Village memorial restored to original
ON 11th November 1918 the Armistice was signed and the fighting stopped along the Western Front. The Great War was over. At the Versailles conference the Treaty of Peace was negotiated, formally ending the fighting and was finally signed by Germany on 28th June, 1919 – five years to the day Archduke Franz Ferdinand had been assassinated in Sarajevo – “the shot that rang out across the world”. That shot had set in motion the juggernaut that was the Great War, as alliances were invoked and the railway lines carried troops to the front line.
The “war to end wars” touched every city, town and village across Britain, and the impact was such that many communities wanted to remember those who had gone to fight, and those who had not returned. These war memorials have become focal points and many have had names added to them after the end of the Second World War.
Recently, renovation work on Sandon War Memorial has been completed, organised by Simon Shelley, Brian Boughey, the clerk at Sandon Estate, Viscount Hugo Sandon and the Harrowby Estate, a timely project in preparation for the centenary of the Armistice this November.
The ambitious project has been partly funded by the War Memorials Online Organisation (www.warme morialsonline.org.uk), which provides grants for war memorial renovation projects. The work began in June, and was finished in August.
So what is the history of Sandon war memorial, and who designed and built it?
As the demand for war memorials expanded, pressure was so great that some of the best sculptors in the country could not cope with the demand. Some were obliged to turn work down, whereas others found a pragmatic solution – use the casts more than once.
Affinity
For Sandon’s memorial, Albert Arthur Toft was selected. Born in Handsworth in June 1862 (then part of Staffordshire but now a suburb of Birmingham) he had a close affinity to the area, his family having lived in East View, Hanley. His father Charles had worked for years as a modeller at Wedgwood, where Albert had also trained. His obvious talent as an artist and sculptor had resulted in Albert attending art school at Hanley and Newcastle-under-lyme. Examples of Albert’s non-military work are numerous and include the monuments to Queen Victoria at Leamington Spa and Nottingham, the statue of Edward VII in Centenary Square, Birmingham, and, in the Black Country, the memorial bronze to organist and conductor Charles Swinnerton Heap in Walsall Town Hall.
Toft’s pedigree and strong local affinities ensured he accepted the commission for the Sandon war memorial. His works can also been seen in other Midlands towns, including Birmingham’s Hall of Memory and Canon Hill Park (Boer War 1906), War Memorials in Stone and Leamington Spa, a very large four figure sculpture in Oldham, one identical to Sandon’s memorial, at Chadderton in Lancashire, and the Royal Fusiliers Memorial in Holborn.
The design chosen for Sandon, which is 1.9 metres high and 90cm square, was of a life-sized, helmeted ‘Tommy’ on a plinth, standing at ease