MP Luke Pollard & Commander Proudman
In a corner of Karori Cemetery in Wellington, New Zealand one of the country’s largest burial grounds lies the grave of a Plymouth man who died serving nearly 12,000 miles from the city he called home
Private John Huxtable of the Royal Marine Light Infantry died on August 23, 1917, aged 44, while serving aboard HMS Torch. This Sunday marks 109 years since his death.
Huxtable is one of hundreds of Commonwealth service personnel resting at Karori, their graves maintained to this day by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission a quiet, permanent reminder of how far Plymouth’s connection to the sea carried its people, and how many never made the journey back.
Plymouth’s ties to the Royal Navy and Royal Marines meant thousands of local men served across the globe during the First World War. Some returned. Others, like Huxtable, are still there in cemeteries most of their families and home city will never visit.
Huxtable’s grave was visited this week by Plymouth Sutton and Devonport MP Luke Pollard, in Wellington on a trade mission, alongside Commander Michael Proudman, the UK Defence Advisor to New Zealand. The pair laid a wreath and observed a moment’s silence ahead of Sunday’s anniversary.
More than a century on, Private Huxtable’s grave stands as one small marker among many of Plymouth’s global military history and of the local names that can still be found, if you know where to look, in corners of the world thousands of miles from home.
📸 Pictures submitted