page_title: Machine Gun Corps Memorial
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Machine Gun Corps Memorial / History
caption_attribution_description: English: The Boy David by Edward Bainbridge Copnall, Chelsea Embankment, Cheyne Walk. Machine Gun Corps Memorial. Fibreglass replacement after the original by Francis Derwent Wood was stolen in 1963.
context_page_description: The Machine Gun Corps Memorial, also known as The Boy David, is a memorial to the casualties of the Machine Gun Corps in the First World War. It is located on the north side of the traffic island at Hyde Park Corner in London, near the Wellington Arch, an Equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington, the Royal Artillery Memorial, the New Zealand War Memorial, and the Australian War Memorial.
context_section_description: The memorial was originally erected next to Grosvenor Place, near Hyde Park Corner, and unveiled on 10 May 1925 by Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn. Four former members of the Corps who received the Victoria Cross – Arthur Henry Cross, Reginald Graham, Allan Ker, and William Allison White – placed a wreath after a dedication by the Chaplain-General to the Forces Alfred Jarvis.  The memorial was controversial, as some interpreted the beautiful statue with its accompanying Vickers guns, and the reference to slaying hundreds and thousands, as glorifying war.  There were letters in The Times and discussion in the House of Commons.  Despite these interpretations, Derwent Wood wanted to depict the true nature of war, and in particular the solitary conflict of the machine gunner.  Although already in his 40s, he had enlisted in 1915 to serve as an orderly in the Royal Army Medical Corps; he designed masks to be worn by soldiers with facial disfigurements caused by their wounds, and was fully aware of the horrors of modern mechanical warfare.
  The memorial was dismantled due to roadworks in 1945, and was not reconstructed for many years. It was rededicated at its present location, in the central section of Hyde Park Corner, in 1963. It received a Grade II listing in 1970, and was upgraded to Grade II* in July 2014. The Machine Gun Corps Old Comrades' Association holds an annual observance in May and a memorial service on Remembrance Sunday in November each year.
  Another example of the David statue was erected at Cheyne Walk on Chelsea Embankment.  The original by Edward Bainbridge Copnall, based on Wood's version, was stolen in 1969, and a fibreglass replacement was unveiled in 1975.  Another bronze example by Wood is held by the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia.
  The Machine Gun Corps had several branches.  The Cavalry Branch has a war memorial in Folkestone, near the Corps' barracks at Shorncliffe.
caption: Edward Bainbridge Copnall's The Boy David on the Chelsea Embankment
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