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National War Memorial (South Australia)
Encyclopedia
The National War Memorial is a monument in the South Australia
n capital of Adelaide
, commemorating those who served in the First World War
. Opened in 1931, the memorial is located on the corner of North Terrace
and Kintore Avenue, in the heart of the central business district
and adjacent to the grounds of Government House
. Memorial services are held at the site throughout the year, with major services on both Anzac Day
(25 April) and Remembrance Day
(11 November).
First proposed in 1919, the memorial was funded by the Parliament of South Australia, making it the first Australian state war memorial to be confirmed after the war. The design of the memorial was selected through two architectural competitions. The first competition, in 1924, produced 26 designs—all of which were lost before judging could be completed after fire destroyed the building in which they were housed. A second competition, in 1926, produced 18 entries, out of which the design by the architectural firm Woods, Bagot, Jory & Laybourne-Smith
was selected as the winner. The design—effectively a frame for two scenes depicted through Rayner Hoff
's marble
relief
s and bronze statues
—shows the prelude and the epilogue to war, depicting both the willingness of youth to answer the call of duty and the extent of the sacrifices which they made. In this, the work is not displaying a material victory, but instead a victory of the spirit. Bronzes line the walls of an inner shrine, on which are listed the names of all South Australia
ns who died during the Great War.
Almost 35,000 South Australians served in the First World War. This number amounted to 8.5% of the South Australian population at the time, or 37.7% of men between the ages of 18 and 44. Of those who served, over 5,000 South Australians died. In response to these deaths, Archibald Peake
, the premier
of South Australia, asked the state parliament to fund a memorial commemorating the victory and the sacrifice of those who had fought and fallen. The motion was presented in March 1919, and it received unanimous support in the House of Assembly
and the Legislative Council
. With the passing of this motion, the South Australian Government became the first in Australia to elect to build a memorial to the soldiers of the First World War.
It was decided by parliament that the new memorial should be referred to as the "National War Memorial", even though it was to be a purely South Australian monument, and in spite of the term already being used to describe the memorial
to the South African War
of 1899–1902. There have been at least two perspectives offered as to why the term "National" was employed. First, as Donald Richardson observed, the name may have been chosen to emphasis the Government's intention that the memorial should commemorate all who served during the war, not just those who came from South Australia; and second, Ken Inglis
argued that the name may have reflected the perception, (still held in spite of federation), that the "province is a nation".
to the conditions of entry, it was stated that the new memorial was to serve the purpose of "perpetually commemorating the Victory achieved in the Great War, 1914–1918, the Supreme and personal sacrifice of those who participated in that War, and the National effort involved in such activities".
Entry was open to South Australians who were British subject
s, and those intending to submit designs were required to file a Statement of Intent prior to 29 February 1924. The competition closed on 30 September 1924, and there was a one guinea
entry fee. Three assessors were nominated to judge the entries: the South Australian Architect-in-Chief, A. E. Simpson; local architect Herbert Louis Jackman (representing the South Australian Institute of Architects); and Sir William Sowden.
The committee specified a budget of £25,000, (previously figures of both £5,000 and £100,000 had been discussed), and the conditions of entry stated that the memorial was to be situated at the entrance to Government House
on the corner of King William Street
and North Terrace, placing it just behind the existing memorial to the South African War. This location was counter to previous suggestions: a 1919 survey of architects had proposed that the memorial should be built on Montefiore Hill
, while in 1923 the plans for the memorial involved erecting it at the rear of Government House, rather than at the front.
Significantly, the committee left open the form that memorial would take, beyond stating that the memorial was not to be "utilitarian in character", and debate over the form led to the emergence of a number of suggestions, many of which were covered in the media of the day. These included Dame Nellie Melba
's proposal to build a carillon
of bells; a suggestion by Simpson Newland
to turn Anzac Highway into a "Way of Honour" by adding triumphal arch
es to each end; and Walter Charles Torode's plan to build a 30 meter high "metal and marble" monument on the top of Mount Lofty
with an electric car to carry people to the summit.
In the end a total of 28 architectural firm
s registered their intent to submit entries to the competition—a lower number than expected, but Richardson suggests this may have been due to work on proposals for the new Adelaide Railway Station
. Out of those 28, a total of 26 firms submitted designs by the deadline. Unfortunately, on 10 November 1924, before judging could be completed, the Richards Building in Currie Street was destroyed by fire, taking with it all 26 proposals.
Although most of the judging had been completed before the fire, suggestions at the time that the committee could use what they had learned from the entrants to propose a new competition with greater clarity as to the requirements led to naught: a 1925 letter to the then Premier John Gunn
reveals that there was little to be learned from the competition, as the assessors had found that none of the designs were suitable.
Little progress had been made on the memorial by 1926. While some debate occurred in respect to the form that the memorial would take, the focus of the discussions concerned the location of the memorial, and this centered on the future of Government House and the role of the Governor
. A number of left-wing
politicians argued that the grounds of Government House should be turned over to the State and used to build the memorial while the conservatives
desired to retain the status quo. By 1925 the National War Memorial committee was prepared to accept the Government House grounds as the site of the memorial, but they delayed making an announcement. This proved to be fortuitous, as legal issues prevented the plan from going ahead. Instead a portion of the grounds, located at the corner of North Terrace and Kintore Avenue, was put aside for the purpose. (The plan to move the Governor and to use the grounds as part of a larger war memorial were revisited, over 80 years later, in 2007).
In 1926, after pressure from the returned soldiers
, a second competition was announced. Once again the budget was set at £25,000. As per the first competition, all entrants had to be South Australian British subjects, and all entries were to be judged anonymously, but this time there was to be only one assessor: John Smith Murdoch
, the chief architect for the Commonwealth of Australia. In deference to the previous competition, the top five entrants from 1924 were each given £75 upon the submission of a new design, and all of the designs were insured
by the government for £100 each.
With entries restricted to South Australians, only 18 designs were received—a figure that was "correspondingly fewer" than those received in other states where the competitions were open to all Australians. Nevertheless, in his Assessor's Report, Murdoch acknowledged that the quality of some of the proposals were such that they "probably would not have been exceeded had the competition been more open". After examining the submissions, on 15 January 1927, the design by Louis Laybourne Smith
, (one of the principals at the architectural firm Woods, Bagot, Jory & Laybourne–Smith
), was selected by Murdoch as the winner.
Woods, Bagot, Jory & Laybourne-Smith had entered the 1924 competition with an arch designed by Walter Bagot
, but in 1926 Bagot was away in Europe. Thus Laybourne-Smith was responsible for drawing and submitting the final design, although he was clear to highlight the role Bagot played in the "architectural conception" of the monument. While the firm was to be awarded 6% of the cost of the memorial, they refused all but enough to cover their own expenses, asking instead that residues (approximately £1000) be placed in a trust fund to pay for the upkeep of the work. While this is seen as an altruistic act, Richardson noted that Laybourne-Smith was both a member of the National War Committee and sat on the sub-committee which drafted the rules of the competition, and thus it may have been considered "improper" to accept the money.
When announced to the public the design was "universally hailed as a masterpiece". Nevertheless, in writing his report on the result of the judging, Murdoch stated of the winning architect that he "depends almost entirely on the sculptor to tell the story of the memorial, employing in his design no more architecture than that required to successfully frame and set his sculptural subjects, and to provide accommodation to the extent asked for by the conditions". This view was echoed by Inglis, who described the architecture as "essentially a frame for statuary"—an approach that he felt was "unusual" for an architect. As a result of this dependency on the sculpture, some of the other contestants expressed concerns, arguing that the contest was about architectural works rather than sculptural ones, even though the conditions of the competition specifically allowed for sculpture in the proposals.
Construction of the memorial began in 1928 with the cut and placement of marble blocks from Macclesfield
and Angaston
. The South Australian Monumental Works were chosen to work on the construction, with Alan Tillett as the principal. Although no sculptor was named in the winning proposal, it did make mention of a possible candidate—who later proved to be Rayner Hoff, a Sydney
-based sculptor born in England
. Raynor Hoff produced the designs for the sculptures from his Sydney studio, with the bronze castings from Hoff's plaster models being produced by the South Australian firm A. W. Dobbie and Company. (Hoff had expressed reservations that a South Australian company would be capable of handling bronzes of the required size, but a test casting of the lion's head from the memorial was sufficient to overcome his concerns). The two angel reliefs sculpted from the Angaston marble were produced by Julius Henschke in situ from Hoff's designs, expressed through one-third sized plaster models which Henschke then scaled to suit.
Significant delays occurred during construction after a strike by the stonemasons. The stonemasons were demanding a 44 hour week and to be paid at "outside rates", (rates of pay for stonemasons were based on whether or not the work was to be constructed on site in the open air, or inside under cover— Tillet was paying the lower "inside rates", even though most of the work was to be conducted on the site). However, Tillet had tendered on the basis of a 48 hour week at inside rates, and paying extra would have caused significant financial problems. Tillet eventually won after the dispute went before the courts, but the strike had caused considerable financial damage to Tillet's company, which went into receivership
in 1930 and stayed in that state until after the memorial was completed.
The South Australian Government had dedicated £25,000 for the memorial. It was estimated that bulk of the expense would be masonry at £15,300 with sculptural work and landscaping requiring £8,500 and £1,200 respectively. However, the final cost of construction pushed this out to approximately £30,000.
, 25 April 1931, (the 16th anniversary of the Gallipoli landing
), by the Governor Sir Alexander Hore-Ruthven
. The crowd, "as huge a crowd as anyone could remember assembling in the city", was unable to fit in front of the memorial, so many thousands assembled at the Cross of Sacrifice in the Adelaide park lands
to await a later ceremony. Hore-Ruthven was introduced by the acting state premier, W. J. Denny, whose involvement in the unveiling, according to Inglis, was unusual for a Labor
politician.
.
The rules of the competition limited the space for the memorial to the "one half acre" of land that was excised from the grounds of Government House. The design submitted by Woods, Bagot, Jory & Laybourne Smith easily met this requirement, as the memorial was designed to fit on an ellipse with a major axis of 18.3 m (60 ft) in length and a minor axis of 15.5 m (51 ft). Standing at a height of over 14 m (46 ft), the structure was carefully placed back from North Terrace to provide space for "public gatherings of a ceremonial nature" and to allow for the proposed widening of the street.
The monument has two sides, referred to by the architects as the reverse and the obverse of the work, which they likened to the two sides of a coin. These two aspects represent the prologue and the epilogue of war. Each side features a relief
carved from Angaston marble and framed by the "rough-hewn" arch carved out of marble from Macclesfield, while the granite steps leading up to the monument are constructed of Harcourt
granite, as specified in the original proposal. (The architects had preferred the local West Island granite, but acknowledged that the Harcourt granite was "the best available" unless the government would agree to reopen the quarry on West Island). The materials were chosen in order to provide continuity with Parliament House
, located a short distance away along North Terrace
.
To represent the prologue to the war, the obverse of the monument (the side facing North Terrace) features a relief of the Spirit of Duty
appearing as a vision before the youth of South Australia, represented in the work by a sculptural group consisting of a girl, a student and a farmer abandoning the "symbols of their craft". The three are depicted in normal dress, as they are not yet soldiers and are currently unprepared for the war that is to come, and they are facing away from the world as they look to the vision before them. In Bagot
's original plan, submitted for the 1924 competition, there was to be but a single nude figure kneeling before the vision (for which Bagot posed while in Europe), but Laybourne-Smith's 1926 submission became grander in its scope. In addition, Bagot's original designs were naturalistic, with the Spirit of Duty depicted as a female figure, but under Hoff's direction the figure was changed to male, and the style of the reliefs was changed to Art Deco
—a "radically new" art style for Australia at the time. Hoff, however, presented the sculptural group in the original naturalistic style, thus providing a "bridge between the Renaissance
-style architecture and the Art Deco of the reliefs".
On the reverse side of the monument, facing away from the traffic, is a relief carved into the marble representing the epilogue of the war and depicting the Spirit of Compassion
as a winged spirit of womanhood bearing aloft a stricken youth. Beneath the figure is situated the Fountain of Compassion, the flow of water representing the "constant flow of memories", while the lion's head from which it emerges, (and which bears the Imperial Crown), is representative of the British Commonwealth of Nations
.
The designers acknowledged that the symbolism—especially that of the reverse side—does not represent "victory" in the traditional sense. They stated that the "Arch of Triumph which was built in honour of a Caesar, a Napoleon, no longer expresses the feelings of modern democracy after an international struggle". Instead, the memorial represented a spiritual victory, in which was displayed a "willingness to serve and to sacrifice".
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Within the memorial the architects added an inner shrine, or Record Room, in which could be recorded the names of the South Australians who fell during the war. While the design did not specify the exact form that this would take, in the completed memorial these names are inscribed in the bronzes that line the walls. The design also allowed for a cenotaph
within the inner shrine, which the designers suggested could either be used as a symbolic representation of the unknown soldier
or as the marker to an actual grave, although this aspect was never realised.
The monument is designed to honour both the war dead and all who served in the war—one face being inscribed to those who died in the war, while the other is dedicated to "all who served". On the obverse side is inscribed the words "To perpetuate the courage, loyalty, and sacrifice of those who served in the Great War 1914–1918", while the reverse states "All honour give to those who, nobly striving, nobly fell that we might live". Above the two entrances to the inner shrine were to be inscribed the names of the major theaters in which Australians served in the Great War. Originally it was suggested that this was to be Egypt
, Gallipoli
and Palestine
on one side, with France
on the other, but in the final work Belgium
was added to the list.
Although the central square mile
of the City of Adelaide is designed to the points of the compass, the monument sits at a 45 degree angle to North Terrace
. The architects provided two reasons for this. First, it was observed that "monuments suffer materially from monotonous lighting" when they face to the south; and second, the placing of the monument to face a north-west direction allows it to be in line with both the Cross of Sacrifice and St. Peter's Cathedral
. In addition to these two arguments, Richardson also notes that the diagonal positioning of the memorial permits the dawn sun to fall on the facade.
; the "French Memorial", which commemorates those who fought and died in France during the first and second World Wars; an honour roll of those who died in World War II
; and the "Australian Armed Forces Memorial", encompassing the Malayan Emergency
of 1948–1960, the Korean War
, the Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation
in Borneo, and the Vietnam War
. In addition, the wall which surrounds the northern and western sides of the site features the six "Crosses of Memory"—a series of "simple wooden crosses" commemorating the Siege of Tobruk
from 1941 and the 10th, 27th, 48th and 50th battalions of 1916.
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
n capital of Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
, commemorating those who served in the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. Opened in 1931, the memorial is located on the corner of North Terrace
North Terrace, Adelaide
North Terrace is one of the four terraces that bound the central business and residential district of the city of Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia. It runs east-west, along the northern edge of the CBD.-North Side of North Terrace:...
and Kintore Avenue, in the heart of the central business district
Central business district
A central business district is the commercial and often geographic heart of a city. In North America this part of a city is commonly referred to as "downtown" or "city center"...
and adjacent to the grounds of Government House
Government House, Adelaide
Government House, located in Adelaide on the corner of North Terrace and King William Road, is the official residence of the Governor of South Australia.-History:The original 'Government Hut' was a thatched hut constructed by the seamen of the HMS Buffalo...
. Memorial services are held at the site throughout the year, with major services on both Anzac Day
ANZAC Day
Anzac Day is a national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand, commemorated by both countries on 25 April every year to honour the members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps who fought at Gallipoli in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. It now more broadly commemorates all...
(25 April) and Remembrance Day
Remembrance Day
Remembrance Day is a memorial day observed in Commonwealth countries since the end of World War I to remember the members of their armed forces who have died in the line of duty. This day, or alternative dates, are also recognized as special days for war remembrances in many non-Commonwealth...
(11 November).
First proposed in 1919, the memorial was funded by the Parliament of South Australia, making it the first Australian state war memorial to be confirmed after the war. The design of the memorial was selected through two architectural competitions. The first competition, in 1924, produced 26 designs—all of which were lost before judging could be completed after fire destroyed the building in which they were housed. A second competition, in 1926, produced 18 entries, out of which the design by the architectural firm Woods, Bagot, Jory & Laybourne-Smith
Woods Bagot
Woods Bagot is a global design studio specialising in the design and planning of facilities across three key sectors: education and science, lifestyle, and workplace....
was selected as the winner. The design—effectively a frame for two scenes depicted through Rayner Hoff
Rayner Hoff
Rayner Hoff was a sculptor who worked in Australia.Born on the Isle of Man, Hoff was the son of a stone and wood carver of Dutch descent. He began helping his father on architectural commissions at a very young age and briefly attended the Nottingham School of Art where he studied drawing, design,...
's marble
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...
relief
Relief
Relief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane...
s and bronze statues
Bronze sculpture
Bronze is the most popular metal for cast metal sculptures; a cast bronze sculpture is often called simply a "bronze".Common bronze alloys have the unusual and desirable property of expanding slightly just before they set, thus filling the finest details of a mold. Then, as the bronze cools, it...
—shows the prelude and the epilogue to war, depicting both the willingness of youth to answer the call of duty and the extent of the sacrifices which they made. In this, the work is not displaying a material victory, but instead a victory of the spirit. Bronzes line the walls of an inner shrine, on which are listed the names of all South Australia
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
ns who died during the Great War.
History
Archibald Peake
Archibald Henry Peake was an Australian politician and the 25th Premier of South Australia, serving on three separate occasions in the 1910s.-Early life and career:...
, the premier
Premier
Premier is a title for the head of government in some countries and states.-Examples by country:In many nations, "premier" is used interchangeably with "prime minister"...
of South Australia, asked the state parliament to fund a memorial commemorating the victory and the sacrifice of those who had fought and fallen. The motion was presented in March 1919, and it received unanimous support in the House of Assembly
South Australian House of Assembly
The House of Assembly, or lower house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of South Australia. The other is the Legislative Council. It sits in Parliament House in the state capital, Adelaide.- Overview :...
and the Legislative Council
South Australian Legislative Council
The Legislative Council, or upper house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of South Australia. Its central purpose is to act as a house of review for legislation passed through the lower house, the House of Assembly...
. With the passing of this motion, the South Australian Government became the first in Australia to elect to build a memorial to the soldiers of the First World War.
It was decided by parliament that the new memorial should be referred to as the "National War Memorial", even though it was to be a purely South Australian monument, and in spite of the term already being used to describe the memorial
South African War Memorial (South Australia)
The South African War Memorial is an equestrian memorial dedicated to the South Australians who served in the Second Boer War of 11 October 1899 to 31 May 1902...
to the South African War
Second Boer War
The Second Boer War was fought from 11 October 1899 until 31 May 1902 between the British Empire and the Afrikaans-speaking Dutch settlers of two independent Boer republics, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State...
of 1899–1902. There have been at least two perspectives offered as to why the term "National" was employed. First, as Donald Richardson observed, the name may have been chosen to emphasis the Government's intention that the memorial should commemorate all who served during the war, not just those who came from South Australia; and second, Ken Inglis
Ken Inglis
Kenneth Stanley Inglis is an Australian historian.Inglis completed his Master's degree at the University of Melbourne and his doctorate at the University of Oxford. In 1956 he was appointed as a lecturer to the University of Adelaide...
argued that the name may have reflected the perception, (still held in spite of federation), that the "province is a nation".
1924 competition
The National War Memorial Committee was formed in order to bring the proposal to fruition, and in February 1924 the committee announced an architectural competition to find the design of the new memorial. In the preamblePreamble
A preamble is an introductory and expressionary statement in a document that explains the document's purpose and underlying philosophy. When applied to the opening paragraphs of a statute, it may recite historical facts pertinent to the subject of the statute...
to the conditions of entry, it was stated that the new memorial was to serve the purpose of "perpetually commemorating the Victory achieved in the Great War, 1914–1918, the Supreme and personal sacrifice of those who participated in that War, and the National effort involved in such activities".
British subject
In British nationality law, the term British subject has at different times had different meanings. The current definition of the term British subject is contained in the British Nationality Act 1981.- Prior to 1949 :...
s, and those intending to submit designs were required to file a Statement of Intent prior to 29 February 1924. The competition closed on 30 September 1924, and there was a one guinea
Guinea (British coin)
The guinea is a coin that was minted in the Kingdom of England and later in the Kingdom of Great Britain and the United Kingdom between 1663 and 1813...
entry fee. Three assessors were nominated to judge the entries: the South Australian Architect-in-Chief, A. E. Simpson; local architect Herbert Louis Jackman (representing the South Australian Institute of Architects); and Sir William Sowden.
The committee specified a budget of £25,000, (previously figures of both £5,000 and £100,000 had been discussed), and the conditions of entry stated that the memorial was to be situated at the entrance to Government House
Government House, Adelaide
Government House, located in Adelaide on the corner of North Terrace and King William Road, is the official residence of the Governor of South Australia.-History:The original 'Government Hut' was a thatched hut constructed by the seamen of the HMS Buffalo...
on the corner of King William Street
King William Street, Adelaide
King William Street is the part of a major arterial road that traverses the CBD and centre of Adelaide . It was named by the Street Naming Committee on 23 May 1837 after King William IV, the then reigning monarch, who died within a month...
and North Terrace, placing it just behind the existing memorial to the South African War. This location was counter to previous suggestions: a 1919 survey of architects had proposed that the memorial should be built on Montefiore Hill
Montefiore Hill
Montefiore Hill is a small hill in North Adelaide, South Australia, named after Jacob Montefiore, a Jewish Colonising Commissioner who was a cousin of the British philanthropist, Moses Montefiore. It offers a vantage point over Adelaide Oval, Memorial Drive Tennis Courts, the northern sections of...
, while in 1923 the plans for the memorial involved erecting it at the rear of Government House, rather than at the front.
Significantly, the committee left open the form that memorial would take, beyond stating that the memorial was not to be "utilitarian in character", and debate over the form led to the emergence of a number of suggestions, many of which were covered in the media of the day. These included Dame Nellie Melba
Nellie Melba
Dame Nellie Melba GBE , born Helen "Nellie" Porter Mitchell, was an Australian operatic soprano. She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian Era and the early 20th century...
's proposal to build a carillon
Carillon
A carillon is a musical instrument that is typically housed in a free-standing bell tower, or the belfry of a church or other municipal building. The instrument consists of at least 23 cast bronze, cup-shaped bells, which are played serially to play a melody, or sounded together to play a chord...
of bells; a suggestion by Simpson Newland
Simpson Newland
Simpson Newland CMG , pastoralist, author and politician, was a pioneer in Australia who made significant contributions to development around the Murray River. He was also an author of practical works and novels....
to turn Anzac Highway into a "Way of Honour" by adding triumphal arch
Triumphal arch
A triumphal arch is a monumental structure in the shape of an archway with one or more arched passageways, often designed to span a road. In its simplest form a triumphal arch consists of two massive piers connected by an arch, crowned with a flat entablature or attic on which a statue might be...
es to each end; and Walter Charles Torode's plan to build a 30 meter high "metal and marble" monument on the top of Mount Lofty
Mount Lofty
Mount Lofty is the highest point in the Mount Lofty Ranges. It is located about 15km east of the centre of the city of Adelaide in South Australia and gives unrivalled panoramic views of the city and the Adelaide plains and foothills. It was first climbed by a European when explorer Collet Barker...
with an electric car to carry people to the summit.
In the end a total of 28 architectural firm
Architectural firm
An architectural firm is a company which employs one or more licensed architects and practices the profession of architecture.- History :Architects have existed since early in recorded history. The earliest recorded architects include Imhotep and Senemut . No writings exist to describe how these...
s registered their intent to submit entries to the competition—a lower number than expected, but Richardson suggests this may have been due to work on proposals for the new Adelaide Railway Station
Adelaide Railway Station
Adelaide Railway Station is the central terminus of the Adelaide Metro railway system. It is at on the north side of North Terrace, west of Parliament House. The Adelaide Casino is in part of the building that is no longer required for the station....
. Out of those 28, a total of 26 firms submitted designs by the deadline. Unfortunately, on 10 November 1924, before judging could be completed, the Richards Building in Currie Street was destroyed by fire, taking with it all 26 proposals.
Although most of the judging had been completed before the fire, suggestions at the time that the committee could use what they had learned from the entrants to propose a new competition with greater clarity as to the requirements led to naught: a 1925 letter to the then Premier John Gunn
John Gunn (Australian politician)
John Gunn was the 29th Premier of South Australia.Gunn was born in Bendigo, Victoria, the second of nine children to a Scottish miner and his wife...
reveals that there was little to be learned from the competition, as the assessors had found that none of the designs were suitable.
1926 competition
Governors of South Australia
The Governor of South Australia is the representative in the Australian state of South Australia of Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia. The Governor performs the same constitutional and ceremonial functions at the state level as does the Governor-General of Australia at the national level.In...
. A number of left-wing
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
politicians argued that the grounds of Government House should be turned over to the State and used to build the memorial while the conservatives
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
desired to retain the status quo. By 1925 the National War Memorial committee was prepared to accept the Government House grounds as the site of the memorial, but they delayed making an announcement. This proved to be fortuitous, as legal issues prevented the plan from going ahead. Instead a portion of the grounds, located at the corner of North Terrace and Kintore Avenue, was put aside for the purpose. (The plan to move the Governor and to use the grounds as part of a larger war memorial were revisited, over 80 years later, in 2007).
In 1926, after pressure from the returned soldiers
Returned and Services League of Australia
The Returned and Services League of Australia is a support organisation for men and women who have served or are serving in the Australian Defence Force ....
, a second competition was announced. Once again the budget was set at £25,000. As per the first competition, all entrants had to be South Australian British subjects, and all entries were to be judged anonymously, but this time there was to be only one assessor: John Smith Murdoch
John Smith Murdoch
John Smith Murdoch was the chief architect for the Commonwealth of Australia from 1919, responsible for designing many government buildings, most notably the Provisional Parliament House in Canberra, the home of the Parliament of Australia from 1927 to 1988.-Personal Life:John Smith Murdoch was...
, the chief architect for the Commonwealth of Australia. In deference to the previous competition, the top five entrants from 1924 were each given £75 upon the submission of a new design, and all of the designs were insured
Insurance
In law and economics, insurance is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for payment. An insurer is a company selling the...
by the government for £100 each.
With entries restricted to South Australians, only 18 designs were received—a figure that was "correspondingly fewer" than those received in other states where the competitions were open to all Australians. Nevertheless, in his Assessor's Report, Murdoch acknowledged that the quality of some of the proposals were such that they "probably would not have been exceeded had the competition been more open". After examining the submissions, on 15 January 1927, the design by Louis Laybourne Smith
Louis Laybourne Smith
Louis Laybourne Smith was an architect and educator in South Australia. Born in the Adelaide inner-southern suburb of Unley, he became interested in engineering and architecture while in the goldfields of Western Australia and later studied mechanical engineering at the School of Mines, serving...
, (one of the principals at the architectural firm Woods, Bagot, Jory & Laybourne–Smith
Woods Bagot
Woods Bagot is a global design studio specialising in the design and planning of facilities across three key sectors: education and science, lifestyle, and workplace....
), was selected by Murdoch as the winner.
Walter Bagot (architect)
Walter Hervey Bagot was a South Australian architect. He was one of the last great proponents of the traditional school of South Australian architecture, and remained unconvinced by Modernism...
, but in 1926 Bagot was away in Europe. Thus Laybourne-Smith was responsible for drawing and submitting the final design, although he was clear to highlight the role Bagot played in the "architectural conception" of the monument. While the firm was to be awarded 6% of the cost of the memorial, they refused all but enough to cover their own expenses, asking instead that residues (approximately £1000) be placed in a trust fund to pay for the upkeep of the work. While this is seen as an altruistic act, Richardson noted that Laybourne-Smith was both a member of the National War Committee and sat on the sub-committee which drafted the rules of the competition, and thus it may have been considered "improper" to accept the money.
When announced to the public the design was "universally hailed as a masterpiece". Nevertheless, in writing his report on the result of the judging, Murdoch stated of the winning architect that he "depends almost entirely on the sculptor to tell the story of the memorial, employing in his design no more architecture than that required to successfully frame and set his sculptural subjects, and to provide accommodation to the extent asked for by the conditions". This view was echoed by Inglis, who described the architecture as "essentially a frame for statuary"—an approach that he felt was "unusual" for an architect. As a result of this dependency on the sculpture, some of the other contestants expressed concerns, arguing that the contest was about architectural works rather than sculptural ones, even though the conditions of the competition specifically allowed for sculpture in the proposals.
Construction
Macclesfield, South Australia
Macclesfield is a small town on the upper reaches of the River Angas in the Adelaide Hills region of South Australia. At the 2006 census, Macclesfield had a population of 832....
and Angaston
Angaston, South Australia
Angaston is a town in the Barossa Valley, South Australia, 77 km north east of Adelaide. Its elevation is 347 m, one of the highest points in the valley, and has an average rainfall of 561 mm...
. The South Australian Monumental Works were chosen to work on the construction, with Alan Tillett as the principal. Although no sculptor was named in the winning proposal, it did make mention of a possible candidate—who later proved to be Rayner Hoff, a Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
-based sculptor born in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. Raynor Hoff produced the designs for the sculptures from his Sydney studio, with the bronze castings from Hoff's plaster models being produced by the South Australian firm A. W. Dobbie and Company. (Hoff had expressed reservations that a South Australian company would be capable of handling bronzes of the required size, but a test casting of the lion's head from the memorial was sufficient to overcome his concerns). The two angel reliefs sculpted from the Angaston marble were produced by Julius Henschke in situ from Hoff's designs, expressed through one-third sized plaster models which Henschke then scaled to suit.
Significant delays occurred during construction after a strike by the stonemasons. The stonemasons were demanding a 44 hour week and to be paid at "outside rates", (rates of pay for stonemasons were based on whether or not the work was to be constructed on site in the open air, or inside under cover— Tillet was paying the lower "inside rates", even though most of the work was to be conducted on the site). However, Tillet had tendered on the basis of a 48 hour week at inside rates, and paying extra would have caused significant financial problems. Tillet eventually won after the dispute went before the courts, but the strike had caused considerable financial damage to Tillet's company, which went into receivership
Receivership
In law, receivership is the situation in which an institution or enterprise is being held by a receiver, a person "placed in the custodial responsibility for the property of others, including tangible and intangible assets and rights." The receivership remedy is an equitable remedy that emerged in...
in 1930 and stayed in that state until after the memorial was completed.
The South Australian Government had dedicated £25,000 for the memorial. It was estimated that bulk of the expense would be masonry at £15,300 with sculptural work and landscaping requiring £8,500 and £1,200 respectively. However, the final cost of construction pushed this out to approximately £30,000.
Opening
The National War Memorial in South Australia became the fourth state World War I memorial to be opened when it was unveiled in 1931. Inglis notes that this is in keeping with the size of the constituency, arguing that "[t]he larger the constituency that each of these collective tributes had to represent, the later it was built". It was unveiled before a crowd of almost 75,000 on Anzac DayANZAC Day
Anzac Day is a national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand, commemorated by both countries on 25 April every year to honour the members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps who fought at Gallipoli in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. It now more broadly commemorates all...
, 25 April 1931, (the 16th anniversary of the Gallipoli landing
Battle of Gallipoli
The Gallipoli Campaign, also known as the Dardanelles Campaign or the Battle of Gallipoli, took place at the peninsula of Gallipoli in the Ottoman Empire between 25 April 1915 and 9 January 1916, during the First World War...
), by the Governor Sir Alexander Hore-Ruthven
Alexander Hore-Ruthven, 1st Earl of Gowrie
Brigadier General Alexander Gore Arkwright Hore-Ruthven, 1st Earl of Gowrie VC, GCMG, CB, DSO & Bar, PC was a British soldier and colonial governor and the tenth Governor-General of Australia. Serving for 9 years and 7 days, he is the longest serving Governor-General in Australia's history...
. The crowd, "as huge a crowd as anyone could remember assembling in the city", was unable to fit in front of the memorial, so many thousands assembled at the Cross of Sacrifice in the Adelaide park lands
Adelaide Park Lands
The Adelaide Park Lands are the parks that surround the centre of the South Australian capital city of Adelaide. They measure approximately 7.6 square kilometres in a green belt encircling the city centre....
to await a later ceremony. Hore-Ruthven was introduced by the acting state premier, W. J. Denny, whose involvement in the unveiling, according to Inglis, was unusual for a Labor
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
politician.
Restoration work
In 2001, the memorial's 70th anniversary year, a three-month remedial project was undertaken, restoring the bronze and stonework details and reinforcing the foundations. The work was completed just days before the Remembrance Day services. In 2002 the architects responsible for the restoration, Bruce Harry & Associates, were awarded a Heritage merit award for their work on the memorial by the Royal Australian Institute of ArchitectsRoyal Australian Institute of Architects
The Australian Institute of Architects is a professional body for architects in Australia. Until August 2008, the Institute traded as the "Royal Australian Institute of Architects", which remains its official name....
.
Design
The monument has two sides, referred to by the architects as the reverse and the obverse of the work, which they likened to the two sides of a coin. These two aspects represent the prologue and the epilogue of war. Each side features a relief
Relief
Relief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane...
carved from Angaston marble and framed by the "rough-hewn" arch carved out of marble from Macclesfield, while the granite steps leading up to the monument are constructed of Harcourt
Harcourt, Victoria
Harcourt is a small Central Highlands town located approximately 9 km northeast of Castlemaine, where the Midland Highway meets the Calder Highway. At the 2006 census, Harcourt had a population of 439.-History:...
granite, as specified in the original proposal. (The architects had preferred the local West Island granite, but acknowledged that the Harcourt granite was "the best available" unless the government would agree to reopen the quarry on West Island). The materials were chosen in order to provide continuity with Parliament House
Parliament House, Adelaide
Parliament House, on the corner of North Terrace and King William Road in Adelaide city centre, is the seat of the Parliament of South Australia. It was built to replace the adjacent and overcrowded Parliament House, now referred to as "Old Parliament House"...
, located a short distance away along North Terrace
North Terrace, Adelaide
North Terrace is one of the four terraces that bound the central business and residential district of the city of Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia. It runs east-west, along the northern edge of the CBD.-North Side of North Terrace:...
.
Duty
Duty is a term that conveys a sense of moral commitment to someone or something. The moral commitment is the sort that results in action and it is not a matter of passive feeling or mere recognition...
appearing as a vision before the youth of South Australia, represented in the work by a sculptural group consisting of a girl, a student and a farmer abandoning the "symbols of their craft". The three are depicted in normal dress, as they are not yet soldiers and are currently unprepared for the war that is to come, and they are facing away from the world as they look to the vision before them. In Bagot
Walter Bagot (architect)
Walter Hervey Bagot was a South Australian architect. He was one of the last great proponents of the traditional school of South Australian architecture, and remained unconvinced by Modernism...
's original plan, submitted for the 1924 competition, there was to be but a single nude figure kneeling before the vision (for which Bagot posed while in Europe), but Laybourne-Smith's 1926 submission became grander in its scope. In addition, Bagot's original designs were naturalistic, with the Spirit of Duty depicted as a female figure, but under Hoff's direction the figure was changed to male, and the style of the reliefs was changed to Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
—a "radically new" art style for Australia at the time. Hoff, however, presented the sculptural group in the original naturalistic style, thus providing a "bridge between the Renaissance
Neo-Renaissance
Renaissance Revival is an all-encompassing designation that covers many 19th century architectural revival styles which were neither Grecian nor Gothic but which instead drew inspiration from a wide range of classicizing Italian modes...
-style architecture and the Art Deco of the reliefs".
On the reverse side of the monument, facing away from the traffic, is a relief carved into the marble representing the epilogue of the war and depicting the Spirit of Compassion
Compassion
Compassion is a virtue — one in which the emotional capacities of empathy and sympathy are regarded as a part of love itself, and a cornerstone of greater social interconnection and humanism — foundational to the highest principles in philosophy, society, and personhood.There is an aspect of...
as a winged spirit of womanhood bearing aloft a stricken youth. Beneath the figure is situated the Fountain of Compassion, the flow of water representing the "constant flow of memories", while the lion's head from which it emerges, (and which bears the Imperial Crown), is representative of the British Commonwealth of Nations
Commonwealth of Nations
The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and formerly known as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states...
.
The designers acknowledged that the symbolism—especially that of the reverse side—does not represent "victory" in the traditional sense. They stated that the "Arch of Triumph which was built in honour of a Caesar, a Napoleon, no longer expresses the feelings of modern democracy after an international struggle". Instead, the memorial represented a spiritual victory, in which was displayed a "willingness to serve and to sacrifice".
Cenotaph
A cenotaph is an "empty tomb" or a monument erected in honour of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere. It can also be the initial tomb for a person who has since been interred elsewhere. The word derives from the Greek κενοτάφιον = kenotaphion...
within the inner shrine, which the designers suggested could either be used as a symbolic representation of the unknown soldier
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier refers to a grave in which the unidentifiable remains of a soldier are interred. Such tombs can be found in many nations and are usually high-profile national monuments. Throughout history, many soldiers have died in wars without their remains being identified...
or as the marker to an actual grave, although this aspect was never realised.
The monument is designed to honour both the war dead and all who served in the war—one face being inscribed to those who died in the war, while the other is dedicated to "all who served". On the obverse side is inscribed the words "To perpetuate the courage, loyalty, and sacrifice of those who served in the Great War 1914–1918", while the reverse states "All honour give to those who, nobly striving, nobly fell that we might live". Above the two entrances to the inner shrine were to be inscribed the names of the major theaters in which Australians served in the Great War. Originally it was suggested that this was to be Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, Gallipoli
Gallipoli
The Gallipoli peninsula is located in Turkish Thrace , the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles straits to the east. Gallipoli derives its name from the Greek "Καλλίπολις" , meaning "Beautiful City"...
and Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
on one side, with France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
on the other, but in the final work Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
was added to the list.
Although the central square mile
Adelaide city centre
The Adelaide city centre is the innermost locality of Greater Adelaide, known by locals simply as "The City" or "Town". The locality is split into two key geographical distinctions: the city "square mile", bordered by North, East, South and West Terraces; and that part of the Adelaide Parklands...
of the City of Adelaide is designed to the points of the compass, the monument sits at a 45 degree angle to North Terrace
North Terrace, Adelaide
North Terrace is one of the four terraces that bound the central business and residential district of the city of Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia. It runs east-west, along the northern edge of the CBD.-North Side of North Terrace:...
. The architects provided two reasons for this. First, it was observed that "monuments suffer materially from monotonous lighting" when they face to the south; and second, the placing of the monument to face a north-west direction allows it to be in line with both the Cross of Sacrifice and St. Peter's Cathedral
St Peter's Cathedral, Adelaide
St Peter's Cathedral is an Anglican Cathedral in the South Australian capital of Adelaide. It is the seat of the Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Adelaide...
. In addition to these two arguments, Richardson also notes that the diagonal positioning of the memorial permits the dawn sun to fall on the facade.
Adjacent memorials
Although the National War Memorial was initially proposed as a memorial to those who served in "The Great War", the site has since grown to incorporate a number of smaller memorials. These include a memorial to the Battle of Lone PineBattle of Lone Pine
The Battle of Lone Pine was a battle between Australian and Turkish forces that took place during the Gallipoli campaign from 6–10 August 1915. It was part of a diversion to draw attention from the main assaults of 6 August against the Sari Bair peaks of Chunuk Bair and Hill 971, which became...
; the "French Memorial", which commemorates those who fought and died in France during the first and second World Wars; an honour roll of those who died in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
; and the "Australian Armed Forces Memorial", encompassing the Malayan Emergency
Malayan Emergency
The Malayan Emergency was a guerrilla war fought between Commonwealth armed forces and the Malayan National Liberation Army , the military arm of the Malayan Communist Party, from 1948 to 1960....
of 1948–1960, the Korean War
Military history of Australia during the Korean War
The military history of Australia during the Korean War was very eventful. Japan's defeat in World War II heralded the end to 35 years of Japanese occupation of the Korean Peninsula...
, the Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation
Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation
Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation during 1962–1966 was Indonesia’s political and armed opposition to the creation of Malaysia. It is also known by its Indonesian/Malay name Konfrontasi...
in Borneo, and the Vietnam War
Military history of Australia during the Vietnam War
Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War began as a small commitment of 30 men in 1962, and increased over the following decade to a peak of 7,672 Australians deployed in South Vietnam or in support of Australian forces there. The Vietnam War was the longest and most controversial war Australia...
. In addition, the wall which surrounds the northern and western sides of the site features the six "Crosses of Memory"—a series of "simple wooden crosses" commemorating the Siege of Tobruk
Siege of Tobruk
The siege of Tobruk was a confrontation that lasted 240 days between Axis and Allied forces in North Africa during the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War...
from 1941 and the 10th, 27th, 48th and 50th battalions of 1916.