Students honour Moore-Jones statue site with crafted public bench

Hamilton Boys’ High School students have added their own creative touch to the city’s landmark Sapper Horace Moore-Jones statue site, to honour the acclaimed ANZAC artist and Hamilton hero.

The First World War veteran - who painted the iconic Gallipoli watercolour ‘The Man and The Donkey’ – was the High School’s first art master. Now, students in the high school’s Technology Faculty have crafted a commemorative two-metre bench seat in long-lasting kwila. The bench will be installed next to the statue in Victoria Street, which overlooks the heritage Hamilton Hotel site where Moore-Jones gave his own life rescuing others from the disastrous 1922 fire.

The statue was gifted by Hamilton’s TOTI charitable Trust, and chair Bill McArthur says the student-crafted bench is a “beautiful and fitting artistic addition to the site”, as “visitors ponder the many messages emanating from the statue and the Moore-Jones’ story”.

Hamilton Boys High School Technology head John Steel says “the re-instatement of Horace Moore-Jones as a Hamilton hero had a powerful message for his students.” and McArthur is pleased that for this project “young people have used skills in technology, design, history and environmental impact to prepare for their futures.”

On Monday, 13 June TOTI will be unveiling the students’ bench seat and launching the book Sapper Moore-Jones ‘In the line of fire’. This will complete the three-stage heritage project pursued by Hamilton’s TOTI Trust to have ANZAC soldier and artist Horace Moore-Jones publicly recognised and honoured in New Zealand.

June 13 is the 99th anniversary of Moore-Jones illustrated lecture in Hamilton, during a countrywide tour that made him a national celebrity. A year later he took the position of high school art master at Hamilton Boys High, because of the positive reception he’d received in the town and because he had “more commissions here than anywhere else”, McArthur said.

The school’s technology courses involving wood are NCEA-based and lead on to university level engineering as well as apprenticeship trade qualifications.

ENDS

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