Global changes has a significant impact on Timaru’s development when war was declared 1914, and the first men to leave Timaru marched from the drill hall down George Street to the railway station. Armistice was 1918, the clanging bell at the fire station first announced the news, then church bells, railway engines, ship and factory sirens took up with vigour. Groups gathered in the streets and sang the National Anthem. Three months later bombs fell on Hisoshima and Nagasaki. Timaru’s preparation for invasion can be seen in the bunkers in the cliff on Station Street. Jack Lovelock won New Zealand's first Olympic athletics gold medal at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Hitler gifted oak saplings with the medals, Jack’s tree lives at Timaru Boys High School. Over the last 180 years Stafford Street has seen many parades for celebration, protest and sorrow.
1914 Departure of the 2nd (South Canterbury) regiment from Timaru, during World War I. Young, J (Mrs) :Photographs of Otago, South Canterbury and Wellington. Ref: 1/2-049274-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/23136046