The Star: March 07, 2024
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<strong>The</strong> <strong>Star</strong> Thursday <strong>March</strong> 7 <strong>2024</strong><br />
8<br />
NEWS<br />
Latest Canterbury news at starnews.co.nz<br />
Three brothers claimed by war and<br />
Kirwee is an anomaly<br />
on the Canterbury<br />
Plains. It was named<br />
after Karwi, a town in<br />
northern India, by an<br />
Irish-born British army<br />
colonel, politician and<br />
farmer, De Renzie<br />
James Brett, who<br />
introduced irrigation to<br />
the province. And there<br />
is no war memorial.<br />
Chris Barclay reports<br />
on manoeuvres to<br />
belatedly honour the<br />
fallen, and those who<br />
returned home<br />
AS YOU enter Kirwee from<br />
Christchurch along State<br />
Highway 73, a water feature<br />
honouring Brett has pride<br />
of place, rather than the 44<br />
men who enlisted for the New<br />
Zealand Expeditionary Force.<br />
Paul Jarman’s great great great<br />
grandfather purchased what is<br />
still the family’s pastoral land<br />
in 1863, so the fifth generation<br />
crop, sheep and dairy farmer<br />
at Greendale, near Darfield, is<br />
acutely aware of the importance<br />
of irrigation.<br />
Yet the 73-year-old also<br />
appreciates the sacrifice his<br />
predecessors made in the Great<br />
JARMAN BROTHERS: Harry Nesslea (back left), James<br />
Herbert (front left) and Frank Elworthy (front right) were<br />
casualties of WW1.<br />
Right – Descendent Paul Jarman has donated to the<br />
fundraising campaign for a war memorial in Kirwee.<br />
War, hence his interest in Kirwee<br />
finally making concrete plans for<br />
a war memorial at Anzac Lane<br />
by the cemetery and behind the<br />
rugby fields on the rural settlement’s<br />
reserve.<br />
After prolonged negotiations<br />
with the Selwyn District Council<br />
to secure a suitable location, a<br />
fundraising campaign is gathering<br />
momentum to raise around<br />
$30,000.<br />
When the memorial is eventually<br />
in place, Paul Jarman’s<br />
grandfather and two great uncles<br />
will be remembered side by side<br />
for the first time in public view.<br />
Jarman is among the donors<br />
– no surprise given his family<br />
connection to a conflict which<br />
counted Frank Elworthy Jarman<br />
and Harry Nesslea (Ness) Jarman<br />
among the World War 1 dead at<br />
Gallipoli and in France respectively.<br />
Of the 44 men who left the<br />
settlement to fight for King and<br />
Country, 11 were killed.<br />
James Herbert (Bert) Jarman,<br />
Paul’s grandfather, returned to<br />
the family farm from Palestine<br />
in 1919 but was still essentially a<br />
casualty of war.<br />
Stricken by malaria, he never<br />
truly recovered and died in hospital<br />
in 1922 following complications<br />
from an appendectomy.<br />
Because he did not die on foreign<br />
fields, Bert was not remembered<br />
with his brothers, who are<br />
memorialised at the Darfield War<br />
Memorial Obelisk and the gates<br />
at Greendale Domain.<br />
“<strong>The</strong>y’re going to put all three<br />
on (the memorial), I’m pleased it’s<br />
happening. Kirwee was probably<br />
their centre of life in those days,”<br />
Paul Jarman said.<br />
WATERMARK: <strong>The</strong> memorial<br />
for Colonel De Renzie James<br />
Brett (1809-1889).<br />
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