[7] His chosen subject was St Christopher carrying a child, and this allegorical approach, which Historic England terms manhood defending, became a regular motif in his work, as it is at Kingston.

The memorial is topped by a large bronze sculpture, which depicts a nude warrior raising aloft a burning crucifix in his left hand, while his right holds a sword which he uses to strike a serpent.

An earlier example, from 1914, was the memorial to the feminist social reformer Margaret MacDonald at Lincoln's Inn Fields, itself Grade II listed.

[8][9] Cast into the base of the bronze sculpture are lines from the fourth stanza of Laurence Binyon's poem For the Fallen; "AT THE GOING DOWN OF THE / SUN AND IN THE MORNING / WE WILL REMEMBER THEM".

The pedestal inscription was revised after the Second World War to include mention of the town's dead from that conflict, but the names of individuals were not inscribed on the memorial.

The ceremony of dedication for the Kingston memorial was held on 11 November 1923 and was led by Frederick George Penny, the town's member of parliament and later created 1st Viscount Marchwood.