Buildings of Interest

Description

The statue was the work of Sir Wilam Goscombe John RA (I860-1950), one of the finen sculptors of his generation it became a popular meeting point for special occasions Unfortunately, the statue suffered increasingly from pollution and vandalism, and was removed in 1968.

Messrs. Whitehead and Sons, Ltd., of Westminster. Aberdeen, and Carrara, were responsible for the design and execution of the monument, which cost £360. 

The now statue, supplied by Stonelove Sculpture, was placed here in 2013 by the Friends of Wigan’s Boer War Memorial with the support of the public, grants from the Brighter Borough Fund, the Duchy of Lancaster, the Friends of Meshes Park. The Heritage Lottery Fund, the Manchester Guardians, and SAVE Wigan, with the help of the Royal Mercian and Lancastrian Yeomanry, the Grenadier Guards Cadets, the King’s Royal Hussars Cadets, the Air Training Corps, and Wigan Leisure and Culture Trust.

Previous war memorials had immortalised the commanders, but in this new democratic age, all the war dead were commemorated. Sir Francis Sharp Powell MP, whose statue sits in the Park. acknowledged the controversy but declared that 'there was no difference as to the regard and estimation in which they held those who fought for England* Councillor Fyans, who organised the public subscription that paid for the memorial, regarded it as *a memorial, which should be for all time a monument to the bravery of Wigan’s soldiers'.