War Memorial, St Patrick’s Church

The war memorial outside St Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church in King Street was the first large-scale monument unveiled in Wellington and  commemorates the lives of nine fallen parishioners killed in the Great War.

Background

A memorial, in the form of an oak crucifix, was unveiled at the front of St. Patrick’s on Saturday 7th August 1920 in a ceremony of dedication delivered before a large assembly of civic dignitaries and ex-servicemen. The erection of the 23-foot high memorial was voluntarily undertaken by the members of the church themselves and included a bronze plaque dedicated not only to nine fellow parishioners but to ‘all the men from Wellington who fell in the Great War’. At the time of its unveiling, the official scheme for a memorial on the Green outside All Saints parish church had just been wound-up, having failed to raise the requisite funds to cover its estimated £1500 cost. This fact was not lost on the Reverend Dr Kearney who after performing the dedication ceremony showed his appreciation to all those in attendance, as the Wellington Journal duly noted the following weekend :  

“He desired to thank all who were present — especially those who were not Catholics — on the occasion of this great and solemn ceremony. He thanked them all sincerely, and he hoped that before long there would be a town’s memorial to officers and men who had fallen in the war.”

St Patricks was Wellington's first war memorial
The Memorial Plaque

While that memorial would eventually follow in 1921, in the now familiar form of the Lych Gate in Church Street, the failure of the initial scheme arguably had as much to do with the prevailing attitude of the time as it did cost. Put simply, many townspeople wanted their commemoration to benefit the dependants of the fallen and those who had been injured in combat. Performing the unveiling, however, Lord Stafford was looking towards the future:

“Those who, on account of age or other reasons, were unable to go to the front to fight wanted in some tangible way to express the gratitude and the regard they felt for the men who laid down their lives for their country. It was impossible to do enough for them; but in Wellington, here at this church, they had raised a memorial so that generations to come should see what valorous deeds their fathers did in helping to keep the old flag flying”.

Current Status: the well-maintained monument remains in situ outside the church in July 1919.