Summary
First World War memorial. Erected 1922. Designed by Walter Gilbert and Louis Weingartner. Founders and stonemasons HH Martyn & Co, Cheltenham.
Reasons for Designation
West Derby War Memorial, erected in 1922 and designed by Walter Gilbert and Louis Weingartner, is listed at Grade II* for the following principal reasons:
* Architectural interest: a composition of individuality and dynamism by the designers and sculptors Walter Gilbert and Louis Weingartner;
* Sculptural interest: the contrasting depictions of a junior officer and a spirited young woman in contemporary dress are notable;
* Rarity: For its depiction of a woman in contemporary civilian dress sculpted in the round;
* Historic interest: as an eloquent witness to the tragic impact of world events on the local community, and the sacrifices it made in the conflicts of the C20.
History
The aftermath of the First World War saw an unprecedented wave of public commemoration with tens of thousands of memorials erected across the country.
West Derby War Memorial was commissioned by the glass manufacturer Dr. Frederick Dixon Nuttall, whose son Lieutenant JF Dixon Nuttall of the West Lancashire Divisional Royal Engineers was killed in action. It commemorates the fallen of West Derby Hundred, one of the six ancient divisions of the County of Lancashire stretching from the Mersey to the Ribble, of which West Derby was the principal manor. The memorial was unveiled on 23 July 1922 by the Bishop of Liverpool.
The figures on the memorial were modelled on Lt Dixon Nuttall’s wife and brother.
Walter Henry Gilbert (1871-1946) was a designer and modeller, mainly in metalwork, who often worked in collaboration with the Swiss-born modeller Louis Weingartner (d1934) and latterly with his son Donald Gilbert. Born in Rugby, Gilbert studied at the Birmingham Municipal School of Art, and co-founded the internationally renowned Bromsgrove Guild of Applied Arts in 1898, under whose auspices he began his long and creative collaboration with Weingartner. Gilbert entered the firm of HH Martyn and Co. Ltd. of Cheltenham in 1918. Little is known about the career of Weingartner. He was from Lake Lucerne, and was a jeweller in the School of Art in Birmingham before moving to Bromsgrove in 1903. He returned to Switzerland in 1930 and died in 1934.
Gilbert and Weingartner’s catalogue of works includes the gates to Buckingham Palace and the Victoria Memorial under Sir Aston Webb; the reredos at Liverpool Anglican Cathedral under Sir Giles Gilbert Scott and metalwork at the Masonic Temple, London, architects Ashley & Newman. They undertook a number of war memorials including those at Crewe, Liverpool News Exchange and Burnley, Lancashire, which also features life-size statuary of women honouring the fallen.
Details
First World War memorial. Erected 1922. Designed by Walter Gilbert and Louis Weingartner. Founders and stonemasons HH Martyn & Co, Cheltenham.
MATERIALS: Bronze figures on sandstone pedestal and base.
DESCRIPTION: the memorial stands at the north-west corner of the junction of St Helen’s Road and Burrows Lane, in a paved area enclosed by brick walls, gates and railings. It consists of a battered square Portland stone pedestal on a three-tier stepped plinth, supporting a life-size bronze statue of a junior army officer raising his field glasses in his left hand, his revolver in the other, his left foot resting on a Prussian helmet. Dress and weaponry are depicted in detail. A life-size bronze figure of a woman in contemporary dress climbs on the steps of the plinth, stretching upwards to offer a laurel branch to the soldier.
A bronze relief panel wraps around the four faces of the pedestal, which depict (anti-clockwise) marching soldiers, airmen, soldiers with camels and seamen loading a naval gun. The panels read: THE LAURELS OF THE / SONS ARE WATERED / FROM THE HEARTS / OF THE MOTHERS.
Affixed to the front (south-east) face of the pedestal a stone tablet is inscribed: TO THE GLORIOUS MEMORY / OF ALL THOSE FROM THE / WEST DERBY HUNDRED OF / THE COUNTY PALATINE OF / LANCASTER WHO FOUGHT / & GAVE THEIR LIVES FOR / THEIR KING & COUNTRY IN / THE GREAT WAR 1914-1918.
