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Extract from The Board of Trade Journal, December 20, 1923: Part 2THE BOARD OF TRADE WAR MEMORIAL UNVEILED BY THE PRIME MINISTER
The Memorial to those Officials of the Board of Trade who fell in the War was unveiled by the Prime Minister yesterday at the offices of the Board. Over two thousand men left the Board of Trade to join His Majesty's fighting Forces, and the Memorial…..is inscribed with the names of those three hundred and five men who did not return. Every man among the fallen who enlisted from the Board of Trade, as it existed at the time of his enlistment, has been included.
The staff of the Board of Trade decided, towards the end of 1921, to set up a Memorial to their colleagues who had fallen, and a competition for a War Memorial design, open to all members of the Board of Trade, was held. The Selection Committee, consisting of Sir H Llewellyn Smith, GCB; Mr R J Allison, Chief Architect of the Office of Works; and Mr E J Elliot, chose the design of Mr H Slicer as the best.
The Memorial, which is a bronze plate mounted in an oak frame, and surmounted by the hull of a galleon, was executed by Messrs William Morris & Co (Westminster) Ltd to the design of Mr Slicer, the Board's Senior Draughtsman.
Among the names included on the Memorial there are those of recipients of the following Honours:- Two Distinguished Service Orders, eight Military Crosses, two Distinguished Conduct Medals, three Military Medals, and one Croix de Guerre; one or two of these men also were mentioned in Despatches. Many other Honours and distinctions were won by the staff of the Board of Trade who returned. The Roll of Honour includes two brothers named C and A Parker and two other brothers named H G and F T Libby, the latter of whom won the Military Medal.
The Board invited to be present at the unveiling ceremony all ex-Presidents and ex-Parliamentary Secretaries to the Board, and relatives of the men whose names appear on the Memorial. A certain number of Officers of the Board who have retired, and over 130 relatives, including Major J D Birchall MP, were able to be present, some from as far away as Glasgow, Cardiff, Devon, Somerset, Staffordshire and Bradford. There are still living eleven ex-Presidents of the Board of Trade, and fifteen ex-Parliamentary Secretaries. The names of the ex-Presidents range from Mr G W Balfour to Mr Baldwin himself, and include Lord Salisbury, Mr Lloyd George, Mr Churchill, Lord Buxton, Mr John Burns, Mr Walter Runciman, Lord Ashfield, Sir Auckland Geddes, and Sir Robert Borne. The senior representative in the list of ex-Parliamentary Secretaries is the veteran Lord Eversley, who, as Mr Shaw Lefevre, was Parliamentary Secretary more than fifty years ago (in 1869-71).
At the ceremony of unveiling the Dedication Service was performed by the Chaplain-General of the Forces, Bishop J Taylor Smith CB, CVO, DD. Sir Philip Lloyd-Greame MP, the President, read the lesson from Rev viii, 12-17. Trumpeters of the Royal Horse Guards, by kind permission of Lieutenant-Colonel R G H Howard-Vyse CMG, DSO, sounded the Reveille and the Last Post, and a choir of members of the staff of the Board of Trade led the singing of the hymns.
At the close of the service a party consisting of Mr J Briglin, of the Mercantile Marine Office, Hull; Captain F Pollitt, of the War Medals Branch; and Mr E W R Medway MM, of Establishment Department, deposited a wreath at the foot of the Memorial, on behalf of the Staff of the Board.
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Extract from The Board of Trade Journal, December 20, 1923: Part 2
