Cabinet maker and father of eight children, John W Harkin enlisted at Trentham Camp on 20 December 1914. He served as a Gunner in the Howitzer Battery, NZFA, embarking from NZ on 14/2/1915. While serving on Gallipoli he became ill and was admitted to the Hospital ship at Anzac Cove on 6 June 1915 and then transferred to 1st Australian General. Hospital, Cairo on 12 June 1915. After a short time in convalescent camp he was invalided back to New Zealand as permanently unfit and was discharged on medical grounds on 25 September 1915, returning to Te Aroha where he died two years later on 6 October 1917, leaving a wife, Alice Fanny Harkin, and ten children, two of whom born following his return to New Zealand.

The New Zealand Returned Soldiers Association was formed in 1916, and later that year the Wellington firm, Mayer & Kean was commissioned to produce a badge for the association. It was worn on the right lapel. From 1918, the contract to produce the badges went to another Wellington badgemaker, C.M. Bay, and these badges are marked on the reverse with the letters CM. Despite minor modifications, the badge design remained much the same, until 1941 when the association name changed to the New Zealand Returned Services’ Association .

For those men discharged back to New Zealand as ‘physically unfit for active service on account of illness or wounds. The badge provided evidence that the wearer had served and could not be accused of being a shirker, and was preferred to the government authorised red armband.

Find out more at the following websites:

https://rsa.org.nz/About-the-RSA/HistoryoftheRSA/TheBadge