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| The Royal Artillery Memorial, Hyde Park Corner, London Jan Hyrman |
| Charles Sargeant Jagger, born in 1883 in Yorkshire, England, is best known particularly because of his war memorial sculptures. It was perhaps because of his wartime experience that his statues received that realistic touch so distant |
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| from the contemporary memorials. During the Great War he served with the Worcestershire Regiment at Gallipoli and the Western Front and was awarded a Military Cross for gallantry - his career commenced with his return in 1918, spanning the 16 years between the end of the First World War and his death in 1934. Among his other works are the Anglo-Belgian War Memorial in Brussels, the 1914-1918 War Memorial at the Paddington Station in London or the War Memorial at Hoylake, Wirral, England. |
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| Although it was a chance encounter, it was a most impressive one. It was during our trip to Portsmouth and Aldershot that me and my friend had to wait in London for about three hours before our bus to Portsmouth was supposed to leave. We went along the Buckingham Palace Road up to the Royal Mews and turned left with the intention to walk around the Buckingham Palace complex and end up in front of the famous royal residence. We ended up at the Hyde Park Corner, between the north-western corner of the Buckingham Palace |
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| The Wellington Arch at the opposite side of the Hyde Park Corner. |
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| gardens and the south-eastern corner of Hyde Park. Several military monuments are concentrated here, but the one that made the deepest impression on me was the Royal Artillery Memorial. It was designed by the sculptor Charles Jagger (1885-1934) and the architects Adams, Holden and Pearson. The sculptor was a Great War veteran himself, which was perhaps one of the causes why the memorial was a bit out of the line, its stark realism in direct contrast to many of the allegorical memorials of the time. |
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| The Royal Artillery Memorial on an old postcard, showing the memorial from the south. |
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| The large plinth, surrounded by large bronze statues of artillery soldiers and decorated with reliefs, is of Portland marble. The main inscription reads: 'IN PROUD REMEMBRANCE OF THE FORTY NINE THOUSAND & SEVENTY SIX OF ALL RANKS OF THE ROYAL REGIMENT OF ARTILLERY WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES FOR KING AND COUNTRY IN THE GREAT WAR 1914 - 1919'. Three bronze panels by Darcy Braddell were added in 1949, in memory of the 30,000 dead killed in action while serving in the Royal Artillery during the Second World War. |