War Memorials in Australia

Desert Mounted Corps Memorial - Albany

Place: Albany, Western Australia, 6330
District: Southern Coastal
Orientation:
Location: Summit of Mount Clarence
Position: 35 01 51 S     117 53 72 E
Ref: 60090

__________________________

More commonly known as the Light Horse Memorial, this memorial commemorates the men of the Australian Light Horse Brigade as well as the New Zealand Mounted Rifles, the Imperial Camel Corps and the Australian Flying Corps who lost their lives in Egypt, Palestine and Syria between 1916 and 1918.

Unveiled in 1968, this memorial consists of a free-standing cast bronze figure of two troopers and their horses set on a granite base.  It is a replica of the original memorial which stood at Port Said in Egypt depicting a mounted Australian Light-Horseman defending a New Zealand Mounted Rifleman standing beside his wounded horse. It is said to be based on an incident in the charge at El Arish in 1917.

The original memorial was partly paid for by light horsemen, mounted infantrymen, cameleers and army nurses who raised £5,400 by subscribing a day's pay towards its cost. The Commonwealth Government provided another £11,600. It was designed by C Webb Gilbert who won the design competition and a prize of 250 guineas in 1923. He died before it was finished, a report at the time saying "the execution of a colossal task far beyond his experience and physical powers broke Gilbert's heart."  Paul Montford, a leading British sculptor, was chosen to carry on the work.  He worked steadily but the memorial did not seem to show the results of his efforts.  The task was passed on to another Australian sculptor, Sir Bertram Mackennal who, with a team of British assistants completed the monument but he died before he had the honour of seeing it unveiled.

On 23 November 1932 it was unveiled on behalf of the Australian and New Zealand Governments by Australia's war time Prime Minister W. M Hughes who was on his way back from a League of Nations meeting in Europe. The proceedings were broadcast by radio telephone over the 15,000 miles (24,000 kilometres) between Egypt and Australia, the first such direct broadcast between those two countries.

On the night of 26 December, 1956, during the Suez conflict, an Egyptian crowd attacked the Anzac monument, smashing it with hammers and large stones. Egyptian newspaper Al Akhbar reported the memorial would be blown up with dynamite. Police were posted beside the memorial to protect it and forbade the use of explosives but took no steps to prevent youths defacing it. It was pulled from its base and smashed beyond repair. The mob tore off the legs and tail of the New Zealander's horse, smashed away the legs, tail and half the head of the Australian's horse and sawed off the head, arms and legs of the New Zealander.  The figure of the Australian light horseman disappeared. When peace returned to the area the United Arab Republic agreed to the request of the Australian and New Zealand Governments to release the damaged memorial and its polished Gabo Island granite plinth which were then shipped to Australia.

Melbourne sculptor and former official war artist Raymond Ewers and his assistant Cliff Reynolds reconstructed the statuary, first fashioning a clay working model one sixth the size of the original. From this plaster impressions were taken, providing a more permanent medium as a full-size model. This was then shipped in sections to Italy where the final bronze casting was undertaken by founder P. Bataglia of Milan.

The Australian Returned Services League and the New Zealand Returned Services Association agreed that it should be erected in Albany overlooking King George Sound where the first Anzac convoy had assembled before departure. The New Zealand Government gave its approval and agreed to pay half the cost.  The Albany suggestion met with opposition, led by MP Sir Wilfred Kent-Hughes, one of only two light-horsemen in the Federal Parliament.  He said all the Desert Mounted Corps Associations, except the 10th Light Horse Association based in Western Australia, wanted the memorial re-erected in Canberra, that location being more accessible to the majority of potential viewers. However, a decision was made by the Minister for the Interior, Gordon Freeth, who also represented Albany in Parliament, to proceed and the re-created memorial on its original base was unveiled in Albany on 11 October 1964, by the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies. The crowd attending the ceremony numbered several thousand and included about 160 medalled veterans of the Light Horse Brigade and several New Zealand campaigners as guests of honour.

Agitation continued and another replica was erected in Anzac Parade in Canberra. It was unveiled by the Prime Minister, John Gorton, on 19 August 1968.

Some years after its re-construction the Albany memorial began to show signs of weathering and corrosion. The stonework became stained by algae, the bronze statue was pitted and water entered the inside of the monument causing more damage. In February 1977 a $1000 grant from the Commonwealth Government was use to have the stonework chemically cleaned and damage to the bronze repaired to prevent the entry of water.

In 1985, the head of one of the horses on the Port Said monument, the only remaining fragment, was placed on a 15 year loan from the Australian War Memorial to the Albany Residency Museum.

There is a granite semi-circular wall on the north, south and west sides of the memorial and two flagpoles on the north and south sides.

East face
AUSTRALIA
AND
NEW ZEALAND
1916 - 1918

Bronze plaque below

Other faces
Blank

Incised in granite wall on west side of monument
ERECTED BY THEIR COMRADES & THE GOVERNMENTS OF AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND IN MEMORY OF THE
MEMBERS OF THE AUSTRALIAN LIGHT HORSE, THE NEW ZEALAND MOUNTED RIFLES, THE IMPERIAL CAMEL
CORPS & THE AUSTRALIAN FLYING CORPS WHO LOST THEIR LIVES IN EGYPT, PALESTINE & SYRIA.  1916 - 1918.

Granite plaque on concrete and stone seat on north east side of monument
APEX DRIVE
LEADS TO THE RE-CONSTRUCTED ORIGINAL DESERT MOUNTED
CORPS MEMORIAL WHICH WAS DESECRATED DURING THE BRIEF
EGYPTIAN SUEZ WAR IN 1956. THE MEMORIAL WALK STAIRS WERE
BUILT AND FINANCED BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AT THE REQUEST
OF MR ROSS STEELE OF THE ALBANY SUB-BRANCH OF THE R.S.L.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PLACEMENT OF THE DESERT MOUNTED
CORPS MEMORIAL HERE IS THAT IT OVERLOOKS THE ASSEMBLY PLACE
AND POINT OF DEPARTURE ON 1/11/1914 OF THE FIRST CONVOY
OF AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TROOPS TO WORLD WAR ONE.

HAD APEX DRIVE NOT BEEN BUILT BY THE APEX CLUB THIS
MEMORIAL WOULD PROBABLY HAVE BEEN ERECTED IN CANBERRA.

DONATIONS WILL FURTHER THE DEVELOPMENT.

Other image(s) - Click for larger view


Bronze statuary

Information current to November 2000

Sources: The Memorials of Anzac Parade, pamphlet produced by the National Capital Authority, Canberra, undated
                 Inglis, K. S., Sacred Places - War Memorials in the Australian Landscape, Melbourne University Press, Carlton South, 1999
                The Inglis Collection in Australian War Memorial, AWM PR 00944
                Herald, Melbourne, 27 December 1956
                Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 27 December 1956
                Mail, Adelaide, 17 October 1959
                Sun-Herald, Sydney, 1 November 1959
                Courier-Mail, Brisbane, 25 April 1961
                Daily News, Perth, 17 November 1962
                Canberra Times, Canberra, 12 October 1964
                Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 12 October 1964
                West Australian, Perth, 23 February 1977
                Website of Albany and Great Southern Weekender www.albanyweekender.com.au/articles/wk-st-150600-memorial.html as at 5 February 2000           

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