Portsmouth War Memorial

The Portsmouth War Memorial stands in Guildhall Square, at the heart of the city on England’s south coast. It marks the heavy losses suffered by a naval port whose dockyard and armed forces provided much of the work in the early 20th century. A committee chose a site beside the railway embankment near the Town Hall, later renamed the Guildhall when Portsmouth became a city. The architects James Gibson and Walter Gordon designed the structure, while the sculptor Charles Sargeant Jagger created its bronze figures and reliefs. Jagger had served in the war, won the Military Cross, and afterwards became best known for war memorials. The Duke of Connaught unveiled the memorial in 1921, before all the bronze panels were in place. The memorial’s semicircular sunken recess, or exedra, holds a 6-metre screen wall with bronze panels listing the names of 4,500 dead. The names are grouped by service: army on the northern side, navy on the southern, and a smaller section for the Royal Air Force. Two archways pierce the wall, one leading beneath the railway into Victoria Park, the other out of the square. Above the panels is the inscription “THEIR NAME LIVETH FOR EVERMORE.” Flanking the entrances are Jagger’s life-size figures of a soldier and a sailor, each armed with a machine gun. The wall’s piers carry bronze-coloured urns set on seats and carved with trophies and shields. Guildhall Square was remodelled in the 1970s, and the memorial was adjusted to fit the new layout. In the 21st century a second wall was added nearby, bearing the names of those lost in the Second World War and a monument to that conflict. The First World War memorial itself is a grade II* listed building. Visitors walk between the bronze panels, past the sailor and soldier, and through the archways into the surrounding square and park.