Prominently located at the Mangere and Great South Road junction, Otahuhu, the Nixon Monument is of particular significance as one of three monuments nationally that reflect the early evolution of war memorials in New Zealand. The obelisk incorporating four squat columns resting on a tall base commemorates Marmaduke George Nixon (c.1813-64) the Colonel who commanded the Colonial Defence Force and Royal Cavalry Volunteers. Nixon was the first well-known local leader to fall in the New Zealand Wars (1843-72). It also commemorates the Waikato War Campaign (1863-4) and memorialises those in the Colonial Defence Force who fell at Rangiaowhia (Te Awamutu). The Great South Road location was particularly significant for the local fencible communities of Onehunga, Howick and Panmure, and the volunteers who served under Nixon.

After much debate the obelisk was funded by public subscription and erected on a site to the north of the stockyards, an important venue and meeting place for the local farming community. The Otahuhu site was provided by Edmund Foley, other Auckland and Domain sites having been rejected following prolonged discussions. An obelisk inspired by ‘Cleopatra’s Needle’ at Thebes in Egypt, the final design incorporated three commemorative headstones. The design by architect Edmund Rumsey was constructed by builder W. Cameron of Cook Street, Auckland, using Oamaru stone for a total cost of £660. The structure raised on three blue-stone steps of solid masonry from quarries at Newmarket had a square wrought iron railing around the base. Nearing the fourth anniversary of Nixon’s death, the monument was unveiled by the Governor General Sir George Ferguson Bowen at a public ceremony on 13 May 1868, an event incorporating Masonic ritual.

The north-facing stone of the memorial records that Nixon died aged 50 from wounds sustained on 21 February 1864, at Rangiaowhia. Born in Malta, and Sandhurst-trained, Nixon served 21 years with the 39th Regiment of Foot (sixteen in India) prior to his arrival in New Zealand. Nixon and fellow Regimental officer Captain Theodore Haultain the commander of a company of military pensioners in New Zealand, became members of the House of Representatives, and gained the New Zealand Medal in the New Zealand Wars (1860-66) having already been awarded the Maharajpore Star (1843) prior to their arrival in New Zealand.

The east-facing stone commemorates the men who served Queen and Country in the Maori War Waikato Campaign. That facing west, memorialises those of the Colonial Defence Force who fell at Rangiaowhia on 21 and 22 February 1864, namely Corporals Edward McHale, Horatio Alexander and Joseph Thomas Little.

Nixons’ remains lie directly below the north side of the monument, having been exhumed from Auckland’s Symonds Street Cemetery during Southern Motorway works in the 1960s; cremated and reinterred at the Otahuhu site on ANZAC day 25 April 1968. Together with the original gravestone from the cemetery (with added wording to identify the re-interment), a small brass plaque was more recently attached to the monument. Conservation works undertaken in 1992 included removal of the wrought iron surrounds.