TheCavalry of the Empire Memorial, also known as theCavalry Memorial, is awar memorial inHyde Park, London. It commemorates the service of cavalry regiments in the First and Second World Wars. It became a Grade IIlisted building in 1987, and was promoted to Grade II* in November 2014.
A committee was formed in early 1920 to consider a proposal for a memorial in London to the cavalrymen who had served in the First World War. According to figures in Volume 8 of theHistory of the British Cavalry 1816–1919 byHenry Paget, 7th Marquess of Anglesey, nearly 4,500 cavalrymen were killed on theWestern Front, and another 15,000 were wounded. Sites for a memorial were considered, onThe Mall oppositeMarlborough Gate or at theDuke of York's Steps, or atHorse Guards Parade, but theOffice of Works preferred a location nearStanhope Gate in Hyde Park, in front ofDorchester House.
SirJohn James Burnet was appointed as architect, assisted byThomas Smith Tait, and a statue was designed byAdrian Jones, with advice from MajorVictor Farquharson and SirHenry Farnham Burke. Jones had served as a veterinary officer in the British Army in the late 19th century, including active service in theAbyssinian Expedition of 1868, theFirst Boer War in 1880–81, and theNile Expedition of 1884–85.
For the memorial, Jones designed a bronze equestrian statue ofSt George, depicted as a mounted knight in armour with sword raised aloft, slightly larger than life size, with his horse standing over the coils of a slain dragon (with upturned Germanic moustache). A frieze of horsemen parade around the base of the statue. Some details of St George's armour were copied from a bronze effigy ofRichard de Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick from 1454, and the horse was adapted from an engraving of St George byAlbrecht Dürer.
The statue was cast from guns captured by the cavalry in the First World War, and mounted on aPortland stone pedestal which bears an inscription, extended after the Second World War to read:
"ERECTED // BY THE // CAVALRY OF THE EMPIRE // IN MEMORY OF // COMRADES // WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES // IN THE WAR // 1914–1919 // ALSO // IN THE WAR // 1939–1945"
Brunet designed a classical backdrop for the statue, built withPortland stone, which shielded the memorial from Park Lane. The backdrop housed a bronze plaque listing the 150 cavalry units from Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, Pakistan and the UK, that served in the forces of the British Empire in the First World War, along with the names of four British cavalry officers who became Field Marshals:Haig,French,Allenby andRobertson.
The memorial was unveiled on 21 May 1924 by Field MarshalJohn French, 1st Earl of Ypres, and thePrince of Wales, accompanied by PrinceArthur of Connaught and theChaplain-General to the ForcesJohn Taylor Smith.
AsPark Lane was widened in 1960, the memorial was moved to a new site about 300 metres (980 ft) further west in 1961, along the Horse Ride beside Serpentine Road, near the Hyde Park bandstand, and re-erected on a granite base. The backdrop was not reconstructed: instead, the bronze plaque was mounted on a granite screen behind the relocated statue.
Nearby is the memorial to the soldiers of theHousehold Cavalry who were killed in theHyde Park and Regent's Park bombings in 1982.
51°30′17″N0°09′19″W / 51.50469°N 0.15526°W /51.50469; -0.15526
