When visiting New Zealand in early 2024 I spent a few days in Collingwood, where I noticed three memorials on a roadside green at the entrance to the village.
Above: The three memorials at the entrance to Collingwood. Photo by Derek Bird.
One commemorates Ralph James, who died of fever in November 1900 while serving in South Africa, while the largest is the village war memorial inscribed with the names of the local men who died in the two world wars. It was, however, the third memorial which particularly attracted my attention as it was ‘erected by the friends of the late Lieutenant H. B. Riley’, who was killed on the Somme on 2 October 1916, and memorials to individuals like this are unusual.
Harry Bolton Riley was bornin October 1875.His father, John Bolton Riley, had arrived in Nelson, New Zealand, as a two year-old with his parents, John and Mary Riley, and two older siblings, in late October 1842 following a five month voyage from Gravesend, Kent, on the sailing ship Thomas Harrison.
Above: The Thomas Harrison arrived in New Zealand in October 1842 with 355 settlers on board (two others died on the voyage). The ship was used to transport prisoners and migrants from the UK to Australia, as well as migrants to New Zealand in the 1830s and 40s.South Australia State Library B10525.
The family moved a number of times before settling at Ferntown at the foot of Mount Burnett, where they grew produce and raised and slaughtered cattle for sale locally. The family opened a store, W.C. Riley & Co. in Collingwood in 1858 which subsequently operated for more than 50 years; Harry Riley, along with his brothers, took over the business in due course. Due to its location near the quayside (Riley’s Wharf), rather than on the main street, the store was fortunate in being saved from a fire that destroyed almost all of the town in 1904.
Above: The scene of destruction in Collingwood following the 1904 fire. The W.C. Riley store can be seen to the left at the far end of the main street. Photo of public display board by Derek Bird.
Today Collingwood is a small community (Population 330 in 2023) in the far north-west corner of New Zealand’s South Island at the west end of Golden Bay, and is probably best known for tourism, particularly guided tours along the near 30 mile long Farewell Spit. However, it had a far larger population in the mid-1800s following the discovery of gold in the nearby Aorere Valley in 1856,that saw an inrush of about 2,500 miners and the facilities to support them; this may have been the reason why the Riley family opened their store two years later and they and other enterprises were well-placed to profit from the greatly increased population. There were ideas of Collingwood becoming the new capital of New Zealand, but these were short-lived as the gold rush was within a few years and the consequent drop in population meant that Collingwood never developed into a major town again.
Harry Riley married Ellen Doris Prussing in Collingwood on 14 March 1905 and by 1914 they had three daughters; with a son born in November 1914. As well as family businesses, Harry was the fully involved in the community and at various times was the first Captain of the Collingwood Volunteer Fire Brigade following its formation in 1911; Captain of Collingwood Rugby Football Club; Chairman of Collingwood County Council and was also Secretary of the Druids Lodge. Interestingly, while performing Druids Lodge duties on 19 November 1897 Harry Riley had been in the Institute building working by candlelight until midnight. He apparently extinguished the candle before leaving, however, three hours later, the Institute was ablaze; both it and the adjacent new library building, along with many local records and documents, were destroyed, despite the best efforts of ‘a bucket brigade of local residents wearing every variety of garment’ to extinguish it. Whether Harry Riley had inadvertently caused the fire was not established and its cause was declared ‘a mystery’. [1]
Above: Harry Riley was the Captain of the Collingwood Volunteer Fire Brigade from its formation in 1911 until he joined the NZEF in 1915.Photo by Derek Bird.
Another of Harry Riley’s pre-war activities was service in the Territorial Force for a number of years, and he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in September 1912 having served in the ranks of ‘H’ Battery for one year and three years with ‘C’ Squadron of the 10th (Nelson) Mounted Rifles. He passed the examination for promotion to lieutenant in the following July.
As in the UK, New Zealand’s Territorials had to specifically volunteer for overseas service, and Harry Riley decided to do so in July 1915 despite being almost 40 years old and having a wife and four children ranging from eight months to eight years old. A factor possibly encouraging him to enlist was that a younger brother, Walter, had enlisted in January 1915 and was serving in Gallipoli with the Auckland Infantry Battalion; where he would be killed in the attack at Chunuk Bair 8 August 1915.
After training Harry joined the 8th NZ Reinforcements(totalling 2,585 officers and men) that sailed from New Zealand on 13 November 1915; arriving at Suez on 12 December 1915; too late to become involved with operations at Gallipoli.
In February 1916 Harry Riley was hospitalised in Heliopolis for a fortnight with mumps. Shortly after discharge from hospital he was transferred to the 2nd Canterbury Infantry Battalion at Ismailia, but first spent six weeks with the 2nd NZ Infantry Training Brigade, before embarking for France on the Kilfauns Castleat Port Said on 13 April.
Above: The Kilfauns Castle was one of the ships used to transfer NZ troops from Egypt to France in April 1916.www.bandcstaffregister.com/page4341.html
After arrival in France he proceeded to the Base Depot at Etaples, where he was promoted to full lieutenant on 29 April. Then, on 18 May, he is noted in the 2/Canterbury Infantry Battalion’s War Diary as being one of four lieutenants, one captain and 98 other ranks (ORs) joining the battalion at Armentieres, where they were undertaking the usual routine of holding the trenches, along with wiring parties and patrolling. When out of the line many men were sent to schools of instruction, and others provided sizeable work parties. This continued until 18 August when the battalion was relieved by the 1/5th Gordon Highlanders. They spent just one night in billets in Armentieres, before moving to Steenwerck, where they entrained for Ebblinghem and then marched to Blaringhem, about 10km south-west of Hazebrouck. On the 21st they marched to Arques and entrained for Pont Remy, followed by a 12km march to the village of Allery, about 30km west of Amiens. At Allery they spent the rest of August and the first day of September training, before marching in stages over the next nine days to Fricourt Wood on the Somme.
Preparations were then made for the Battle of Flers-Courcelette, which opened for the New Zealanders at 6:20 a.m. on 15 September 1916 when the 2nd NZ Brigade (2/Otago and 2/Auckland battalions) advanced towards Flers. The 2/Canterbury had a supporting role in this initial phase of the battle and provided work parties to consolidate captured German positions, as well as carrying parties to take ammunition and supplies forward. In the evening they partly took over the positions captured by 2/Auckland (the remainder being taken over later that night when a work party returned from duties under the supervision of the Royal Engineers),and relieved in full the 2/Otago. Despite not being directly involved in the attack the 2/Canterbury had an officer and 14 ORs killed and two officers and 35 OR wounded.
The following day work continued on consolidation and digging new trenches, but German artillery pounded the area all day and caused 2/Canterbury many casualties: 28 ORs killed and an officer and 91 ORs wounded; a further OR was reported missing. Consolidation work was completed on the 17th, again under shell fire that caused further casualties: 4 ORs killed and 2 officers and one OR wounded.
On the evening of the 18th the 2/Canterbury moved forward to the Flers Line and Flers Switch Trench, where over that and the next day they carried our further consolidation and dug assembly trenches for the next stage of the advance. Casualties over the two days were 1 officer and 2 ORs killed, and 1 officer and 17 ORs wounded.
At 8:20 a.m. on the 20th the 2/Canterbury advanced and successfully captured sections of Goose Alley and Drop Alley, but strong German counter-attacks were mounted later in the day and fighting continued overnight, until 6:30 p.m. on the 21st when a bayonet charge over the open routed the enemy. The Germans were estimated to have lost over 400 men – the 2/Canterbury lost 7 officers and 32 ORs killed; 4 officers and 146 ORs wounded, and 49 ORs missing.
The 2/Canterbury were then relieved and had several days in positions along the Longueval to Bazentin-Le-Grand Road, before moving forward to Grove Alley on the evening of the 28th to provide the brigade reserve as the other three battalions in the 2nd NZ Brigade were in the front lines.
An attack on Gird Trench about a mile north of Flers, and the Circus position just north-east of Eaucourt L’Abbaye, was planned for 30 September. This was subsequently postponed due to inadequate assembly positions; the objective being in an untenable hollow all the while the enemy held the high ground to the north and west, and the fact that the troops on the left of the New Zealanders failed to hold their positions on the 29th, thereby leaving a dangerously exposed flank.
To counter some of the difficulties, the scope of the operation was extended and then mounted on 1 October. An artillery bombardment along the whole of the line began at 7 a.m. and continued until zero hour 3:15 p.m. One minute before the infantry advanced the Special Brigade, Royal Engineers, fired 36 oil drums into the German line; 30 of them exploding satisfactorily and enveloping the area with flame and smoke. Despite this assistance when the 2/Canterbury and 2/Otago advanced, with a combined force of less than 850 rifles, they were greeted by heavy machine-gun fire that caused many casualties before they overran the enemy positions.
The 2/Canterbury nevertheless was soon in possession of the Gird Lines at their junction with Goose Alley, and also the eastern portion of Circus Trench. The 2/Otago launched their attack from Goose Alley, with their left flank on Abbey Road, and passed well beyond their shattered objective and the Circus strongpoint, which was found to be abandoned. The various companies rallied on the Le Barque Road that ran north eastwards from Eaucourt L’Abbaye, where they were reinforced by a company of 2/Wellington and established contact with the 1/19th Londons who had advanced alongside the New Zealanders.
Above: Map showing initial advance by the 2/NZ Infantry Brigade north of Flers on 1 October 1916. (WFA Trench Mapper)
The fighting continued into the following day, with 2/Canterbury not being relieved until the early hours of 3 October, when they moved back to Fricourt.
2/Canterbury casualties on 1–2 October were very heavy with 6 officers killed, including Harry Riley. The bodies of these officers were lost; although that of 2/Lieutenant Reginald Allen was later found and he is now buried Warlencourt British Cemetery, Grave III.F.26. The names of the five still missing were carved on the panels of the Caterpillar Valley (New Zealand Memorial) near Longueval. 26 ORs were killed, and 5 officers and 111 ORs wounded, along with 24 OR missing. The fighting in the Flers area was extremely costly for the New Zealand Division which fought on the Somme for 23 days and suffered 2,111 killed and 5,848 wounded; half of the troops engaged.[2]Harry Riley was just one of more than 1,200 New Zealanders from the fighting around Flers in 1916 who does not have a marked grave and is named on the panels of the New Zealand Memorial. Many unknown New Zealanders lie in the adjacent cemetery, and it was therefore chosen as the site for the exhumation of New Zealand’s unknown warrior in early November 2004; he was re-buried at the New Zealand National War Memorial, Wellington, on 11 November that year.
Above: The memorial to Harry Riley at Collingwood: ‘A man who gave his life for his country. His memory is not forgotten by his many friends.’ For some reason the memorial gives his age as 43, when it appears to have been 41 at the time of his death. Photo by Derek Bird.
Above: Lieutenant Harry Bolton Riley, Killed in Action on 2 October 1916. Photo of Collingwood Museum exhibit by Derek Bird.
Above: Harry Riley is commemorated on the panels of the New Zealand Memorial to the Missing at Caterpillar Valley Cemetery. Photos by Derek Bird.
Above: There are many New Zealanders buried in Caterpillar Valley Cemetery from the fighting of September and October 1916, some of them unidentified. Consequently it was the site chosen for the exhumation of New Zealand’s unknown warrior in 2004. Photos by Derek Bird.
He is now interred in Wellington where his grave has the inscription: -
‘An Unknown New Zealand Warrior
He Toa Matangaro No Aotearoa’
Above: The tomb of New Zealand’s unknown warrior is situated in front of the National War Memorial, Wellington, and commemorates the 30,000 New Zealanders who have not returned from wars, including Lieutenant Harry Riley of Collingwood. Photo https://nzhistory.govt.nz/tomb-unknown-warrior-pukeahu-park.
Article contributed by Derek Bird
[1] Nelson Historical Society Journal, Volume 6, Issue 6, 2008.
[2] Johnny Enzed: The New Zealand Soldier in the First World War 1914-1918 by Glyn Harper, p.315. Exisle Publishing, Auckland, New Zealand, 2015.