- Type of Memorial
- Sculptured / Cast figure
- WMR Reference Number
- 87039
- Description
- Highly polished black granite pillar on a square base. Pillar is topped by a bronze bust of a World War 1 soldier with his right hand covering half of his face and wearing an original Brodie helmet donated by the Somme Museum, in Albert, France. On a small outcrop of the base is a pair World War 1 bronze boots. White incised lettering on three sides.
- Inscription
- Face 1: 'Gueules cassées':/The Men With Broken Faces'/This memorial is dedicated/to this community, recognised/in history as the men/with 'broken' faces:/to the patients themselves, and/their surgeons, doctors, nurses/an orderlies who devoted/their time and skill to their care./
Revolutionary advancement/in facial repair was secured/on this site, enabling many/patients to recover their lives./Others did not, and returned/home in permanent pain and/disability, to shiver whenever/they saw themselves in the/mirror, where their children/cowered in fear of the face/that war had left their father/with, and where sweethearts/and strangers could not bear/to look at them./A very small percentage wore/tin-masks to shield themselves,and others, from their/disfigurement. Most recipients/were eventually buried in/ their masks, wary of the revealing/their injuries to the world,/even in death.
Left face: This hospital founded/in 1917,/formely known as/The Queen's Hospital,/was where pioneering/work in reconstruction/and plastic surgery was/performed on British,/ Canadian, Australian/and New Zealander/casualties from/The First World War/whose faces had been/taken from them/by horrific wounds./The work that took place/in this hospital formed/the foundations of/reconstruction and/plastic surgery that has/offered the prospect of/change to many across/the country.
Right face: Ward Muir, a hospital/orderly,described the/reality of working/with patients/acknowledged as among/the most severely/disfigured of the entire/First World War:/"He finds that he must/fraternise with his fellow/men at who he cannot/look without the/grieveous risk of/betraying by his/expression, how awful is/their appearance.../hideous is the only word/ for those smashed faces.../to talk to a lad who six/months ago, was probably/a wholesome and/pleasing specimen of.../youth, and is now a/gargoyle, and a broken/one at that, is something/of an ordeal."