About 100 people attended the Otago University Students’ Association annual Anzac Day service.
Emeritus Prof John Broughton said the service marked 110 years since the Gallipoli landings and paid tribute to more than 500 students and 27 staff who served in World War 1, in particular the 97 who died for the nation.
"We will never forget the brave who lie across the sea."
"Our whakataukī, or proverbial saying, still resonates today — ‘Mate atu he toa, ara mai ra he toa — As one brave warrior falls, there is also always another to fill the breach’."
Otago University Students’ Association president Liam White said the day was "not a celebration of war, but a solemn reflection on courage, sacrifice and the enduring hope for peace".
The legacy of the Anzacs challenged all to reflect on "what they gave for us, but also what we are doing with the world left in our care".
"Peace is not an accident.
The ceremony included Otago University Rugby Football Club members honouring former players who died in World War 1. Representatives read out the names of 20 rugby players who made the ultimate sacrifice.
This included Dr George Martin Chapman, an Otago medical graduate and Varsity A stalwart who won a rugby Blue at Cambridge before serving as a medical officer on the Western Front. He was killed by a shell while tending the wounded during the Second Battle of Ypres.
Harold Phillip James Childs left Knox College and the School of Mines to fight at Gallipoli, where shell wounds put him on the hospital ship Sicilia. He died aboard and was buried at sea.
Major Frank Hadfield Statham studied mining and played for Varsity A. He led the 10th North Otago Company up the cliffs at Gallipoli and died of wounds at Chunuk Bair in August 1915.
Lieutenant Thomas Holmes Nisbet balanced law studies with Varsity A rugby before joining the Otago Infantry Battalion. He fell at Gallipoli and now rests in No 2 Outpost Cemetery, Turkey.
Robert Stanley Black played for Varsity A before touring Australia with the 1914 All Blacks. Enlisting in the Otago Mounted Rifles, he was reported missing on the Somme in northern France.
