Lytham St Anne's War Memorial, Lancashire

[Kitchener's Bugle]

The erecting of Lytham St Anne’s War memorial in 1924 was made possible by a gift of £10000, donated by Lord Ashton. The memorial commemorates the fallen of the Municipal Borough of Lytham St Anne’s, formed in 1922 by the merger of Lytham and St Anne’s urban district councils. It was unveiled on 12 October 1924 by Alderman Charles Critchley, whose son Burton ‘Plum’ Critchley was killed in 1918 while serving in the RAF. The ceremony was attended by the Rt Hon Stephen Walsh (Minister for War), Maj Gen Sir Cecil Lothian Nicholson KCB CMG (whose son was killed at Arras), Lt Gen Sir Richard Butler KCB KCMG and 1000 ex-servicemen. The unveiling was also attended by nine children of fallen servicemen, who were later presented with gold medals inscribed with the coat of arms of the borough.

 

 

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The memorial is notable not only for its figures in the round, but also for the narrative depicted in bronze plaques. 

 

On the left is an infantryman seated but alert, grasping his rifle by the muzzle (the latter inscribed ‘1923 W.Marsden’), his head turned sideways and left fist clenched. Marsden is said to have stated that the figure was intended to convey the warning "They’re coming again!".

 

 

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On the right side, in contrast, a seated woman who has just been told of her husband’s death gazes ahead, unresponsive to the pleadings of the naked child on her lap.

 

 

 

 

 

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The front (west) face of the pedestal has a rectangular bronze panel with raised lettering inscribed: 1914 : NAMES OF THE FALLEN : 1918, and has 170 names beneath, flanked on the left by relief figures of an airman and a seaman, and on the right by two infantrymen.

 

 

 

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The panel wraps around the left and right returns of the pedestal depicting, respectively, a nurse bandaging a soldier’s hand, ............

 

 

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and a departing soldier embracing his wife, their small daughter tugging her mother’s shawl.......

 

 

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The rear face of the pedestal has a bronze panel, also wrapping around the sides, depicting a procession of soldiers returning from the battlefield, including stretcher-bearers, men carrying their wounded comrades, and a line of men blinded by gas. Dress, weaponry and equipment are illustrated in great detail.

 

 

[Fattyowls]

That is outstanding KB; that one really speaks to me in a way the Morecambe and Heysham one didn't. There's a question in my mind about the dividing line between dramatic and melodramatic, I think it stays on the right side even today.Thanks for posting.

 

Pete.

[Kitchener's Bugle]

This monument is known for the extremely rare depictions of a shell-shocked soldier, a grieving widow, wounded and gassed soldiers and women both on active service and on the Home Front; These Panels are detailed and highly crafted.

 

The booklet produced for the veiling ceremony described the mother and child sculpture on the monument as showing “the agony of mind caused to womanhood by the tragedies of war. [The mother] sits in anguish and sorrowful reverie, quite unconscious that her babe is looking to her for a mother’s love. She looks, as it were, into the unknown future, realizing what her sacrifice means, and wondering why”. Similarly the sculpture of the soldier was described as depicting: “The constant nervous strain of continuous trench warfare, brought about the ever-present feeling that danger was lurking near, a state of tension which, in the opinion of the Artist, was the cause of more mental agony than any other phase of the War”. Contemporary newspaper reports describe the memorial as “a monument which arouses deep emotion”, and “a vivid and impressive expression of the sorrows of war time”.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 5 August , 2020 by Kitchener's Bugle

[Kitchener's Bugle]

Walter Marsden (1882-1969), the son of a blacksmith, was one of several talented young sculptors who went on to design war memorials after military service in the First World War. Marsden was apprenticed to the Accrington Brick and Tile Company, after which he studied at Accrington Technical School and Manchester Municipal College of Art. In the First World War he served as an officer in the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment and was awarded a Military Cross after the Third Battle of Ypres in 1917. He studied at the Royal College of Art from 1919-1920 where Édouard Lantéri was one of his tutors. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of British Sculptors in 1938, and taught at St Martin's School of Art from c1944. Marsden designed a number of war memorials, mainly in Lancashire, including those at Bolton, Heywood and his native village of Church.

 

 

 

 

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The other Plaques:-

 

 

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More of the Bronze Plaques  

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The memorial stand in pride of place in the splendid Ashton Gardens in Lytham.

 

 

[Steven Broomfield]

Splendid.

 

It seems, as so often, that the bayonet of the large soldier figure has been removed. Difficult to tell from the photo, but it looks that way, sadly.

[Kath]

Thank you, KB.