Talk:London and North Western Railway War Memorial

Lawrence's speech

Dumping here for now:

"we, the survivors, should dedicate ourselves anew to the service of our country, and that, especially in our character of employers and employees, we should strive to act in a spirit of mutual sympathy, of mutual forbearance, of absolute rectitude of purpose, and even of magnanimity if we wish to assist in the binding up of the wounds of our common country, and so prove ourselves worthy of the sacrifice these men have made for us."

From King, pp. 195–196.

—HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:27, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

I came across another reference: Memory, Masculinity and National Identity in British Visual Culture, 1914-1930: A Study of 'Unconquerable Manhood' - it does have some bits that might (despite appearances) be usable here, particularly more details on the unveiling ceremony and some insights into the industrial unrest undertones to the speeches (the railwaymen had been on strike two years earlier: 1919 United Kingdom railway strike). The contents of that books may be more easily seen here: Chapter Two: Class Conflict, The New Man And The Picturesque Soldier has a section on the LNWR memorial. Carcharoth (talk) 07:08, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Images

Couple more:

• I like this Night-time view
• A view from the 1970s: here (cropping can be redone if needed)

Maybe some images are needed of the stone lodges, mentioned in the Historic England record as "Group value: with the Grade II-listed station lodges of 1870, which frame the views of the memorial from Euston Road." See also here. I thought I had photos of those lodges, but maybe not. Someone will have some photos of them. The statue in the 1960s photo was moved slightly (it is still in the forecourt area of the station) and we have the article Statue of Robert Stephenson. Possibly a photo from/of the Roll of Honour. Carcharoth (talk) 19:55, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Carcharoth, I like both of those, especially the "bus for scale" one. I'll see if I can work them in as the article gets longer. I've been meaning to expand the paragraph about listing and context but that's quite easy to do. I've been working on squeezing all the information I can from books first. I was aware of the lodges (they come up quite a lot in works on railway architecture), but not that we had an article on the Stephenson statue! Obviously the number of images we can have in the article is not limitless but we should try to include as many as we can. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:38, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Glad to see the new image, Harry. :-) Was the user who uploaded that able to supply the article as well? Carcharoth (talk) 06:37, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Carcharoth, They were, but alas it's very brief. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:42, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Architect

Not a reliable source itself, but this (from a family history site) might help as a pointer to more information in other sources. Carcharoth (talk) 11:52, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Interesting. I found this photo while looking for something else. It's watermarked and paywalled, but it would be PD-1923 in the US and very possibly PD-old-70 in the UK if the photographer's identity can be established. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:09, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

There's also some documents in The National Archives about the unveiling. Not sure if there's much detail in there but TNA is closed indefinitely because Covid. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:03, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

That's a lot of people at that unveiling ceremony! It is easy to forget the scale of some of these ceremonies. BTW, are you able to access the academic reference I pointed to above (the first section on this page)? That has photos from the unveiling ceremony as well, showing Sykes and Haig. Some of that book can be seen on Google Books. Carcharoth (talk) 01:05, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I'd seen it during my research. Annoyingly, none of the pages that mention the LNWR memorial are included in the preview but I was at least able to use Google Books to confirm that there was what looked like substantial information in there. I've ordered a copy. Not cheap though! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:31, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

That's strange. I was able to preview it on Google Books - sorry, should have said. I think you will find it useful (if it is too late to cancel the order). Oh, how strange. I can no longer preview those pages. I have no idea what algorithm Google uses there - is it essentially random? I should have made notes. Some books seem to be permanently previewable, others not. Oh well. Carcharoth (talk) 22:38, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Carcharoth, it just arrived (not bad considering the expected arrival date was 30th) so I'll have a look through it and see what I can get out of it. Hopefully it'll be useful for other articles as well (it has some coverage of the Cenotaph, for example). HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:02, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

That's good news, as is what you managed to obtain here (I should use that board more often myself). Carcharoth (talk) 22:33, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Statues

Just popping a note here for the record about the addition of a gallery of the four statues. Not sure what order they should be in, it is currently (from left to right in the gallery): northwest (artilleryman), northeast (airman), southeast (infantryman), southwest (sailor), i.e. clockwise from northwest if looking down on the memorial from above. The northwest statue is the artilleryman because he has the cap badge of the Royal Field Artillery; the northeast statue is the airman because he has 'Royal Flying Corps' on his shoulder; the southeast statue is the infantryman by a process of elimination (though cap badge is visible); and the southwest statue is the sailor because he has 'HMS' on his cap. Ideally we would have a source confirming this, but I'm happy with that. Carcharoth (talk) 12:59, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

I really like the gallery! Thank you for finding the photos and putting the effort into working out who was who. I'm sure Chris will be pleaased to see his photos in use! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:46, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

They are very good photos, aren't they! Carcharoth (talk) 01:06, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Custodian and maintenance

Are Network Rail the current custodians of the memorial, and what were the entities who had legal responsibility for it previously? There is an image here of what looks like the plans for the lighting for the memorial. Not sure if that was ever done. Over on the War Memorials Online page (under the comments tab) there is the comment from 13 March 2014 that "War Memorials Trust have received notification that works will commence on the memorial, involving cleaning, re cutting and repairing the damaged stone". Was this ever reported anywhere (presumably at some point in 2014), and do we have a reliable source that can be used for this? (I've looked, but it is not immediately obvious.) Carcharoth (talk) 10:54, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Carcharoth, I would imagine that the land is either still railway land, or the memorial was transferred to BRB (Residuary) at privatisation, in which case it would have been transferred to Network Rail when BRBR was dissolved but I can't seem to confirm it. It's not in the schedule of properties transferred to NR (though the Midland and NER memorials, among others, are). Perhaps it has always been railway land? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:45, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

According to the IWM register, it is indeed the responsibility of Network Rail. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:03, 11 February 2021 (UTC)