This is a Raphael Tuck postcard dating from the mid 1930s showing the Admiralty extension looking north east from the Horse Guards Approach Road. Horse Guards Parade was used as a car park for civil servants well into the 1980s until security concerns put an end to this perk. Also shown is the Royal Naval Division Memorial on the south west corner. The Memorial was unveiled on 25th April 1925 by Major-General Sir. Archibald Paris the General Officer commanding the Division at the defence of Antwerp in 1914. Winston Churchill, who was 1st Lord of the Admiralty at the time gave a commemorative address. It was dismantled in 1939 whilst the Citadel was being built and put into storage until it was reassembled at The Royal Naval College in Greenwich. When the college was sold the memorial was rededicated on its original site on 13th November 2003.
Here is the Times newspaper account of the first unveiling ceremony, reported in the Monday 27th April issue.
R.N.D. WAR MEMORIAL UNVEILED
MR. CHURCHILL ON SPIRIT OF SACRIFICE
The memorial to the 582 officers and 10,925 other ranks of the Royal Naval Division who fell in the War, which has been designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and erected on the Horse Guards Parade, was unveiled on Saturday by Major-General Sir Archibald Paris, the General Officer Commanding the Division at the defence of Antwerp in 1914. Mr. Churchill, who was First Lord of the Admiralty when the Division began its war services, delivered a commemorative address. The memorial is in the form of a fountain, with an obelisk rising from a shallow basin, built of Portland stone, and is raised above the balustrade flanking the Admiralty building at its southwest corner, nearest to St. James’s Park. The base is decorated with the crests of the units composing the Royal Naval Division. On the panel of the west side of the base are the following lines, written by Rupert Brooke while he was on active service with the Division:-
Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead! There’s none of these so lonely and poor of old, But dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold. These laid the world away; poured out the red Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be of work and joy, and that unhoped serene, That men call age; and those who would have been, Their sons; they gave, their immortality.
The Order of Service contained this famous sonnet which Brooke also wrote while he was in the Royal Naval Division:-
If I should die, think only this of me; That there’s some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, Shaped, made aware, Gave once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blessed by suns of home,
And think, this heart, all evil shed away.
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England
given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her
day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness.
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
The ceremony was attended by a large gathering of members of the Division, relatives of the dead, and naval and military officers. Mrs. Brooke, mother of the poet, was present; also, Vice-Admiral Sir Roger Keyes, General Sir Ian Hamilton, Lieut-Colonel B.C. Freyberg, VC., Brigadier-General A.M. Asquith, D.S.O., Captain H.D. King. MP., D.S.O., and Captain Oliver Backhouse. A guard of honour was furnished by the London Division of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. The memorial was dedicated by the Rev. Bevill Close, and a Roman Catholic service was also conducted by Father Eric Green.
Mr. CHURCHILL said: - Every one, I think, must admire the grace and simplicity of this fountain, which the genius of Lutyens has designed. The site also is well chosen. Here, under the shadow of the Admiralty building, where, 11 years ago, the Royal Naval Division was called into martial life, this monument now records their fame and preserves their memory. Their memory is thus linked for ever with the Royal Navy, whose child they were, of whose traditions they were so proud, and whose long annals, rich with romantic and splendid feats of arms, contain no brighter page than theirs. But if the place is well chosen, so also is the day. This is April 25, and ten years ago the astonishing exploit of landing on the Gallipoli Peninsular was in full battle. And we here, who have so many memories in common, almost seem to hear the long reverberations of the distant cannonade, and certainly we feel again in our souls the awful hopes and awful fears of those tragic hours. A mellow light seems to the mind's eye to surround this monument. The passers-by who in other days pause to drink of its water or to examine its design will be held by something else. The famous lines oi Rupert Brooke inscribed upon its panel will make their own appeal and tell their own story to anyone who loves this island or speaks the English tongue.
These verses, and others given in the order of service, have brought comfort to so many who sought it long and wearily; and whose spirit seemed broken, but who nevertheless found relief in reading and repeating their noble utterance. Their high, calm peace rises confidently above the tumult, and the carnage, and beyond all error and confusion; it reigns by right divine over men and over centuries. We meet his verses everywhere. They are quoted again and again. They are printed in newspapers, written in books, blotted by tears, or carved in stone. But they belong to us, to the Royal Naval Division, to the memory of Rupert Brooke and his comrades and companions. They were the inheritance he bequeathed to them, and through them to us all. They are inscribed on this memorial because it is their proper home, and from here, while these stones endure, they will carry to the ears of generations differently attuned from ours the chant of valiant youth entering willing and undaunted into the Valley oi the Shadow of Death.
THE YEARS
Ten years and more have gone since this parade ground used to be thronged by bands of volunteers marching off to join the Army amid the blare of music and at their country's call. Nearly. seven years have gone since victory was won; since all the kings and emperors against whom we warred were driven into exile, and all their mighty armies shattered and dispersed. Those years have not been years of joy or triumph. They have been years of exhaustion, despondency, and bickerings all over the world, and we are often tempted to ask ourselves what have we gained by the enormous sacrifices made by those to whom this memorial is erected. But this was never the issue with those who marched away. No question of advantage presented itself to their minds. They only saw the light shining clear on the path of duty. They only saw their duty to resist oppression, to protect the weak, to vindicate the profound but unwritten law of nations, to testify to truth and justice, and mercy among men. They never asked the question, “What shall we gain? " They asked only the question “Where lies the right?” It was thus that they marched away for ever, and yet from their uncalculating exaltation and devotion, detached from all consideration of material gain, we may be sure that good will come to their countrymen and to this island they guarded in its reputation and safety so faithfully and well. Bold indeed will be the tyrant who seeks again to overthrow by military force the freedom which they established. After the confusion has passed away and the long period of reconstruction has been closed it will be perceived by all that the freedom, not only of individuals, but also of States, has been established upon a broader and stronger foundation.
Humanity, for all its sufferings and disappointments, has yet moved forward through the Great War at least one long stage towards the realization of its ideals. And this country and Empire, saved by its sons from the worst perils which have confronted it during its long history, remains still able to guide, to encourage, and in a large measure to inspire the peoples of the world. Doubts and disillusions may be answered by the sure assertion that the sacrifice which these men made was not made in vain. And this fountain to the memory of the Royal Naval Division will give forth not only the waters of honour, but the waters of healing and the waters of hope.
The proceedings closed with the singing of “God Save the King.”
