Military History | Royal Artillery Memorial, Hyde Park Corner — The Figure Under the Greatcoat

At the north end of the memorial on the Hyde Park Corner island a bronze man lies under his greatcoat, helmet set on his chest, boots showing at either end of the cloth. He is not named, and no name is cut anywhere on the monument. The plinth beneath him reads HERE WAS A ROYAL FELLOWSHIP OF DEATH, a line out of Henry V.

English Heritage calls a dead man a rare feature on a British war memorial and records that the sculptor insisted on having one. Charles Sargeant Jagger had served as an infantry officer. The Royal Artillery War Commemoration Fund's committee found the site in 1920 and approached him in 1921; he chose Lionel Pearson as his architect. Above the base they set a 9.2-inch howitzer carved in Portland stone, with an officer, a driver and a shell-carrier in bronze around it. Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught, unveiled the memorial on 18 October 1925, and unveiled the Guards Division's memorial 1.6 km away 363 days later.

The dedication gives a number where a roll of names would go: IN PROUD REMEMBRANCE OF THE FORTY NINE THOUSAND & SEVENTY SIX OF ALL RANKS OF THE ROYAL REGIMENT OF ARTILLERY, ending IN THE GREAT WAR 1914-1919. Along the base runs a band of place-names: MESOPOTAMIA, DARDANELLES, MACEDONIA, ARABIA, RUSSIA, PALESTINE, CENTRAL ASIA, PERSIA, AFRICA. The end date is 1919 rather than 1918, and the list does not stop in France.

Lord Curzon called the gun a toad squatting, about to spit fire out of its mouth, and said nothing more hideous could ever be conceived; English Heritage and the Twentieth Century Society both quote him. Bronze panels for 29,924 artillerymen of the Second World War were added in 1949 and unveiled by Princess Elizabeth. Listed in 1970, the memorial was raised to Grade I in 2014. The memorial stands on the western side of the traffic island at Hyde Park Corner, and the wreaths are laid on the step below the officer.

📸 Cover: the memorial from the west, the dedication and the band of place-names legible. Tilman2007, 2025, CC BY-SA 4.0. Second image: the bronze figure at the north end, with the plinth inscription and the sculptor's signature. CGP Grey, 2005, CC BY 2.0. Both via Wikimedia Commons.