TOPIC:

Please find below more legible images of the panels on the memorial, without shadow etc!

Steve - an accidental find! I have had a look for any repeats later in the war but without success to date. I have had to electronically shrink it by an order of magnitude - will email you the original. Even includes a Smethwickian but already aware of him. David.

David,

Great find! Showing addresses and next of kin. A really useful reference/resource for the future.
It also suggests further updates as the casualty lists grew.
Unfortunately for my own collection, none of my Brummie recipients are on there!

During lockdown I began to compile histories of men named on the Cannon Hill Memorial. I knew that this would be an undertaking that would be a long project. But this list is a great help.

Cheers Steve

Steve - still cannot find any periodic updates on the Birmingham Soldiers Killed list but I have found what could be called the final outcome, or nearly so with 474 names against the War Memorial's final 521.

Birmingham Mail 11 April 1903:



Not the same detail as before but quite a few with given names and all with unit served in.

This list has allowed me to progress further with a marginal Smethwickian - Dunsbee - he worked in Smethwick but born & lived just over border in Birmingham.

Don't know whether you have tried investigating Private F Clarke - if you have I suspect guess you failed to get anywhere as he served as 121 Private Frederick Gunn, 2nd Battalion Coldstream Guards - he was born in Warwick and invalided home and died at Netley Hospital from enteric fever.

I still find it hard to believe that amongst the 474 and even 521 there is only one officer. However on investigation he proves worthy of a post and I have found 3 photos of him as an infant, on his wedding day and one that appeared in The Graphic following his death.

Again have had to electronically shrink and will email you the whole page.

See Berenice answer 4 years ago: www.roll-of-honour.com/Warwickshire/BirminghamBoerWar.html
List of 513 names

The Boer War Soldiers Memorial for Birmingham was unveiled 23rd June 1906 in Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham by Lieutenant-general Sir Ian Hamilton. It stands at the northern end of the park near Edgbaston Road. The sculptor was Albert Toft. There are 513 names inscribed on the memorial. The memorial takes the form of a red granite base surmounted by tapering pedestal and a sculpture of a female figure, gun carriage and two soldiers. There is a bronze bas-relief on the front face and name panels on the other three faces of the pedestal. The figures are of two soldiers in heroic pose who flank a gun carriage in the centre. Above them stands a female figure representing peace. On her left arm she supports a shield bearing the city arms and an olive branch. In her right hand she once held a wreath but this is now missing. On the front of the pedestal the relief shows two classical female figures representing grief and sympathy, holding wreaths and supporting a shield with an inscription.

Elmarie - the last time I saw the Cannon Hill Park Boer War Memorial was about half a century ago and I definitely did not count the names on the panels and neither have I counted the number of names on the Roll of Honour website.

When the memorial was unveiled on 23 June 1906 it also occupied a whole page of the Birmingham Mail which had this to say about the number of names on the panels:



The final arbiter will have to be Steve as the photos he has posted don't seem to include all the panels.

There was some controversy before and after it was erected. Apparently there was a large chestnut tree near the chosen spot and several people wrote letters to the Birmingham Mail saying the tree should be felled as it would detract from the memorial with the exception of a local doctor and his sidekick. After it was unveiled a bereaved mother, who lived the other side of the city, felt it should have been more centrally placed and the idea of moving it was discussed at a City Council meeting. A man wrote in saying that having Peace (the female figure at the top) standing on a machine of death was not right.

David.