Soldiers' Memorial Park

¹“There was a thoroughly representative attendance at the meeting last night held to arrange preliminary details in connection with the scheme for transforming the Central Parklands into a scene worthy of the importance of the town, and a place of pleasant resort for residents. Embodied in the scheme is provision for erecting a monument to the memory of those from our midst who have made the great sacrifice.”

And so began plans to establish a Soldier’s Memorial Park in Port Pirie on the 26^th of May 1917. A general committee was formed, with the amount of funding required estimated to be about £2000 for fencing and other improvements. It was resolved that a collection committee be formed where the various districts could be allotted. Buttons were sold on street corners and at the Smelters’ gates, for the cost of a post or rail or both, for the new fence.

²A Rotunda had already been established in the parkland and was officially opened on Arbor Day on the 9^th of August 1899. The idea of building a rotunda had been taken up three or four years earlier because “a place centrally situated where the public might repair for enjoyment was felt to be a necessity”.

Soldier's Memorial Park, Circa 1935_State Library of South Australia B70019/2

Working bees were set up on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons to erect a fence around the perimeter of the park and appeal for funds that were not forthcoming from the public. The Broken Hill Associated Smelter (B.H.A.S.) donated £1000 for the project; the United Ancient Order of Druids in Port Pirie who had around 100 names inscribed on its honour roll who had paid the supreme sacrifice in The Great War purchased a tree for every name on the roll and allocated individual members the responsibility for planting and tending them “in a distinct step to beautify Pirie.”

⁴In February 1919 during the Spanish Flu epidemic, an inhalatorium was established by the B.H.A.S. in the north-east corner of the park fronting Gertrude Street where the public were invited to submit themselves for treatment in the form of pressurised steam carrying Sulphate of Zinc solution. Once breathed in it was thought that the steam solution would disinfect the workers throats and air passages.

Garden plots were established around the rotunda with phlox, carnations and sunflower plants offsetting the beautiful lawn. Mr J. Greenless of Aldgate donated 100 rose bushes of different varieties and 400 to 500 bulbs. The Port Adelaide City Council forwarded 150 poplar trees to the Parklands Committee and Town Gardener Mr G.H. Giles in June of 1919.

The Soldiers Memorial Park Committee formally handed over the park to the town council to control on the 18^th August 1919 asking it to “keep in view” a recommendation from the friendly societies of Port Pirie to erect entrance gates to the park to perpetuate the memories of their members who had fallen at the front. The site recommended was on the corner of Alexander and Gertrude Streets.

In February 1922 two tennis courts were built opposite St Mark’s Cathedral in the south-east section of the park by members of the Catholic Church Guild. There was exception taken in certain quarters to granting of part of the Soldiers Memorial Park for tennis courts but it was argued that the ‘pleasing beauty spot’ had been transformed from a ‘knee-deep in water pug hole’ to a healthy space.

Sources:

¹Port Pirie Recorder and North Western Mail, SA, Saturday 26 May 1917 

²Recorder, Port Pirie, SA, Thursday 30 January 1919

³Recorder, Port Pirie, SA, Saturday 1 February 1919

⁴Recorder, Port Pirie, Friday 9 May 1919