Gurkha Memorial, London

The memorial in 2008. Whitehall Court is in the background.

The Memorial to the Brigade of Gurkhas on Horse Guards Avenue, Whitehall, London, was unveiled by Queen Elizabeth II on 3 December 1997. This was the first memorial to Gurkha soldiers in the United Kingdom, and was occasioned by transfer of their headquarters and training centre from Hong Kong to London in 1997. The sculptor was Philip Jackson, working from a statue of 1924 by Richard Reginald Goulden in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and the plinth was designed by Cecil Denny Highton.[1]

Two casts of Goulden's sculpture had previously been erected in locations in Nepal as World War I memorials to the Gurkhas, the first at Kunraghat in 1928 and the second at Birpur in 1930. The memorial in London is more than one and a half times the size of this model, so Jackson worked the figure up in his own style and from a living model, Captain Khemkumar Limbu.[1] One of several inscriptions on the plinth is a quotation from Sir Ralph Lilley Turner, a former officer in the 3rd Gurkha Rifles.

Richard Reginald Goulden's original at the Foreign Office 
Inscription by Sir Ralph Turner 

Inscriptions

The Inscription

THE GURKHA
SOLDIER
Bravest of the brave,
most generous of the generous,
never had country
more faithful friends
than you.

Professor Sir Ralph Turner MC

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Ward-Jackson, Philip (2011), Public Sculpture of Historic Westminster: Volume 1, Public Sculpture of Britain, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, pp. 66–7
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Coordinates: 51°30′18″N 0°07′30″W / 51.50509°N 0.12503°W / 51.50509; -0.12503

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