Bob Moore, Emeritus Professor of European History at the University of Sheffield, returned to the club – via Zoom, from his home near Oxford – following his earlier talk in March 2024 on the International Role of a PoW Camp in Two World Wars” to give us this time a history of national and local memorials.
Most parishes have memorials remembering the fallen in both WW1 and WW2 though there are 36 “white parishes” where no losses were sustained.
These memorials prior to the turn of the 20th century were primarily personal, remembering successful leaders such as Lord Nelson, though there is a personal memorial to General Gordon whose exploits in Khartoum can hardly be so described. Following the Boer War, we began to see more civic memorials on which the names of individual soldiers were recognised with, in most cases, these being as a tabulated list alphabetically to avoid any so called class distinctions.
In the aftermath of WWI there was a national and local need for some form of remembrance which both civically and on a local level would recognise the huge losses of around 660,000 dead. This was particularly needed as during and after WW1 it was not possible to return the remains of the fallen due to the large numbers and the impossibility of either finding or identifying remains.
The Prince of Wales Committee was initially tasked with the burial of the dead in the field, since taken over by The War Graves Commission who to this day continue to look after war cemeteries across the Commonwealth. These cemeteries are non-denominational with uniform head stones identifying the deceased. As in the post war years following both conflicts it was difficult and expensive for relatives to visit the graves, leading to the erection of local memorials being a mixture of civic, commercial, sporting and personal memorials both as we see in public spaces, on plaques and stained-glass windows installed in churches and other buildings.
After WW1 an Armistice Day was instituted commemorating the end of this conflict on 11th day of the 11th month with a two-minute silence at 11o’clock. This now has been moved to the Sunday nearest the 11th day in the UK, although other countries still have their remembrance on the 11th November whenever that may fall in the week.
The tomb of the Unknown Soldier can be seen in Westminster Abbey, however the most well-known memorial in the UK is The Cenotaph in Whitehall designed by Edwin Lutyens and unveiled on Armistice Day in 1920, though this was a plaster and wooden structure replaced with the one we see now in 1932.
Local memorials take on many differing designs and sizes depending on the funds available which were mostly via public subscription but also monies were forthcoming from national and local government and commercial organisations. Sheffield’s principal memorial is located in Barkers Pool, designed by C C Wilson in 1925 and erected at a cost of £5,000. The original drawings showed four soldiers and four women, however the women were omitted for cost reasons. There are some 410 memorials in Sheffield to be found in public spaces within and attached to churches sports facilities, regimental halls and schools.
Sheffield also built as a memorial The City Hall, initially named The Memorial Hall but opened in 1932 as The City Hall. In more recent times memorials have been largely based on regiments and other serving organisations with there now being a number of well-visited sites particularly The National Arboretum near Lichfield and at Bomber Command.
Also since the early 1970’s casualties from military actions abroad have been repatriated as was clearly demonstrated with the corteges on the return of the deceased from Iraq and Afghanistan, which in number total a sobering 6,500 or so.
All in all, Bob’s talk was a fascinating insight into the world of memorials which perhaps sometimes go disregarded.