page_title: Southampton Cenotaph
section_title: Commissioning
hierarchical_section_title: Southampton Cenotaph / Commissioning
caption_attribution_description: English: Sculptural detail of a lion on the southern side of the Southampton Cenotaph.
context_page_description: Southampton Cenotaph is a First World War memorial designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and located in Watts Park in Southampton, southern England. The memorial was the first of dozens by Lutyens to be built in permanent form and it influenced his later designs, including The Cenotaph on Whitehall in London. It is a tapering, multi-tiered pylon which culminates in a series of diminishing layers before terminating in a sarcophagus which features a recumbent figure of a soldier. In front is an altar-like Stone of Remembrance. The cenotaph contains multiple sculptural details including a prominent cross, the town's coat of arms, and two lions. The names of the dead are inscribed on three sides. Although similar in outline, Lutyens' later cenotaphs were much more austere and featured almost no sculpture. The design uses abstract, ecumenical features and lifts the recumbent soldier high above eye level, anonymising him.
  The memorial was unveiled at a public ceremony on 6 November 1920. Shortly afterwards, concerns emerged that the list of names on the cenotaph was incomplete.
context_section_description: Shortly after the signing of the Armistice in November 1918, a public meeting was held in the city of Southampton which voted to construct a memorial to honour the city's war dead. A committee, headed by the Lord Mayor of Southampton, Sidney Kimber, was elected and discussions began as to what form such a memorial should take. The committee decided that their preferred option would be to construct a single, high-quality memorial in a good location within Southampton and began to consider architects and locations, with a proposed budget of £10,000. Alfred Gutteridge, an architect on one of the sub-committees, knew and recommended Lutyens, who travelled to Southampton to meet Kimber, Gutteridge, and other members of the committee in January 1919.
  Lutyens argued successfully against the committee's initial proposed location on Asylum Green in favour of Watts Park. His initial design featured a Stone of Remembrance (an altar-like monolith used in most IWGC cemeteries and several of Lutyens' memorials in Britain) with a substantial archway on either side, each archway supporting a recumbent figure of a soldier on a sarcophagus. This was rejected due to the likely cost and instead Lutyens suggested a single empty sarcophagus or cenotaph, supported by a plinth, on top of a pillar (pylon) with pine cones mounted on urns standing on each side. This was agreed to at a public meeting in September 1919 and detailed work on the project began. The London firm of Holloway Brothers were selected as the contractor for the memorial; the project was completed on time in 1920 at a total cost of £9,845.
caption: Sculpted lion on the southern face of the Southampton Cenotaph
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