Narrogin War Memorial: A century of Anzac Day observance

April 25, 2023, marks the 100th occasion that Narrogin’s Anzac memorial has stood in observance of Anzac Day. The neo-classical pillars that support the pavilion give the high-roofed structure an added sense of height and presence that is amplified by the long shadow it casts at dawn and dusk. George Geoffrey Lavater, the architect behind the Narrogin Town Hall, designed the temple-like monument that stands in Memorial Park on land once used as a police horse paddock. Narrogin’s war-time mayor, Dr David Mackie, proposed that a memorial be constructed while he held office, and in 1918 a group of servicemen led by Lt-Col Arthur Charles Niquet Olden requested that the Narrogin Council construct a memorial cenotaph. Born in Ballarat, Lt-Col Olden was a dentist in Narrogin when war broke out in 1914. Before enlisting and going overseas to join in the effort, Lt-Col Olden was harassed and accused of cowardice as, though he attempted numerous times, his profession at first excluded him from enlisting. Though widely attributed to Lawrence of Arabia, it was Lt-Col Olden who rode into Damascus to accept the surrender of the Ottoman forces in 1918, resulting in the armistice that signalled the end of the Allied campaign in the Middle East. Arriving back in Australia at the conclusion of the war Lt-Col Olden took up residence in Perth, though he maintained strong ties with Narrogin. He first returned to Narrogin in 1920 and was issued with an apology by Dr Mackie for the behaviour he had endured. He was given the honour of laying the Narrogin War Memorial’s foundation stone on April 25 1922. In the years preceding the outbreak of war, WA experienced an influx of men who came chasing the gold rush that kicked off in Kalgoorlie in 1894. Many of these men would later come to Narrogin and enlist which resulted in the Narrogin district having the highest WWI enlistment rate per population in the British Empire. The original Anzac roll of honour fixed to the memorial’s central cenotaph in 1937 omitted the names of several of these men, and an updated brass plaque based on the research by then Narrogin RSL president Hendrikus Chattillon was installed by the Shire of Narrogin in 2020. Today the monument looks much the same as it did on completion in 1923, though the trees in the park and the record of names and conflicts have grown.