Pearl Centre war memorial

The Pearl Centre war memorial was erected in 1919 and designed by Sir George James Frampton RA, commemorating the employees of the Pearl Assurance Company who died in the First World War. Later, in the 1960s, four additional bronze plaques were added to remember those who lost their lives in the Second World War.

The memorial is rectangular in plan and consists of a bronze statue of St George trampling a dragon, set upon a tall granite plinth. The plinth bears bronze plaques to all four sides, and sits upon a three-stepped granite base with corner posts. The statue depicts St George in armour from around 1450, holding a cruciform sword in his right hand, with the hilt encircled by a wreath, and resting his left hand on a shield shaped like a cross. A signature ‘GEO. FRAMPTON RA / 1919’ is inscribed on the bronze base of the statue’s east elevation. A band of cast-bronze ornament runs around the top of the plinth, featuring high-relief sculptures of a soldier's helmet within a wreath on the east and west elevations, and low-relief panels depicting aviation and maritime wartime scenes on the north and south elevations. The granite plinth bears bronze plaques with the names of 444 employees who died in the First World War (1914-18) in low relief. The south elevation plaque reads: ‘OF THE STAFF OF THE PEARL / ASSURANCE COMPANY THESE / GAVE THEIR LIVES FOR THE / FREEDOM OF THE WORLD IN THE / YEARS OF OUR LORD 1914-1918’. The west elevation plaque reads: ‘THEY PASSED AWAY IN THE DAYS / OF THEIR STRENGTH. THEY / LIVE FOREVER IN THE UNDYING / FACT OF THEIR SACRIFICE.’

The east elevation of the adjoining Pearl Centre building incorporates four bronze plaques inscribed and painted with the names of 215 employees who died in the Second World War (1939-45), each reading: ‘MEMBERS OF THE STAFF OF PEARL ASSURANCE COMPANY LTD / WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES FOR FREEDOM IN / WORLD WAR 1939-1945.’

The memorial and plaques are located within a dedicated memorial garden to the east of the Pearl Centre. The garden was designed by Chapman Taylor Partners and built between 1989 and 1992 and is a listed building (NHLE 1462664), with landscape design by Professor Arnold Weddle of the Landscape Research Office Ltd (NHLE 1462808).