The Birth of the RSA

RNZRSA Official Historian Dr Stephen Clarke

Alexander Turnbull Library

The foundation meeting of the New Zealand Returned Soldiers' Association (as the RNZRSA was originally known), 28 April 1916.

It has long been a part of the founding legend of the RSA that its origins began in late 1915 with ‘three chaps over a drink in a Wellington pub’. Gallipoli veterans 4/521 Claude Batten (who went on to hold the office of General Secretary and Dominion President of the NZRSA) together with 15/48 Jim Harper (long-time Honorary Treasurer of the NZRSA) and 6/736 Richard Wild, apparently meeting by chance in lower Cuba Street, adjourned to the nearby Alhambra Hotel, where they discussed the need for a national association of returned soldiers. While not denying that these three men or more, according to different versions, may have discussed the formation of such an association sometime in early 1916 (it could not have been any earlier since Harper was only repatriated to New Zealand in January 1916) the real origins of the RSA lie elsewhere. In fact, these accounts actually resemble recollections of the origins of the Wellington RSA, although, as will be noted later, these are also rather obscure. What then is the real story of the origins of the RSA?

The idea of an association of returned soldiers was probably first discussed amongst the Gallipoli wounded in the hospitals of Cairo and aboard the ships that began to repatriate them back to New Zealand from July 1915. Meanwhile, prominent civic leaders and patriotic organisations had as early as May 1915 established soldiers’ clubs to provide a convivial meeting place for serving and later returning soldiers. These clubs, such as the Anzac Club in Dunedin, while originally social in purpose, provided the foundation for more practical associations.

Returned soldiers soon found that they faced many problems and began to discuss the need to form their own returned soldiers’ associations. The honour of being the first centre to formally establish an exclusively returned soldiers’ association belongs to Christchurch. After a preliminary meeting on 14 December 1915, the Christchurch Returned Soldiers’ Association came into existence on 22 December 1915. Similar associations sprang up in Invercargill, Dunedin and Wellington during January 1916.

Captain Donald Simson

In the formation of these early returned soldiers’ associations and the eventual establishment of the New Zealand Returned Soldiers’ Association (as the present day RNZRSA was originally known) one figure stands out: Captain (later Sir) Donald Simson. A veteran of the South African War, Simson had joined the British Section of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in London, transferred to the Engineers in Egypt and was wounded at Gallipoli in May 1915. Upon return to New Zealand aboard the HMNZTS Willochra on 15 July 1915, the first ship carrying wounded back from the Gallipoli Campaign, Simson took it upon himself to travel throughout the country publicising the need for a returned soldiers’ movement and overseeing the establishment of several local associations. It was Simson, for example, who presided over the foundation meeting of the Christchurch RSA. Simson was also prominent in the formation of the associations in Dunedin and Wellington. Despite the various accounts of returned men meeting in Wellington pubs, the real beginnings of the Wellington RSA was a meeting of eighty returned soldiers, called by Simson, on 7 January 1916. Most of the minutes of associations formed in early 1916 have since been lost but Simson’s name would have appeared in many of them.

The accounts of these early local associations also mention Simson’s public assurances to form a national association. In an account written in 1949 to provide a corrective to the ‘three chaps in a pub’ legend, D. J. B. Seymour, an early member of Christchurch RSA and later General Secretary of the NZRSA, recalled that Christchurch RSA decided to expedite matters and called upon Simson to convene a meeting of delegates in Wellington. Simson duly requested various centres to send delegates, contacted dignitaries for their support, and subsequently presided over the conference that assembled in Wellington three days after the first anniversary commemoration of ANZAC Day. For his pivotal role in raising awareness of the plight of returned soldiers and the need for a national association to espouse their demands, Simson deserves the title of ‘Founder of the RSA’.

	Alexander Turnbull Library
	The Soldiers Club was originally at 290 Lambton Quay (the narrow building to the left of the truck). It later shifted to 292 (on the left) which was also the first home of NZRSA Dominion Headquarters. The Kelburn Cable Car Lane is seen on the right.

On Friday, 28 April 1916, returned soldiers, some still in uniform and wearing the unpopular red armlet that identified them as wounded returned soldiers, walked into Star Chambers at 290 Lambton Quay and up the stairs to the Wellington Returned Soldiers’ Club. The widespread interest in the formation of a returned soldiers’ association was revealed by the presence of more than 30 delegates (including Batten and Wild but not Harper) from Invercargill, Dunedin, Oamaru, Ashburton, Christchurch, Hokitika, Greymouth, Westport, Nelson, Blenheim, Wellington, Masterton, Palmerston North, Wanganui, Hastings, Napier, Gisborne, Rotorua, Hamilton, and even the Chatham Islands. The only major centre not to be represented was Auckland, although the mayor had cabled his city’s support and shortly afterwards, in June 1916, the Auckland Returned Soldiers’ Association became the first RSA to formally register as an incorporated society in June 1916. In fact, many of the delegates in Wellington were merely representing returned soldiers in their area rather than formal associations. There were also representatives of other returned soldiers’ organisations, such as the Dunedin Discharged Soldiers’ Association represented by three delegates while the Dunedin RSA only had one, and the conference was as much about preventing returned men being divided between several associations such as would happen in Britain and Canada.

RNZRSA Archives

Minutes of the Foundation Meeting held on 28-29 April 1916.

The meeting began at 1000 hours with Simson reading out messages of goodwill from Lieutenant-General Sir William Birdwood (the former Commander of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps), the Minister of Defence, Chief Justice and the Governor, the latter indicating that he would willingly extend his patronage. This support provided the returned soldiers’ movement with a stamp of authority from the outset. Simson was unanimously elected to chair the conference that he had striven to convene. He immediately moved the formation of a New Zealand Returned Soldiers’ Association, with headquarters in Wellington, and the formation of branches throughout the rest of the country. The name might have been the New Zealand Discharged Soldiers’ Association, or ‘DSA’, had the Dunedin Discharged Soldiers’ Association won support for its amendment. A provisional Dominion Executive Committee was elected with Simson as Dominion President and Claude Batten as General Secretary, and a provisional constitution drafted. While a good deal of the delegates’ time during the two-day conference was devoted to issues of organisation and constitution, this first gathering poignantly discussed issues which would continue to hold the centre of attention throughout the history of the RSA – membership and the issue of a universal badge, rehabilitation and the welfare of returned soldiers. Upon the delegates returning to their centres, new associations were formed while existing associations voted to affiliate to the NZRSA, which was formally registered as an incorporated society in January 1917. The rest, as they say, is history.

Fast forward to Friday, 28 April 2006 – ‘Founders Day’ – the National Executive Committee of the RNZRSA meeting at National Headquarters will at 1000 Hours raise a glass to celebrate 90 years of service. Whether at your local RSA or at home we hope you can join them in toasting ‘The RSA’.