At the end of the Great War Swansea, in common with every town and city in Britain, had a large number of its soldiers and airmen lying in a foreign field while most of its lost mariners rested in the deep, dark bosom of the ocean.
With no grave for a family to visit it was the town or village war memorial that acted as a focal point for remembrance. Ernest Morgan, the Borough Architect at Swansea Corporation, designed the cenotaph that now stands on the foreshore at Swansea, borrowing from the work of Edwin Lutyens and his cenotaph in London.
The foundation stone of the cenotaph at Swansea was laid by none other than Field Marshall Douglas Haig in 1922. The FM also received the freedom of the Borough during his visit. The work was officially unveiled a year later by Admiral of the Fleet Doveton-Sturdee, victor of the Battle of the Falklands, a forerunner of the 1982 conflict. Since then the cenotaph has seen almost a century of remembrance, the ceremonies being held in November of every year.
With no grave for a family to visit it was the town or village war memorial that acted as a focal point for remembrance. Ernest Morgan, the Borough Architect at Swansea Corporation, designed the cenotaph that now stands on the foreshore at Swansea, borrowing from the work of Edwin Lutyens and his cenotaph in London.
The foundation stone of the cenotaph at Swansea was laid by none other than Field Marshall Douglas Haig in 1922. The FM also received the freedom of the Borough during his visit. The work was officially unveiled a year later by Admiral of the Fleet Doveton-Sturdee, victor of the Battle of the Falklands, a forerunner of the 1982 conflict. Since then the cenotaph has seen almost a century of remembrance, the ceremonies being held in November of every year.
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