Today I took a closer look at the World War 1 memorial in downtown Whangārei.

Dark plinth with gold writing; figure atop of white Italian marble depicts a woman with right arm raised, index finger pointing up and in the left hand a wreath.

After some fruitless research about the figure, I asked Claude, who replied in part:

The Whangarei District Memorial was erected to honor those from the district who fell in "the Great War" (WWI, 1914-1918), and the female figure would have been chosen to represent one of these commemorative virtues in the classical tradition that was popular for such monuments throughout the British Empire and Western world during that period.

BTW: the raised finger is the index finger. 😆