War Memorials in Australia
Spanish Civil War Memorial
Place:
Yarralumla, Australian Capital Territory, 2600
District:
Southern Tablelands
(ACT)
Orientation: Suburb of Canberra
Location: In Lennox Gardens, off Flynn Drive near Hotel Canberra
Position: 35 17 91 S 149 07 27 E
Ref: 00024
__________________________
The memorial is a wall of sandstone blocks with red brick courses. There is a low sandstone and brick parapet on its north east side. On the wall is a bronze plaque, headed AUSTRALIANS IN THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR 1936 TO 1939 above a bas relief map of the Iberian peninsular showing towns where major battles took place during the war. The bronze map was made by Dr Ross Bastiaan who has placed a number of similar plaques in Australia and other countries commemorating Australian military endeavours. Below this is a plaque with a description in both Spanish and English. There is another small plaque on the upper right of the wall in memory of the maker of the memorial, Netta Burns.
The pavement in front of the monument is made of pink and black granite cobblestones with a black circular pattern directly in front of the plaques.
The memorial was instigated by a group wanting to commemorate Australians' participation in the Spanish Civil War. The Australian War Memorial could not accommodate them as the men and women who went to support the republican cause were not 'Australian forces'. The Australian Capital Territory government assisted them to place the monument by Lake Burley Griffin and it was unveiled in 1993 by Lloyd Edmunds, one of the last surviving Australian members of the International Brigades.
Plaque on south east face
Text in Spanish on left side, English on right
| This monument honours the seventy Australian men and | ||
| women who went to Spain during the Spanish civil war of | ||
| 1936-39 to defend the cause of the Spanish Republic. | ||
| . | ||
| A Republican Government was elected in Spain in 1931 and | ||
| a democratic constitution promulgated. In July 1936 a group | ||
| of Spanish generals led by Francisco Franco staged a military | ||
| uprising against the Popular Front Government precipitating | ||
| a bloody civil war. When the conflict ended in April 1939 General | ||
| Franco's Nationalist forces controlled the country. | ||
| . | ||
| During the civil war some 50,000 supporters from fifty-three | ||
| different countries went to Spain to defend the Republic. For | ||
| them the Spanish civil war represented the first battle in a larger | ||
| war against fascism. | ||
| . | ||
| The Australian writer Nettie Palmer who was in Barcelona | ||
| when the uprising occurred said of those who supported the | ||
| Spanish Republic - though they were few in number and not | ||
| powerful and seemed often to be shouting against the wind | ||
| theirs was truly a brave chapter in Australia's history. | ||
____________ |
||
| This memorial erected by the Australians in Spain Memorial | ||
| Committee was dedicated on 11 December 1993 by Lloyd | ||
| Edmonds, International Brigade veteran. |
Plaque to right of map
IN MEMORY OF
NETTA BURNS
TRUE BELIEVER IN
SPANISH DEMOCRACY
MAKER OF THIS MEMORIAL
HER SPANISH AND AUSTRALIAN
FRIENDS IN CANBERRA
1996
Information current to March 2000
Sources: Inglis, K. S., Sacred Places - War Memorials in the Australian Landscape, Melbourne University Press, Carlton South, 1999