Cavalry of the Empire Memorial

A committee was formed in early 1920 to consider a proposal for a memorial in London to the cavalrymen who had served in the First World War.

According to figures in Volume 8 of the History of the British Cavalry 1816–1919 by Henry Paget, 7th Marquess of Anglesey, nearly 4,500 cavalrymen were killed on the Western Front, and another 15,000 were wounded.

For the memorial, Jones designed a bronze equestrian statue of St George, depicted as a mounted knight in armour with sword raised aloft, slightly larger than life size, with his horse standing over the coils of a slain dragon (with upturned Germanic moustache).

Brunet designed a classical backdrop for the statue, built with Portland stone, which shielded the memorial from Park Lane.

The backdrop housed a bronze plaque listing the 150 cavalry units from Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, Pakistan and the UK, that served in the forces of the British Empire in the First World War, along with the names of four British cavalry officers who became Field Marshals: Haig, French, Allenby and Robertson.