Merchant Navy War Memorial

Merchant Navy War Memorial

A war memorial erected in 1952 at Georges Pier Head, designed by London architects Stanley Harold Smith and Charles Frederick Blythin, with sculptural detailing by H Tyson Smith of Liverpool. The memorial commemorates 1,390 merchant seamen who lost their lives at sea serving on Royal Navy vessels during the Second World War under the T124 agreement, a newly instigated arrangement under which merchant seamen enrolled with the Royal Navy while retaining Merchant Navy rates of pay and conditions.

The design comprises a raised semi-circular enclosure with short straight walls extending on either side, entered by a centrally placed flight of six steps. The lowest step extends along the outside base of the enclosure walls to form a low shelf for placing wreaths. The enclosure is constructed of reinforced concrete faced with Portland stone.

Within the enclosure are 24 tall rectangular bronze plaques shaped in section like the pages of an open book, containing the names of the dead arranged alphabetically under the names of over 120 ships on which the seamen had served. Eight plaques are sunk into the upper faces of the curved walls on either side of the steps, with four more on each of the straight extensions. One additional name plaque below this level towards the far end of the right wing lists those who died on land but whose graves are unknown.

Either side of the steps stand gate posts surmounted by white stone globes: the left bears a terrestrial globe, the right a celestial globe bearing the signs of the Zodiac. Two bronze plaques mark the entrance to the enclosure; the left plaque directs visitors to a register at the offices of the Town Clerk and the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, while the right plaque notes that the memorial was built and is maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Stone benches are set against the interior faces of the curved walls. At the centre stands a circular column surmounted by silver-backed glass lenses evoking a lighthouse. Near its base is a carved inscription reading "These officers and men of the Merchant Navy died while serving with the Royal Navy and have no grave but the sea 1939-1945", accompanied by a Naval badge, Naval crown, wreath and foul anchor. The pavement around the base of the column is designed as a mariner's compass.

The memorial was designed following a national competition run by the Imperial (later Commonwealth) War Graves Commission, with an original budget of £5,000. It was unveiled by Admiral of the Fleet Viscount Cunningham on 12 November 1952.