The central column of light grey marble is topped with a 9 feet (2.7 m) high bronze statue of a nude David by Francis Derwent Wood.

[1] The inscription on the main column reads: ERECTED TO/ COMMEMORATE/ THE GLORIOUS/ HEROES/ OF THE/ MACHINE GUN/ CORPS/ WHO FELL IN/ THE GREAT/ WAR, and then below, a Biblical quotation from 1 Samuel 18:7: "Saul has slain his thousands/ but David his tens of thousands".

Although already in his 40s, he had enlisted in 1915 to serve as an orderly in the Royal Army Medical Corps; he designed masks to be worn by soldiers with facial disfigurements caused by their wounds, and was fully aware of the horrors of modern mechanical warfare.

The Machine Gun Corps Old Comrades' Association holds an annual observance in May and a memorial service on Remembrance Sunday in November each year.

[4] A variant sculpture of the Boy David by Edward Bainbridge Copnall, inspired by Derwent Wood's statue, was erected on another memorial to the dead of the Machine Gun Corps at Cheyne Walk on Chelsea Embankment.