Lessons in loss and sacrifice as Wollongong's Cenotaph marks 100 years

Five years after the end of World War I, the sandstone memorial gave families who had lost their fathers, sons and brothers in the conflict a physical place to mourn for the first time.

On Saturday, a re-dedication was held for the monument, to recognise the role it has played in helping the city recognise those who have served at war over the past century.

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NSW Governor Margaret Beazley unveiled a commemorative plaque for the occasion, and spoke about the importance of the memorial for the city of Wollongong.

Quoting Wollongong RSL Sub-branch honorary secretary Peter Lipscomb, she said "the families back at home couldn't go through the normal grieving process of going to a funeral and then having a grave to go to and visit and mourn their sons".

"After that great war, the Cenotaph and this place in particular ... was the place that enabled the families to come and grieve in some way," Ms Beazley quoted.

She said that of the 60,000 Australians who were killed during the war, only one was brought home for burial.

"Without a body, not having a funeral, there being no grave, at best a letter containing the news that every family hoped not to receive, there still remains a deeply seated human need for the rituals of mourning and memorialisation," she said.

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"It was a need that was answered in part by the erection of more than 4000 public war memorials across Australia, and almost all were at the instigation of and were paid for by the local communities."

She then provided some of the history of Wollongong's memorial, and how it was originally established outside the Town Hall.

"In Wollongong calls for a memorial monument began as soon as the war ended in 1918. By 1920 a war memorial committee had been convened, tasked with considering suggestions and designs with costings as to what form the memorial should take," Ms Beazley said.

"By May of 1922... Wollongong council had approved the committee's request for the memorial's location at the entrance to the town hall, the site which had been the site of wreath laying services on ANZAC Day Marches in Wollongong since at least 1919."

She said June 3, 1923 was described as a "red letter day" for Wollongong, noting that it was mostly likely chosen as the date of the unveiling to repeat the date of an earlier Wollongong war monument.

"The Trooper Andrews memorial that had occurred on the third of June 1902 in remembrance of a volunteer who had lost his life in the Boer War," she said.

"[This] also originally stood outside the town hall was removed in 1954 during the preparations for the visit of Queen Elizabeth II.

"In 1984 ... the memorial arch was moved here to MacCabe Park and the Trooper Andrews monument joined it soon afterwards."

Lord Mayor Gordon Bradbery also spoke at Saturday's event, saying the memorial represented Wollongong's response to the great losses of World War I.

"It's important that we acknowledge today that this is a place where people grieved ... where a nation, and more specifically a city and a town in those days, gathered to remember, to commemorate its participation in a tragedy and the immense cost," Cr Bradbery said.

"It is very important that we remember and learn the lessons of history."

"This memorial reminds us once more, of how easily evil and the catastrophic effects of human greed, selfishness and lack of foresight can lead to great catastrophe."