Story: Cook Islanders

Returned soldiers at Avarua, 1926

New Zealand Governor-General Charles Fergusson and his entourage (replete with pith helmets) inspect First World War veterans (wearing straw boaters) at Avarua, Rarotonga’s main settlement. Going overseas, even if it was for war, exposed Cook Islanders to a much wider world and planted the seeds of restlessness.

Using this item

Alexander Turnbull Library

Reference: PAColl-7985-11

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

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How to cite this page

Carl Walrond, Cook Islanders – Migration, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/851/returned-soldiers-at-avarua-1926 (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by Carl Walrond, published 4 March 2009, updated 1 July 2024.

Comments

Rod
22 February 2019

Entourage at front right is Judge Hugh Fraser Ayson, Resident Commissioner of the Cook Islands. refer https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/4a27/ayson-hugh-fraser Possible candidate for figure on left front - Captain J. D. Campbell, President of the Cook Islands Returned Servicemens' Association?