made up of two main parts both about 4.5m tall. The base is basically square, of rusticated stone, on a stepped plinth with four faces bearing the dedication and name panels above what used to be drinking fountains, the remains of the brass spigots are present. The obelisk is made of stone in alternating bands of smooth and rusticated blocks.