Walter Marsden - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Career

Walter Marsden MC

Military Cross

The Military Cross is the third-level military decoration awarded to officers and other ranks of the British Armed Forces; and formerly also to officers of other Commonwealth countries....

(1882–1969) was an English sculptor and one of many ex-servicemen to work on war memorials after World War I. Marsden had served as an officer in the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment and was awarded a Military Cross

Military Cross

The Military Cross is the third-level military decoration awarded to officers and other ranks of the British Armed Forces; and formerly also to officers of other Commonwealth countries....

fighting in the Third Battle of Ypres in 1917,. He was later taken prisoner and sent to a prisoner of war camp near Heidelberg in Germany.
Marsden was born in Church near Accrington in Lancashire, England and most of his war memorials were erected in Lancashire towns.
Marsden worked at the Accrington Brick and Tile Company, whose owners, the McAlpine family, recognised his talent, and encouraged him to study at the Accrington Technical School. From there, Marsden secured a place at the Manchester Municipal College of Art and then studied at the Royal College of Art

Royal College of Art

The Royal College of Art is an art school located in London, United Kingdom. It is the world’s only wholly postgraduate university of art and design, offering the degrees of Master of Arts , Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy...

Works

1. The war memorial at St Annes on Sea in Lancashire. This and the war memorial at Bolton

Bolton

Bolton is a town in Greater Manchester, in the North West of England. Close to the West Pennine Moors, it is north west of the city of Manchester. Bolton is surrounded by several smaller towns and villages which together form the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, of which Bolton is the...

are thought by many to be two of the finest of our war memorials and surely owed much to the fact that Marsden had witnessed the horrors of warfare first-hand when serving on the Western Front. In one photograph featured we see the figure of "Victory" on the top of this memorial and at the end of the article further photographs of the St Annes memorial. The memorial was unveiled on the 12 October 1924. One of the figures to the side of the central column is the soldier “with twisting body and clenched fist”, and the second shows a seated woman holding a baby. In Derek Boorman’s excellent book “A Century of Remembrance” ISBN 1-84415-316-9 the author states- “The other is of a mother with a child on her knee and the artist wished to convey that she had just been told of her husband’s death and in her shock barely noticed the child’s pleadings.”.
Photographs of these two powerful sculptures are shown below as well as the figure of “Victory” at the top of the memorial.

• The war memorial at Bolton

Bolton

.Below we see the two sculptures by Marsden on the Bolton War Memorial. Part of the inscription reads “Tell ye your children/Our brothers died to win a better/World our part must be to strive/for truth goodwill and peace that/their sacrifice be not in vain/Lest we forget.” and another “In undying memory of the men/and women of Bolton who gave/their lives in The Great War/1914-1919/1939-1945”. The memorial was unveiled by the Earl (17th) of Derby on the 14 July 1928.
• The war memorial at Tottington in Lancashire. This includes two badges designed by Marsden and the words "We owe more tears to these dead men than time shall see us pay", words adapted from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. One badge features the rays of a rising sun (Regeneration) and the second a dove (Peace). A photograph of one of these badges is shown below.
• The war memorial at Heywood in Lancashire. . This was unveiled on the 22 August 1925. A statue representing Peace stands in front of a cenotaph with bowed head and bearing a laurel wreath. The inscription on the memorial reads “To the/Men of Heywood/Who gave their lives/for us during The/Great War 1914–1918”. See closeup below of central figure of "Peace". and below that a photograph of the memorial inscription.

• The war memorial at Church which was Marsden’s birthplace features a Portland Stone figure representing “Peace” and it was unveiled on the 18 September 1923 by Lieutenant Colonel G.C.H.Bolton. This memorial stands in Gatty Park on the Hyndburn Road and in front of Elmfield Hll, In Elmfield Hall itself there is a plaque made by Marsden again commemorating those lost in the Great War. The inscription on the main memorial reads “1914-1918/They whom this monument commemorates were numbered amongst those who, at the call of King and Country left all that was dear to them; Endured Hardness;Faced danger and finally passed out of sight of men by the giving up of their own lives that others might live in freedom. Let those who come after see to it that their names be not forgotten/1939-1945”
• Another Marsden work can be seen At The White Church Fairhaven, a United Reform church, on Clifton Drive in Fairhaven, just by St Annes on Sea, Marsden carved the names of men who lost their lives in the 1914–1918 war on the pulpit in that church. On the front face of the pulpit Marsden carved an "Angel of Truth" bearing the body of a soldier. This work was completed in 1921

• Marsden also worked on the Bude War Memorial at Bude in Cornwall. This comprises a tapered square stone pillar on a single step, surmounted by representations of a “TOC H” lamp and stone flame. Plaques with names inscribed are around the base of the column. 1WW and 2WW inscriptions about base of column and base step. Sword of Sacrifice on each side of the inscription and carved foliate plaques are on each side of the top of the column. This memorial was unveiled in 1922 by the Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall.

External links

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