Calls for a national memorial to Kitchener began immediately after his death, but there were considerable delays while a suitable site was located, with suggestions including Grosvenor Gardens, or St Paul's Cathedral, or the Royal Exchange, before the Office of Works and King George V approved a site on the south side of Horse Guards Parade, next to the north wall of the Garden of 10 and 11 Downing Street.

The project was entrusted to sculptor John Tweed and architect Reginald Blomfield, but Blomfield withdrew when his proposal for a tall plinth, raising the statue above the wall, was rejected by the Prime Minister Lloyd George on grounds of cost.

[2] It portrays Kitchener in his army uniform, with bare head, standing with left foot advanced, and hands clasped.

The statue is mounted on a Portland stone base and platform, facing north across Horse Guards Parade.

It was favourably compared with a similar standing statue of General Gordon, which stood in Trafalgar Square from 1888 to 1943, and was reinstalled at Victoria Embankment Gardens in 1953.