Middlemarch, 1914-1918

Abstract

This dissertation attempts to provide a short overview of the effect of the Great War, 1914 - 1918, upon a small rural community in Central Otago. This work concentrates on the social aspects of the war's impact on the people of the township of Middlemarch and the outlying area, the Strath Taieri district. The first chapter outlines the area and its community on the eve of war, thus providing a basis for comparison to assess the impact of the war in the following chapters. Chapter Two : The Homefront, illustrates the initial response to the war, while the last chapter attempts to determine if anything has changed after four years of war. The third chapter, on the men who went to the war from the district, proved the most difficult to research. This chapter attempts to follow the exploits of the servicemen from Middlemarch, while also looking at the impact of their absence from the Middlemarch community. The study of men, who fought in the First World War from the district, is limited by the scarcity of military records. Service records were retained by defence authorities in order to grant war pensions and issue service medals amongst other things. The Ministry of Defence, however, has classified these files as personal information under Section 24 of the Official Infom1ation Act 1982. Thus, they are not available for research purposes. These files contain a great deal of useful information concerning New Zealand servicemen, including : their full name; date and place of birth, occupation, place and date of enlistment, next of kin, employer, a physical description, details of overseas service, date of discharge and the date of death. Trying to piece together the details of all the Middlemarch servicemen, from a variety of sources, produced a limited result. The name on a Roll of Honour or Nominal Roll was not always enough to go on and the men were not always specific about their details. For example, J. Gordon could have been one of twenty J. Gordons who enlisted from the Otago region. Hence, the figures used in relation to the Middlemarch servicemen are not accurate but they are the result of an estimate based on the limited information available. [Introduction]