4 September 2009
Thanks to the efforts of the Te Awamutu RSA and an Auckland historian, a significant war medal that went missing from Te Awamutu Museum in the mid 1990’s is now on its way home.
The South African war medal issued to George Phillip Osborne was part of a collection of his Boer War and World War One medals originally gifted to the museum.
Museum Trust Board chair Dean Taylor said the medal appeared on e-Bay earlier this year and was purchased by Phillip Beattie, a private collector with a strong interest in military history, who then arranged to present a programme about the medal in Te Awamutu.
“We are indebted to Phillip, as it was through him we discovered that that particular medal had disappeared from our collection over a decade ago, and his programme then became a forum to discuss what had happened.”
Te Awamutu RSA then arranged to purchase the medal back from Mr Beattie, who was eager to see the medal returned to the Te Awamutu Museum collection.
Waipa DC’s Museum and Heritage Manager Jan White says it is a great result for which the museum is very grateful.
“Back in the mid 90’s the cataloguing and monitoring systems in place weren’t as robust as they should have been. However since 2005, when Waipa District Council took over the management of the museum, we started introducing a range of controls to ensure something like this couldn’t happen again, for example random auditing of collection items.”
A full audit of all objects and archive materials has been underway for the last six months, however this is expected to take a further three years as there are over 10,000 individual pieces which must be checked against historical documents, records and registers.
Te Awamutu RSA will formally return the medal to Te Awamutu Museum on Armistice Day in November, and are also arranging to have a gravestone made for Osborne’s grave at Te Awamutu Cemetery which is currently unmarked.
--ends--