in London in 1915. The rising costs of metal caused by World War I made marble a more cost effective option. She went to carve the statue in Carrara in Italy in March 1916, as the importation of marble into Britain had been banned. She said about the block that was measuring : You will be glad to hear that it is a remarkably fine piece of marble, of a good colour and without any flaw whatever. Considering the great size this is very fortunate. The statue was finished in April 1916, but was not shipped until October of that year due to the war. It was unveiled by the Governor, The Earl of Liverpool, on the corner of Worcester Street and Oxford Terrace on 9 February 1917, facing north and looking towards the building that was then the civic offices. The inscription on the plinth, which is one of his last diary entries, reads: I do not regret this journey, which shows that Englishmen can endure hardships, help one another, and meet death with as great fortitude as ever in the past. The inscription had become unreadable by 1922 and a separate marble plaque with this text was installed at the entrance to the reserve. Another plaque lists the names of the five men who died. Recognition grew of Kathleen Scott after the 1995 publication of a biography, and in 1998 a further plaque was added recognising her: This statue was sculpted by Kathleen Scott FRSBS (1878–1947) Widow of Captain Scott, and was unveiled in 1917. The statue was not quite finished. The details of the gloves have not been done, and one of the legs rests against a stump to support the figure. Kathleen Scott had offered to undertake this additional work when she returned to Christchurch, but this did not eventuate. The statue toppled off its plinth by the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake. It broke into two pieces and was put into storage. It was on display during the November 2012 Icefest, and, from January 2016, in Christchurch's Earthquake Museum, which is part of the Canterbury Museum, in City Mall. After restoration, the statue was unveiled a second time on its Oxford Terrace plinth on 6 October 2017. Heritage listing On 26 November 1981, the statue was registered by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust as a Category II historic place, with the registration number being 1840.