1914–1918 TO THE GLORIOUS MEMORY OF THE MEN OF TWICKENHAM WHO FELL IN THE GREAT WAR THEIR NAME LIVETH EVERMORE AND TO THOSE WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES IN THE WAR OF 1939–1945
The park in which the memorial stands was formed from the grounds of Radnor House and Cross Deep House by Twickenham Urban District Council in 1903.[9] At the end of the First World War, in common with many local authorities, the council decided to erect a war memorial to commemorate the dead of the district. The sculptor Mortimer Brown won a design competition in 1920 and was commissioned to undertake the work.[10] Brown had trained at the Hanley School of Art and the National Art Training School, followed by study at the Royal Academy Schools.[11]
The memorial represents a life-size soldier, cast in bronze by the Singer & Sons foundry.[12] The figure is depicted walking in service dress and greatcoat, holding a rifle in one hand, with the other hand lifting up a cap to wave above his head. The statue is unusual for showing a "joyful returning soldier, in contrast to the more conventional attitudes of watchfulness or mourning".[10] The Cambridge War Memorial has a similar composition of a soldier marching home cheerfully holding a helmet, and the Lancashire Fusiliers Boer War Memorial in Bury, Greater Manchester, is an earlier example of a memorial sculpture of a soldier holding aloft his headgear in celebration. (Both are listed at Grade II.)
The main statue stands on a tall square plinth of Portland stone, which has bronze plaques set in four sides and a dedicatory inscription on the south side which was amended after the Second World War to recognise the dead of Twickenham in that conflict.[10] Three of the bronze plaques are figurative relief sculptures showing: three airmen (to the west); two women, one a nurse and the other a Voluntary Aid Detachment volunteer (north); and two naval officers and a rating (east). The plaque commemorating the contribution of women to the war effort is "uncommon".[10] The naval plaque was stolen in 2011[13] and the current plaque is a replacement installed in 2012.[14] The borough's coat of arms appears on small bronze plaque on the south side of the plinth, above the inscription: 1914–1918 / TO THE GLORIOUS MEMORY / OF THE MEN OF TWICKENHAM / WHO FELL IN THE GREAT WAR / THEIR NAME LIVETH EVERMORE / AND TO THOSE / WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES / IN THE WAR OF / 1939–1945.
^"Mortimer John Brown". Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851–1951. University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII, online database 2011. Retrieved 6 January 2020.
^ ab"Men of Twickenham". www.warmemorialsonline.org.uk. War Memorials Online. Retrieved 6 January 2020.
Harris, John (1994). The Palladian Revival: Lord Burlington, His Villa and Garden at Chiswick (Exhibition catalog). Yale University Press. ISBN0-300-05983-3.