|
Between 1923 and 1936, the Imperial War Graves Commission erected a series of memorial tablets in French and Belgian cathedrals to commemorate the British Empire dead of the First World War. The tablets were erected in towns in which British Army or Empire troops had been quartered. The prototype Commission memorial tablet, placed in Amiens Cathedral in 1923 alongside tablets previously erected to other Empire troops, was dedicated to the 600,000 dead of Britain and Ireland. The subsequent design of the Commission's tablet brought together the British Royal Coat of Arms with those of India and the imperial dominions: South Africa, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Newfoundland. The tablet's inscription, written by Rudyard Kipling, referred to the "million dead" of the Empire. Produced by Reginald Hallward to a design by architect H. P. Cart de Lafontaine, the tablets were erected in twenty-eight cathedrals and churches, twenty-three in France and five in Belgium, with the bilingual inscriptions in each country in English and French, and English and Latin respectively. They were unveiled by a range of dignitaries, including members of the royal family, diplomats, politicians, and British Army generals who had commanded troops on the Western Front. A tablet of the same design, but with an inscription referring to the dead buried in the "lands of our Allies", was unveiled in Westminster Abbey in 1926 and later installed in what became St George's Chapel. Replicas or copies of the Westminster Abbey tablet were distributed to churches or cathedrals in Hamilton and Vancouver in Canada, and in Baghdad in Iraq. Copies or reproductions are located at the museum at Delville Wood in France, in Fremantle, Australia, and in Liverpool, UK. Versions of the prototype Amiens tablet and the standard tablet used in France are held at the headquarters of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in Maidenhead, UK. ==Origin and design== The Imperial War Graves Commission had been established by Royal Charter in 1917. Following the cessation of hostilities in 1918 at the end of the First World War, the Commission continued developing its plans to commemorate the war dead of both the British Army and troops from the Empire and its Dominions. The Commission had responsibility for war graves, but it was less clear who had responsibility for memorials. The Commission drew a distinction between individual commemoration of the dead and more general monuments such as battle exploits and regimental memorials. These latter were to be dealt with by a Battle Exploits Memorial Committee established in 1918 by the British Army's Adjutant-General. By 1919, a Cabinet-level desire for memorials to the army as a whole led to the establishment of the National Battlefield Memorials Committee, chaired by the Earl of Midleton. As plans progressed, it became apparent that the proposals for national battlefield memorials would overlap with those made by the Commission for memorials to the missing. In 1921, rather than fund two separate schemes, the responsibility for general war memorials was transferred from the National Battlefield Memorials Committee to the Imperial War Graves Commission. One of the proposals taken up from the Committee and acted upon by the Commission was the recommendation that commemorative tablets be "erected in French cathedrals which had particular associations with British troops during the war". The Commission's committee to co-ordinate this consisted of Lieutenant General Sir George Macdonogh, Sir Herbert Creedy (Secretary to the War Office), the Commission's literary advisor Rudyard Kipling, and the Commission's founder and vice-chairman Fabian Ware. The design was by Commission architect H. P. Cart de Lafontaine, with the tablets produced by sculptor Reginald Hallward. Cart de Lafontaine spoke fluent French, and in addition to designing the tablets he negotiated with the cathedral authorities. The scheme was expanded to include cathedrals in Belgium as well. In some cases, the cathedrals had been badly damaged, and the placement of tablets was delayed until reconstruction had been completed. Other considerations included the placement of the tablet in the available space within the cathedrals, with some using a horizontal design instead of a vertical one. The prototype tablet, produced for Amiens Cathedral, featured the Royal Coat of Arms and an inscription that referred to the armies of Great Britain and Ireland.〔 All the later Commission tablets used a design that differed from the prototype tablet in that it brought together elements from all the dominions and India. This standard design, following consultations with the College of Arms, had the Royal Coat of Arms surrounded by the shields of the coats of arms of the five Dominions: the Union of South Africa, the Commonwealth of Australia, the Dominion of New Zealand, the Dominion of Canada and the Dominion of Newfoundland. The Indian Empire was represented by the insignia of the Order of the Star of India and its motto 'Heaven's light our guide'. Some designs of the tablet referred to 'The United Kingdom', while others referred to 'The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland'. The text within the main design includes the mottoes used in the Royal Coat of Arms: Honi soit qui mal y pense and Dieu et mon droit. The material used was gilded and coloured gesso set in a stone surround. Other design elements included a banded laurel-like border with carved roses in each corner and one at bottom centre.〔 Some designs differed in the placement of the names of the dominions, and some varied in the colours used. The Westminster tablet is 5 feet 10 inches by 2 feet 10 inches (177.8 cm by 86.36 cm). The Ypres tablet is 266 cm by 127 cm. File:Canadian Coat of Arms Shield 1921.png|Arms of Canada File:South Africa Shield 1910-1928.svg|Arms of South Africa File:Arms of New Zealand.svg|Arms of New Zealand File:Simple arms of Newfoundland and Labrador.svg|Arms of Newfoundland File:Shield of arms of Australia.svg|Arms of Australia 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Memorial tablets to the British Empire dead of the First World War」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|