Museum Blog

By Libby Sharpe, Curator

After the fall of Singapore in 1942, Major R D Hardie, Area Officer of the Home Guard in Whanganui stated, “the fact [is] that the country faced a danger that was great, particularly from raiders and it was necessary that every able-bodied man in New Zealand should be trained to give service and the communities should be organised”. 

Males from 16 years to 40 years, not on active service overseas, enlisted for service in the Home Guard. Its task was to defend the Port of Whanganui. It was hoped that any invaders would be delayed by the local Home Guard until reinforcements could arrive.

Benoni Lytton-White worked for Whanganui publisher A D Willis, as an artist and lithographer. Known in Whanganui as Benoni White, his most notable work was the invitation cards for the Royal Visit of the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York (later King George V and Queen Mary) to Rotorua in 1901 when they were touring the British Empire. He was also a photographer, a poet and an explorer.

Later in life Benoni White became a local hero because, at the age of 83, he was the oldest serving member of any Home Guard in New Zealand during World War II. He served in a clerical capacity and also did some local recruiting for the Whanganui Battalion Home Guard.