Royal Tank Regiment Memorial

Royal Tank Regiment Memorial

The Royal Tank Regiment Memorial is a sculpture by Vivien Mallock in Whitehall Court, London. It commemorates the Royal Tank Regiment.

The sculptural group depicts the five-man crew of a World War II-era Comet tank at 1½ times life size.[1] General Sir Antony Walker, who was in charge of fundraising for the memorial, described it as "a memorial to the men of the regiment, rather than the machines".[2] It is an enlarged version of a maquette by George Henry Paulin in the Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset, which dates to 1953. Mallock's husband had been an officer in the RTR in the 1960s.[2] A resin cast of Mallock's group also stands outside the Tank Museum.[2]

The memorial was unveiled by Queen Elizabeth II, Colonel-in-Chief of the RTR, on 13 June 2000. She was escorted to the ceremony by an armoured Rolls Royce from 1924, a precursor to the tank. The date was the centenary of a battle in the Second Boer War in which the tank pioneer Sir Ernest Dunlop Swinton first realised the value of using armoured machines in warfare.[2] Other memorials to the RTR are in Newcastle-upon-Tyne[3] and the National Memorial Arboretum in Alrewas, Staffordshire.

The memorial in situ, with the Old War Office Building behind 
Bovington Tank Museum, Dorset 
The RTR memorial in the National Memorial Arboretum 

References

  1. ↑ "Royal Tank Regiment Memorial", Vivien Mallock Bronze Sculptor, retrieved 8 July 2016
  2. 1 2 3 4 Ward-Jackson, Philip (2011), Public Sculpture of Historic Westminster: Volume 1, Public Sculpture of Britain, 14, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, pp. 430–32, ISBN 978-1-84631-691-3
  3. ↑ Historic England. "Royal Tank Regiment War Memorial (1355210)". National Heritage List for England.

Coordinates: 51°30′22″N 0°07′28″W / 51.5061°N 0.1245°W / 51.5061; -0.1245

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