Royal Artillery Memorial by Charles Sargent Jagger

A new project where I've been asked to make in 1/6 scale the three standing figures on the WW1 R.A memorial at Hyde Park Corner in London.

The figures were sculpted by Charles S. Jagger and depict a Captain, a horse team driver and an ammunition carrier. The fourth figure which I'm not making is a dead figure lying under his greatcoat, waiting to be processed for burial.The memorial is topped by a full size 9.2" B.L. Howitzer; the addition of which caused great controversy when it was unveiled. The gun was originally meant to face the other way. I'm not entirely sure why but it could have been a similar symbolic stance to soldiers holding their guns downwards when remembering fallen comrades. The figures are all stylised to a certain extent in terms of their exaggerated build and poses and they are loaded with symbolism. The driver for instance rests on the monument itself, arms outstretched as if emulating Christ's sacrifice on the cross. His feet are positioned such that from a certain angle they could be seen to be the position of Christ's feet as they would have been when nailed together. It's an incredibly moving monument.
This is an interesting project for me for several reasons. All my ancestors that we know about that fought in WW1 were in the artillery and were all killed during the war. I love British art from around this era, particularly the WW1 war artists. You can see the influence of the Futurists and Vorticists on Jagger in his frescoes that surround the memorial. I have had a long standing interest in making WW1 figures which you can see if you navigate to the right hand side of the blog and take a look at what's there.
I've been recording the progress of this project in an A3 sketchbook
so I'll be uploading photos of pages from that to illustrate the process that's been going on.

RESEARCH:

 

 

 

I decided to make the driver first as he is to me the most visually interesting figure of the three. Fortunately there are loads of photos of the memorial on the net so finding reference wasn't a problem. Knowing a bit about what WW1 artillery men wore also helped as it was fairly easy to decipher the equipment he was wearing.

 

His raincape was a bit of a mystery. it wasn't easy finding reference for this particular version or for the steel gaiter he's wearing on his right leg to stop it being crushed when driving the horse team.

 

 

It looks like the bridle chain can move which must be a really eery thing to hear walking past this figure in the dark on a windy night! I love the idea of a part of something so static having movement.

 

 

Help for the raincape came from Richie Elbourne who had some excellent reference and had made one for Tony Barton. Tony very kindly sent me his cape to take measurements from.

 

 

 

I have to make each of these figures static which will be a new departure for me and they have to be fixed to their own plinth.

It will be interesting to see how I can get them to look so creased and physically overscale while still working in 1/6

 

 

 

Due to DiD's fortunately timed foray into WW1 figures, there is an abundance of British kit available. The raincape, gaiter and ph hood bag will have to be scratchbuilt. The helmet and messtin which is hiding round the back of this figure are coming from Tony. The rest will be mainly DiD with boots from Newline as they're huge and will fit this figure perfectly. The figure itself will be one of the new muscular giants you can now buy.

Whilst I'm waiting for all the parts to arrive, I can start work on the heads.........