- Maker(s)
SIR EDWIN LUTYENS, Architect
Messrs Holloway (cf Southampton), Builder
- Costs
- Over £27,000
- Sponsor Type
- public
- Additional Cost/Sponsorship Information
- According to Historic England: 'After a public meeting on 14 May 1919 a War Memorial Committee was set up in Leicester. After various options were discussed, Lutyens was eventually identified as the architect the Committee wished to commission to design the city’s memorial, with Victoria Park as the site. Victoria Park, laid out in 1883, had been owned by the corporation since the 1860s.
As originally conceived, the memorial was to comprise avenues of lime trees planted in the plan of a cathedral church, with a Cenotaph at the west end and a circular, walled, enclosure at the crossing bearing the names of the fallen with a Stone of Remembrance within.
At this stage, in late 1920, costs were estimated at £20,000, but only just over £4,000 had been raised. In March 1923, as much because of a lack of enthusiasm for it within Leicester as for the shortfall in funding, the original scheme was set aside. Instead, Lutyens was asked to design a memorial archway in Victoria Park, which he envisaged might cost £25,000. Lutyens explained to a public meeting in May 1923 that the evolved design represented the city’s spiritual triumph, and that the memorial was to be known as the Arch of Remembrance: work began later that year.
The War Memorial Committee had still not raised sufficient money to cover the cost and so it took the unusual step of securing a bank loan to cover any potential shortfall with five of their members agreeing to stand as guarantors. The contractor was originally The Nine Elms Stone and Masonry Works, which had tendered £24,450, although for an unknown reason the contract transferred to Messrs Holloway, the builders of the Southampton Cenotaph.
The memorial was unveiled on 4 July 1925 before a huge crowd, with Lutyens present, by two local widows, Mrs Elizabeth Butler and Mrs Annie Glover, who between them had lost seven sons because of the war. It was dedicated by the Bishop of Peterborough who in his address mentioned the sacrifice of some 12,000 Leicestershire men.
At the end of the year there was still a shortfall of £5,532 on the sums owed (the final cost was over £27,000, of which £1,635 was paid to Lutyens); the five guarantors had to make up this sum in 1926.'
