Unveiled 21 October 1921 Official name War Memorial Reference no. 1342044 | Designed by Reginald Wynn Owen Designated 11 January 1999 Architect Reginald Wynn Owen | |
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Location Euston railway station, London Similar Statue of James Outram - L, The Barbican Muse, London Troops War Memorial, Queen Eleanor Memorial, Statue of the 1st Marquess | ||
The London and North Western Railway War Memorial is a First World War memorial outside Euston railway station in central London, England. The memorial was designed by Reginald Wynn Owen, architect to the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) and commemorates employees of the LNWR who were killed in the First World War. The memorial is today a grade II* listed building.
History and design
The memorial was paid for by donations from LNWR staff. It consists of a single obelisk, 13 metres (43 feet) high in Portland stone, which stands on a tall pedestal and a circular base of grey granite. At the foot of the obelisk is a moulded reed band, just below which the obelisk is moulded to the pedestal. Buttresses protruding from the pedestal on four sides act as steps; on top of each is a bronze over life-size statue, sculpted by Ambrose Neale, the chief artist of the main contractor for the war memorial, RL Boulton & Sons of Cheltenham. The four figures represent the infantry, artillery, Royal Navy, and the Royal Air Force respectively, each statue standing with its head bowed and resting on an upturned rifle. The memorial is unusual amongst First World War memorials in featuring the air force so prominently.
On each side of the obelisk, near the top, is a bronze wreath and a stone cross protruding from the body itself. The only inscription on the obelisk itself is IN MEMORY OF OUR GLORIOUS DEAD on the south face (the front as one walks towards Euston station), though a granite tablet in front of the memorial contains the further inscription IN GRATEFUL MEMORY OF 3719 MEN OF THE LONDON AND NORTH-WESTERN RAILWAY COMPANY WHO FOR THEIR COUNTRY, JUSTICE AND FREEDOM SERVED AND DIED IN THE GREAT WAR 1914–1919. THIS MONUMENT WAS RAISED BY THEIR COMRADES AND THE COMPANY AS A LASTING MEMORIAL TO THEIR DEVOTION. Further tablets were added later to commemorate casualties from the Second World War, by which time the LNWR had been merged into the London, Midland and Scottish Railway.
The memorial's site was originally in the centre of Euston Square on the approach road to the station and on an axis with the Euston Arch prior to the latter's demolition in the 1960s; the area has since been redeveloped and the memorial now sits in front of a modern officebuilding. It was unveiled by Field Marshal Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig, the commander of British forces on the Western Front during the war, on 21 October 1921 while the dedication was performed by Randall Davidson, the Archbishop of Canterbury.