As World War One drew to a close, people across Great Britain reflected on the need for a permanent memorial to those who sadly died. The London Peace Procession in November 1919 featured a temporary wood-and-plaster cenotaph in Whitehall, designed by Sir William Nicholson. By November 1920, it was replaced with the current Portland stone Cenotaph designed by Sir William Lutyens.

Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens (1869 – 1944) was a British architect known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era. He designed many English country houses, war memorials and public buildings. In his biography, the writer Christopher Hussey wrote, “In his lifetime (Lutyens) was widely held to be our greatest architect since Wren if not, as many maintained, his superior”. The architectural historian Gavin Stamp described him as “surely the greatest British architect of the twentieth (or of any other) century”.

Widespread press discussion of commemoration led to the War Memorials Local Authorities’ Powers Act, which received Royal Assent on 18 July 1923. This Act empowered Local Authorities to levy a specified rate in order to construct and maintain local war memorials.

At their March 1919 meeting, Stansted Parish Council decided to commission a memorial tablet, engraved with the names of the fallen, to be attached to the interior east wall of St Mary’s Church. They also planned a cross on the exterior and another tablet on the wall of Stansted School; however, they did not implement these. A subcommittee of Ms Berry, Mr Brown, Mr Debenham, Mrs Milton, Rev. Fisher, Mrs Pitt, Colonel Pitt, Mr Webb, Sir Gerald Hohler and Mr Manley would plan and devise the implementation. The tablet was unveiled on 10 March 1920. It can be seen beneath the east window in St Mary’s Church.

The desire for a more substantial and publicly visible memorial remained, and the Parish Council recorded the conveyance of a parcel of land for this purpose. Sir Gerald Hohler of Court Lodge, Stansted, and his brother Thomas Hohler of nearby Fawkham Manor were instrumental in creating the now well-known War Memorial. Sir Gerald owned a drovers’ pond at the foot of Windmill Hill (now Stansted Hill) and offered it as the proposed site for a memorial statue.

Sir Thomas Hohler, KCMG, CB, JP, Head of the British Legation in Budapest, Hungary, in 1920, was well-connected in the country’s cultural circles. He knew that the sculptor Alajos Stróbl had created a statue of a female palm-bearer in 1898. While Sir Gerald contemplated erecting a memorial, Thomas suggested Strobl could make a modified version with a different head, better suited to the proposed War Memorial.

Alajos Stróbl (1856 – 1926) was an Austro-Hungarian sculptor and artist of Zipser German origin (father Josef Strobl and mother Karolina Vyrostek). His work is characterised by sensitive, realistic modelling, and he became one of Hungary’s most renowned memorial sculptors at the turn of the 20th century.

The well-known foundry ‘Galliés Vignale’ cast the bronze figure in Budapest. Meanwhile, Sir Gerald prepared a square base of Portland stone. As a lasting tribute, the memorial stone was carved with the names of the Great War’s fallen.

Many years later, Dr Peter Pitt recalled an interesting story about the memorial: a few people involved in the planning stage met on site to arrange a wooden mock-up of the pedestal. Sir Gerald Hohler had climbed up and held his umbrella aloft to represent the olive branch associated with the proposed statue. Mrs Drummond happened to drive past and remarked, “Very nice, but did they have to have the statue so like Sir Gerald?”

One hitch before the memorial was erected was delivering the bronze statue from Hungary to Stansted in Essex rather than Stansted in Kent, an event that has repeated itself more than once since then!

The memorial was unveiled by Colonel and Mrs Pitt from Fairseat House, whose two sons had been killed in action during the War. The sadness and emotion at the ceremony are hard to imagine. It took place on Sunday, July 15th, 1923, and was accompanied by dedications by Dr John Harmer, Bishop of Rochester, and Reverend F. Fisher, Rector of Stansted.

All who saw it immediately valued the bronze statue of a young man bearing a palm bough. Its striking beauty and simplicity resonated with many local people who had served in, or were affected by, the Great War. About a quarter of those who served overseas did not return, which had a significant impact on these small village communities. The statue stands against rolling hills and faces almost directly toward the setting sun, which bathes it in emotive light during summer evenings.

Unusually, the Stansted Memorial lists the names of WWI dead by military rank, then alphabetically. Most war memorials list their dead servicemen alphabetically by surname, with military ranks as secondary information.

LIEUT. COLONEL A.G. KEMBALL C.B., D.S.O. 54TH CANADIANS
MAJOR W.N. PITT 2ND BN LINCOLNSHIRE REGT.
LIEUT. AND ADJUTANT J.M. PITT 1ST BN. DORSET REGT.
LIEUT. G.A. GOODMAN ROYAL AIR FORCE
SERGT. MAJOR A. KIRTON 11TH BN. AUSTRALIAN IMPERIAL FORCE
CO. SERGT. MAJOR J.F. JOHNSON 9TH BN. KINGS ROYAL RIFLE CORPS.
PRIVATE A.T. BETTS ROYAL ARMY SERVICE CORPS.
GUARDSMAN H.T. BLACKMAN 1ST BN. GRENADIER GUARDS
DRIVER F. BOWYER ROYAL ENGINEERS
PRIVATE L.V. BROWN 2ND BN. ROYAL WEST SURREY REGT.
DRIVER V.R. BROWN ROYAL FIELD ARTILLERY
PRIVATE E.C. BURNETT 1ST BN. ROYAL WEST KENT REGT.
PRIVATE L.A. MARTIN 28TH BN. AUSTRALIAN IMPERIAL FORCE
PRIVATE L.A. SOLOMAN POST OFFICE RIFLES
PRIVATE B.R. STREATFIELD 7TH BN. ROYAL WEST KENT REGT.

Note: Further information for each of these servicemen is included under the ‘World Wars’ section of the website, which is accessible from the ‘People’ option in the main menu, or via the following link: WW1 Participants. The ‘History’ section of the website also includes a World War 1 timeline showing the chronology of major battles and information on when and where the fifteen local servicemen died.

The biographies include two sets of brothers from Fairseat (Messrs. Pitt and Brown), a former serviceman who had retired to become a fruit farmer in Canada (Arnold Kemball), one of the last people to die in action in Italy (Gilbert Goodman) and a lad from Australia who had the opportunity to go home but stayed and was killed in Cairo (Alex Kirton).

The Church’s Roll of Honour lists 63 men who served overseas during WW1, including 14 who died. Because Driver Victor Brown did not serve overseas, the Roll of Honour omits his name. However, he became ill whilst in the Army and died shortly after being discharged, and this secured his name on the memorial next to that of his older brother, Lionel. Victor Brown is also the only one of the 15 fatalities from WW1 to be buried in the UK (in St Mary’s churchyard).

In March 1915, to avoid the difficult transportation of war fatalities, the British Government decided that Imperial soldiers should be buried where they had fallen and should remain there. This was highly controversial at the time and led to the establishment of military cemeteries and ultimately to the formation of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. It follows that the only CWGC headstones to be seen in the UK are of servicemen who died in the UK.

No official method existed for gathering and recording names on memorials. In small villages like Stansted and Fairseat, people probably gathered names by word of mouth, and checking details was manageable. This was much harder in large towns, and many mistakes were made.

Local discretion also determined whether a name appeared on a memorial. As a result, some names on the Stansted memorial are men born in the area who lived there most of their lives, while others have a more distant link. Some names also appear on memorials in other towns and villages.

The poem inscribed on the back (eastern) side of the main memorial plinth is based on ‘Recessional’, a poem by Rudyard Kipling composed in 1897 for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee.

Sir Gerald had previously donated the Memorial to Stansted Parish Council. On his death in 1934, he bequeathed the Parish Council a strip of land around the memorial to be planted as a garden, along with £300 to be invested for future upkeep.

After World War II, the memorial plinth was updated to include the names of six servicemen who had died during the war.

LIEUT. COLONEL G.C.P. LANCE D.S.O. 7TH SOMERSET LIGHT INFANTRY
WING-COMMANDER C.G. HOHLER ROYAL AIR FORCE
PETTY OFFICER C.K. HOOPER ROYAL NAVY
LEADING STOKER A.W. COLEGATE ROYAL NAVY
PRIVATE E.R. GOULD 8TH BN. THE ROYAL SCOTS REGT.
PILOT OFFICER P.A. NASH ROYAL AIR FORCE

Note: Further information for each of these servicemen is included under the ‘World Wars’ section of the website, which is accessible from the ‘People’ option in the main menu, or via the following link: WW2 Participants.