Goombungee War Memorial

The Goombungee War Memorial was unveiled on 11 December 1920 by Major General Sir Thomas William Glasgow,^[2][3] and Brigadier-General James Campbell Robertson^[4] CB, CMG, DSO, MID (x7) represented the Toowoomba sub-branch of the R.S.S.I.L.A.^[2] It was designed by Henry James (Harry) Marks and produced by masons R C Ziegler and Son of the Downs Electric Monumental Works. The stone memorial honours the local men who fell in the First and Second World Wars.^[1]

In 1919, the residents of Goombungee wrote to the New South Wales Memorials Advisory Board for advice regarding its proposed memorial. The board referred their request to the Queensland Institute of Architects and Toowoomba architect Harry Marks subsequently prepared the design.^[1]

Henry (Harry) James Marks was born in Toowoomba in 1871. After training with his father James, also an architect, he entered into partnership with him in 1892. He was considered a creative designer and was responsible for many buildings on the Darling Downs as well as two Roman Catholic Churches in Brisbane. In 1925 he became an Associate of the Queensland Institute of Architects, becoming a Fellow 1929. He died in Toowoomba in 1939 after spending his entire career there. The memorial is an unusual example of his work.^[1]

Although the monument was produced by well known Toowoomba masons R C Ziegler and Son, it is likely that the digger statue was imported from Italy.^[1]

The firm of R C Ziegler and Son was established in Toowoomba in c. 1902 and produced many memorials throughout south western Queensland. The family company moved to Bundaberg where it was still operating in 2014.^[1][5]

Australia, and Queensland in particular, had few civic monuments before the First World War. The memorials erected in its wake became our first national monuments, recording the devastating impact of the war on a young nation. Australia lost 60,000 from a population of about 4 million, representing one in five of those who served. No previous or subsequent war has made such an impact on the nation.^[1]

Even before the end of the war, memorials became a spontaneous and highly visible expression of national grief. To those who erected them, they were as sacred as grave sites, substitute graves for the Australians whose bodies lay in battlefield cemeteries in Europe and the Middle East. British policy decreed that the Empire war dead were to be buried where they fell. The word "cenotaph", commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means "empty tomb".^[1]

Australian war memorials are distinctive in that they commemorate not only the dead. Australians were proud that their first great national army, unlike other belligerent armies, was composed entirely of volunteers, men worthy of honour whether or not they paid the supreme sacrifice. Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war. Such evidence is not readily obtainable from military records, or from state or national listings, where names are categorised alphabetically or by military unit.^[1]

Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste. In Queensland, the digger statue was the popular choice of memorial, whereas the obelisk predominated in the southern states, possibly a reflection of Queensland's larger working-class population and a lesser involvement of architects.^[1]

Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.^[1]

Although there are many different types of memorials in Queensland, the digger statue is the most common. It was the most popular choice of communities responsible for erecting the memorials, embodying the ANZAC Spirit and representing the qualities of the ideal Australian: loyalty, courage, youth, innocence and masculinity. The digger was a phenomenon peculiar to Queensland, perhaps due to the fact that other states had followed Britain's lead and established Advisory Boards made up of architects and artists, prior to the erection of war memorials. The digger statue was not highly regarded by artists and architects who were involved in the design of relatively few Queensland memorials.^[1]

Most statues were constructed by local masonry firms, although some were by artists or imported.^[1]