Qualla: Tower Hill Memorial

Tower Hill Memorial: Introduction

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chris McKenna, CC BY-SA 4.0. They were not soldiers, and that is exactly the point. The men and women named on the bronze panels at Tower Hill carried fish from the North Atlantic. They carried Argentine beef and Canadian wheat and South African coal. They carried mail, oil, lumber, ammunition, and one another's children. They were merchant seafarers and they were civilians, and Germany sank their ships anyway. The first memorial here lists about 12,000 names from the First World War. The second, just behind it through a sunken garden, lists about 24,000 from the Second. Their dedication is the same, carved into Portland stone in both places: WHO HAVE NO GRAVE BUT THE SEA.

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Image: Chris McKenna | CC BY-SA 4.0

Tower Hill Memorial: The Argument Over Recognition

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Harry Mitchell, CC BY-SA 4.0. When the Imperial War Graves Commission was set up in 1917, it was given charge of "members of the military and naval forces of the Crown" - the Royal Navy, the Army, the new Royal Air Force. The Admiralty took the view that merchant seamen were not their problem; they would hand...

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Image: Harry Mitchell | CC BY-SA 4.0

Tower Hill Memorial: Lutyens's Compromise

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ralf Roletschek (talk) - Fahrradtechnik auf fahrradmonteur.de, FAL. Edwin Lutyens was the IWGC's principal architect and the designer of the Cenotaph. His first proposal for a merchant marine memorial was a great arch on the bank of the Thames itself, a structure to be seen by everyone passing on the river. The Royal Fine Art Commission rejected ...

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Image: Ralf Roletschek (talk) - Fahrradtechnik auf fahrradmonteur.de | FAL

Tower Hill Memorial: The Names

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chris McKenna, CC BY-SA 4.0. The First World War memorial is a Doric pavilion of Portland stone, open at both ends, 21.5 metres long. Inside, the floor is laid in a black and white chequerboard pattern. The walls are clad in bronze panels, divided into 24 numbered sections, organized first by ship and then a...

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Image: Chris McKenna | CC BY-SA 4.0

Tower Hill Memorial: Maufe's Sunken Garden

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chris McKenna, CC BY-SA 4.0. Second World War losses were worse. 4,786 ships sunk, around 32,000 lives lost - the Battle of the Atlantic the longest continuous campaign of that war. The Commission asked Edward Maufe, by then its principal UK architect, to design a complementary memorial. He proposed extendin...

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Image: Chris McKenna | CC BY-SA 4.0

Tower Hill Memorial: Falklands and Forward

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Carcharoth, CC BY-SA 4.0. A third memorial was added in 2005, after years of campaigning by the Merchant Navy Association. The work of sculptor Gordon Newton, it is a three-metre bronze sundial mounted on a granite base with a bronze anchor at its centre. Around the base are plaques naming 17 merchant sea...

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Image: Carcharoth | CC BY-SA 4.0