In pictures: Remembrance Sunday in Cambridge marks 100 years since installation of city’s war memorial
The Remembrance Sunday service in Cambridge marked 100 years since the city’s war memorial was installed in Hills Road.
A procession from Station Road to the memorial was followed by a commemorative service and the laying of wreaths, including by the mayor of Cambridge, Cllr Mark Ashton, and the city’s MP, Daniel Zeichner.
The Armed Forces and Royal British Legion were joined by a range of organisations and a large crowd gathered in remembrance and to observe two minutes’ silence in memory of the fallen, as they did in villages and towns across Cambridgeshire.
It was on July 3, 1922 that the then Duke of York - later King George VI - unveiled the war memorial in Hills Road in front of thousands of people, and with a guard of honour from the Cambridgeshire Regiment.
Its installation came after a memorial committee was convened by the Lord Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire Charles Adeane in January 1919, following the end of the First World War.
Amid debate over the type of memorial that should be created, two were approved.
A series of oak panels were installed in St George's chapel at Ely Cathedral, where 6,000 casualties of the war are listed alphabetically.
And the Cambridge war memorial was designed by Canadian sculptor Robert Tait McKenzie.
It is topped by the bronze statue of a soldier, standing 7ft (2.1m) tall, modelled on Kenneth Hamilton, an undergraduate at Christ’s College, Cambridge, and designed to represent victory.
He is walking home, up Hills Road towards the city centre, and glancing over his shoulder towards the railway station.
He holds his helmet and a rose, and there is another fallen at his feet. A laurel wreath is on his rifle, encircling a German helmet that is carried on his backpack as a trophy of war.
While the mayor was among those at the memorial on Sunday (November 13), the deputy mayor, Cllr Jenny Gawthrope Wood, joined a procession to the county, city and University of Cambridge’s annual Service of Remembrance at Great St Mary’s Church.
Meanwhile, Lion Yard also hosted its annual Remembrance Day parade. It is the only shopping centre in the country to do so.
About 200 people attended the Remembrance Sunday service in Trumpington.
After the lament and the roll call of those lost from Trumpington during the two world wars, wreaths were placed by local dignitaries, cadets, and members of the public, including children, at the memorial at the junction of Church Lane and High Street.
And at the Imperial War Museum Duxford, the Royal Anglian Regiment held a traditional Service of Remembrance, followed by a flypast by IWM’s Spitfire N3200 and a poppy drop over the airfield.
The village of Duxford was also among those across Cambridgeshire holding its own service.
In Ely, there as a Remembrance service at the cathedral. The City of Ely Military Band, standards and marching contingents then paraded from the cathedral via The Gallery, Minster Place, High Street to the Market Place for a wreath-laying service at Ely war memorial, concluding with a further two-minute silence, followed by a march past the war memorial.
Two days earlier, on Armistice Day, the Cambridge American Cemetery at Madingley marked American Veterans’ Day with a service, at which the vice chair of South Cambridgeshire District Council, Cllr Peter Fane, represented the authority and laid a wreath.
There will be further coverage and pictures from the services in the Cambridge Independent, out from Wednesday.
