Welcome Sweet Peace: Returning home after the Great War
From the trenches to the backblocks
Photographer unknown, Returned servicemen with tuberculosis, on the Repatriation Department's farm at Tauherenikau, Wairarapa, Black and white original negative, Photographic Archive, Alexander Turnbull Library, Reference: PA Coll 8550-30
From the trenches to the backblocks
In 1915 the Discharged Soldiers Settlement Act established a scheme for rehabilitating returned soldiers to the land. Aside from reintroducing servicemen to civilian life after the war it was also an opportunity to continue the development of rural economies.
The Returned Soldiers' Association (RSA) offered advice on the process of securing land, the purchase of stock and chattels, and advice on the district to choose. Aware that many returned soldiers would be inexperienced, the government provided agricultural educational programmes while the men were still stationed overseas and while on the troopships returning to New Zealand.
Permission of the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga O Aotearoa, must be obtained before any reuse of this image
