War hero who ‘loved a joke’ gets recognition
A long overdue memorial has been placed at the previously unmarked grave of a decorated WWI soldier in Taita Cemetery in time for Anzac Day.
The New Zealand Remembrance Army (NZRA) installed the headstone for Sergeant Major John Marwick who served in the Middle East and North Africa before returning to New Zealand to become a leading geological scientist.
NZRA chief executive Simon Strombom said like so many unmarked graves around the country, Marwick’s was at risk of being lost to history.
“His service is quite exceptional, as was his contribution after the war. There are potentially hundreds of returned service people like John Marwick in unmarked graves that lack a marker, headstone, or nameplate to indicate who is buried there.”
By rededicating unmarked resting places, Strombom said the NZRA was recognising their lives and contribution to history.
“On what is currently an empty patch of earth, the NZRA is giving soldiers, aviators, sailors and names and faces.”
“Doing this sometimes reconnects them with surviving family members and means future generations can learn about their extraordinary story.”
Strombom said there were a lot of reasons why many graves were unmarked.
“There’s quite a few around the Depression period where people just couldn’t afford it,” he said.
During WWI Marwick served in the Medical Corps with the New Zealand Division which was fighting Turkish forces in the Middle East.
While in Egypt in 1916, he was posted to the Imperial Camel Corps, that ranged across Sinai and Southern Palestine.
He was wounded twice and was awarded the Military Medal in 1917 for bravery in the action of Rafah.
“But what is remarkable about his story is the contribution to science he made in the decades post-war,” Strombom said.
After returning Marwick gave up teaching to become the sole geological survey palaeontologist in New Zealand.
Based in Lower Hutt his research explored subdivision and correlation of basins of exposed tertiary rocks which nurses back their helped mapping geologists to interpret geological structure, as well as facilitating projects such as the search for oil.
His papers on molluscs furthered understanding of Cenozoic-era environments, and he worked in this field for oil companies after his retirement.
Marwick was said to be a man who “loved a joke and hated pomp and humbug”, who was a “lifelong socialist who enjoyed a warm family life”.
He and his wife Ivy had two sons and two daughters and after Ivy’s death in 1974, he moved to live with his daughter at Havelock North and died in Hastings Memorial Hospital in August 1978.
He was buried at Taita Cemetery alongside his wife and daughter.