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War memorial. Group of three figures with winged victory at the centre, holding flaming torch in rh and flanked by figures of a boy and a girl. All three walking over symbols of war (a helmet, sword and dead serpent).

This memorial was raised in memory of the men of the Manchester Post Office who died fighting in the First World War. The comparatively slow collection of funds among local post office workers may help to explain why the memorial was perceived as a peace rather than as a more conventional war memorial. It was not finally completed until almost a decade after the Armistice. The organising committee made it clear that the memorial should be one that emphasised peace not war, the causes of the First World War being rooted in 'jealousy, intrigue and armaments' resulting in 'unmeasured havoc in all combatant countries'. Peace was 'something for which men and women must strive without ceasing'. The Manchester sculptor, John Ashton Floyd was given the commission for the sculpture. His models included a local child, Bill Reeves, whom Floyd had seen playing in the street close to his studio in Plymouth Grove. The memorial was placed in the main hall of the city's new post office in Spring Gardens where, in March 1929, it was unveiled by the Reverend Dr F. W. Norwood of the City Temple. In a ceremony in which the music was provided by the Postmen's Military Band and an eighty- strong staff choir, Norwood spoke of the memorial as 'beautifully, reverently dedicated to peace.' It was in keeping with the message inscribed on the pedestal- 'Strive For Peace' that among the guests was the German consul. The memorial was, according to the Evening Chronicle, "a constant reminder of the necessity to seek peace."(1) The peace memorial remained in Spring Gardens until the 1960s when redevelopment resulted in its removal and re-location outside the entrance of the city's parcel office in St Andrew's Street, near Piccadilly Station. Following the closure of that office in 1995, it was transferred to its present, more public position, at the entrance to the city's main sorting office on Oldham Road. The Manchester Post Office Peace Memorial was re-dedicated by Christopher Mayfield, Bishop of Manchester, in April 1997, the ceremony attracting a far smaller number of people than the 3,000 who had gathered to see it unveiled in 1929.

Manchester post office workers who fell in both world wars.

circa

raw year

Condition

At risk

Inscriptions

Signatures

Figures

Bronze

210cm high (largest figure)

Pedestal

Granite

102cm high x 137cm wide x 100cm deep

Base

Brick

300cm diameter

Previous treatments

Painted brown

Cracks, splits, breaks, holes

Crack and rust to r foot of rh figure (girl)

None