With Remembrance Day around the corner visitors to London will find many war memorials on the city’s streets and within its parks. Here are six of the most unexpected and dramatic.
Imperial Camel Corps Memorial, Victoria Embankment, EC4
Surprisingly diminutive, this 1921 memorial features a soldier of the Camel Corps atop his trusty steed.
Or not, perhaps; the unit was mounted exclusively on male camels which, though harder to control and more grumpy than females, were somewhat cheaper to buy.
The Camel Corps was deployed in the Middle East during World War I and had many Australians and New Zealanders in its ranks – two of whom are depicted on the base of the plinth.
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| Tank Corps Memorial, Whitehall |
Unveiled in 2002, the memorial depicts the crew of a Comet tank – one of the vehicles that British forces used in 1944 and 1945.
The figures form a shallow V-shape with a binoculars-holding tank commander at the centre.
His four fellows follow his gaze and rest their arms upon each-other’s shoulders.
Look closely and it’s possible to see that each is a depiction of a different crew-member: machine-gunner, driver, gunner and loader.
The inscription beneath them reads: from mud through blood to the green fields beyond.
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| Cavalry of the Empire Memorial |
Cavalry of the Empire Memorial, Hyde Park, W1
This 1924 memorial depicts a life-size statue of St George and the Dragon, above a frieze depicting cavalry troopers from all parts of the British Empire.
The figures are reputed to have been cast from guns that were captured by the cavalry during World War I.
The sculptor, Adrian Jones, based St George’s armour on a suit worn by the Earl of Warwick in the mid-15th century.
Prior to taking up work as a sculptor Jones had spent 13 years as a veterinary officer in the cavalry, so he knew his horses.
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| David at the Machine Gun Corps Memorial |
Machine Gun Corps Memorial, Hyde Park Corner, W1
The Machine Gun Corps was formed in 1915 and disbanded in 1922.
Of the 170,500 officers and men who served in its ranks, some 62,049 were killed, wounded or reported as missing – earning the unit the nickname of the Suicide Club.
The memorial features a naked statue of the biblical Boy David flanked by two real Vickers machine guns – encased in bronze.
‘Saul hath slain his thousands but David his tens of thousands’ reads the inscription below – a reference to the terrible power of the machine gun in World War I.
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| Jagger’s Tommy at Paddington station |
Great Western Railway War Memorial, Paddington Station, W2
Halfway up the station’s Platform 1, a large bronze statue of a World War I Tommy, shrouded in greatcoat and scarf, reads a letter from his loved ones.
Realistic and almost homely, it is the work of Charles Sargeant Jagger and commemorates the 2,524 employees of the railway company who were killed.
Their names are written on a scroll that was placed in a sealed casket, made at the GWR’s Swindon works, and placed in the plinth under the statue’s feet.
Jagger, a World War I veteran, also sculpted the large Royal Artillery Memorial at Hyde Park Corner.
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| Royal Fusilier in Holborn |
Royal Fusilers Memorial, High Holborn, WC2
The memorial depicts a life-sized World War I soldier, complete with rifle, helmet and gas-mask, who is looking from the City towards the West End.
On the eastern side of the Portland stone plinth is a bronze plaque that lists all of the Fusiliers’ 46 battalions. Among these is the 10th Battalion (Stockbrokers), the 26th (Bankers) and the 38th-40th (Jewish).
The 45th and 46th, meanwhile, were actually formed after World War I ended, in April 1919, and shipped off to northern Russia to fight against the Bolsheviks.
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