WWI Memorial

Ref: HLMP2/003

This is situated between the northern end of the King’s Bastion and the southern end of Zoca Flank Battery and replaced part of the original Line Wall which was demolished in the early years of the 20th century. In 1921, the then Governor ordered that the height of the walls in this location should be lowered in order to create an open recreational centre and that a double set of steps should be constructed to give access to the lower area, i.e. Reclamation Road. A commemorative plaque to this effect, reads as follows: ‘This Esplanade and these steps were constructed in the year 1921 during the Governorship of His Excellency General Sir Horace Lockwood Smith-Dorrien G.C.B., G.C.M.G., D.S.O. They form a Memorial of his regard for the welfare of the People of Gibraltar.’

Two years later, on 27th September 1923, His Excellency the Governor, General Sir Charles Monro, unveiled the Gibraltar War Memorial, which was erected in the centre of the Esplanade, just above the main stairway. The Memorial was the work of the Spanish sculptor from Barcelona, José Piquet Catolí, at a cost of £1700, which was raised by public subscription. The sculpture in Carrara marble featured a bluejacket and a soldier, standing side by side, guarding the national flag and holding aloft a gilded laurel wreath. The height of the group from the base to the top of the flag-staff is 18 feet and stands on a quadrilateral pedestal 10 feet high of local limestone cut from the Catalan Bay Quarry.

ose Piquet Catoli working on the monument (Neville Chipulina).

War Memorial, Gibraltar 1920's.

Signed Jose Piquet photo of the WWI memorial models (Tito Vallejo).

The monument is positioned on an esplanade and steps, west of the City Hall and John Mackintosh Square, upon which there are several inscribed tablets. Four tablets are inscribed on the actual monument and two on the esplanade steps. Commemorative tablets are affixed to each of the four faces of the pedestal, having the following inscriptions:

East Side

‘In grateful remembrance of the Citizens of Gibraltar who gave their Lives in The Great War.

Benzecry, Solomon Bossano, Leopold

Gustavino, Joseph Harrison, Lionel Joseph Briggs

Jones, Albert Oliveri, Edward

Piri, Francis Daniel Pitman, Michael Albany Wallace

Reading, Harry Ruggier, Alfred J.

Ryan, Andrew Stewart, Thomas M. C.

Undery, John’

North Side

‘To the Memory of all Officers & Seamen of the Gibraltar Straits Patrol who gave their Lives for their King and Empire in The Great War’

South Side

‘To the Memory of the Officers & Men of all Services who gave their Lives in the Great War and are interred at the North Front Cemetery where their names are recorded’

West Side

‘This Memorial was erected by the People of Gibraltar to commemorate The Great War’.

In grateful remembrance of the citizens of Gibraltar who gave their lives during the Great War.

Officers & Seamen Memorial plaque.

Officers & men memorialplaque.

A separate tablet on the esplanade steps bears the following inscription:

‘This Esplanade and these Steps Were Constructed in the Year 1921 During the Governorship of His Excellency General Sir Horace Lockwood Smith Dorrien G.C.B., G.C.M.G., D.S.O. They Form a Memoria of His Regard for the Welfare of the People of Gibraltar.’

Another tablet was incorporated on the esplanade steps following WWII which reads:

‘This tablet is dedicated by Belgium to the Fortress of Gibraltar in grateful recognition of the warmth and understanding with which during the years 1940–1944 it received Belgians from enemy occupied Europe on their way to serve in the Allied struggle for freedom 21st July 1945’.

A second tablet on the right reads:

‘To Our Heroes of Gibraltar and of the Straits Patrol 1914–1918 This tablet is Dedicated by the Association of Gibraltarian Residents in the Argentine Republic’.