Southampton Cenotaph
Southampton Cenotaph is a First World War memorial designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens. It is a tapering, multi-tiered pylon which culminates in a series of diminishing layers before terminating in a sarcophagus. The design uses abstract, ecumenical features and lifts the recumbent soldier high above eye level, anonymising him.
About Southampton Cenotaph in brief
Southampton Cenotaph is a First World War memorial designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens. It is a tapering, multi-tiered pylon which culminates in a series of diminishing layers before terminating in a sarcophagus. The design uses abstract, ecumenical features and lifts the recumbent soldier high above eye level, anonymising him. The names of the dead are inscribed on three sides. The memorial was unveiled at a public ceremony on 6 November 1920. After a newspaper campaign, more than 200 further names were identified and these were eventually added to the cenotAPH. By the beginning of the 21st century, the engravings on the memorial had deteriorated noticeably. Rather than re-cut them and damage the stonework, they were supplemented by a series. of glass panels which bear all the names from the cencotaph, as well as names from. the Second World War and later conflicts. The panels were unveiled in 2011 and the memorial is now a Grade I listed building. The cenodaph is located in Watts Park in Southampton, southern England. It was the first of dozens by Lutyen to be built in permanent form and it influenced his later designs, including The CenodAPH on Whitehall in London. Lutyes established his reputation before the war by designing country houses for wealthy clients and through his work on the new imperial headquarters at New Delhi. The war affected him deeply and, following it, he devoted much of his time to memorialising its casualties. Being a major port town, Southampton was heavily involved in the British war effort from the outset.
It became the main embarkation point for troops crossing the Channel to France and the main receiving point for wounded personnel being evacuated back to Britain; much of Southampton Common became an assembly point. More than eight million soldiers passed through Southampton on their way to the front. As elsewhere, many men from the town quickly volunteered for military service after Britain declared war on Germany, a preponderance of them joining the Hampshire Regiment. Many others from Southampton served on merchant vessels, several of which were sunk during the course of the war, such as the RMS Alcantara , an armed merchant cruiser sunk in February 1916, and the HMHS Asturias, an ocean liner converted to a hospital ship, which was sunk in March 1917. A committee voted to construct a memorial to honour the war dead by the city’s elected council in 1919. The committee decided that a single, high-quality memorial would be a good location within Southampton and began to consider architects and locations, with a proposed budget of £10,000. In January 1919, an architect on the committee, Alfred Gutteridge, argued against the initial proposed location in Watts Green Asylum in Southampton in favour of Watts Green Park in January 1919. He and other members of the committee travelled to Southampton and recommended the initial location on Green Green Park. The decision was made to build the memorial in January 1920.
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This page is based on the article Southampton Cenotaph published in Wikipedia (as of Oct. 31, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
