Spalding War Memorial is a First World War memorial in the gardens of Ayscoughfee Hall (pronounced ) in Spalding, Lincolnshire, in eastern England. It was designed by the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens. The proposal for a memorial to Spalding's war dead originated in January 1918 with Barbara McLaren, whose husband and the town's Member of Parliament, Francis McLaren, was killed in a flying accident during the war. She engaged Lutyens via a family connection and the architect produced a plan for a grand memorial cloister surrounding a circular pond, in the middle of which would be a cross. The memorial was to be built in the formal gardens of Ayscoughfee Hall, which was owned by the local district council. When McLaren approached the council with her proposal, it generated considerable debate within the community and several alternative schemes were suggested. After a public meeting and a vote in 1919, a reduced-scale version of McLaren's proposal emerged as the preferred option, in conjunction with a clock on the town's corn exchange building. The total cost of the memorial was £3,500, of which McLaren and her father-in-law contributed £1,000 each; her brother-in-law donated a pair of painted stone flags and the remainder was raised from voluntary subscription, which took until 1922. The memorial consists of a brick pavilion at the south end of the garden and a Stone of Remembrance, both at the head of a long reflecting pool, which incorporates the remains of an 18th-century canal. It was unveiled at a ceremony on 9 June 1922. Lutyens went on to use the style of the pavilion for shelter buildings in several war cemeteries on the Western Front, though none of his other war memorials follow the design and the memorial became relatively obscure. Spalding War Memorial is today a Grade I listed building, having been upgraded when Lutyens's war memorials were declared a "national collection" and all were granted listed building status or had their listing renewed.
Background War memorials became a common sight in British towns and cities following the First World War (1914–1918). Almost one million men from Britain were killed in the conflict, and monuments were erected in virtually every settlement in the country. The memorial raised in Spalding, a town in southern Lincolnshire in eastern England, was designed by the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, who had previously established his reputation designing country houses for wealthy clients. From 1917 onwards, Lutyens dedicated much of his time to the memorialisation of the war dead, first advising the Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC) and later designing war memorials both for the commission and through his own practice. Spalding was one of his first war memorial commissions. The proposal for the Spalding war memorial originated with Barbara McLaren (née Jekyll). Barbara was the widow of Francis McLaren – Spalding's Member of Parliament and a Royal Flying Corps officer, who was killed in a flying accident near RAF Montrose in 1917 – and the niece of garden designer Gertrude Jekyll, with whom Lutyens had collaborated on multiple previous projects. Lutyens designed the McLarens' London house on Cowley Street in Westminster in 1911 and shortly after Francis' death in 1917 designed the headstone for his grave in Busbridge in Surrey. He was later responsible for the war memorial in the same village.
Commissioning
Barbara McLaren engaged Lutyens to design a memorial for the gardens of Ayscoughfee Hall, which Spalding Urban District Council had purchased in 1897 to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria. Lutyens proposed a U-shaped cloister sheltering a Stone of Remembrance standing in front of a circular lily pool, in the centre of which would be a cross. McLaren hoped to include space for the families of those commemorated to add their own epitaphs but this proved impractical due to the amount of space that would have been required; she insisted that her husband not receive any special commemoration beyond that afforded to the other casualties.
McLaren approached the council with her proposal in January 1918. When it became public after the end of the war, the proposed scheme proved controversial, prompting debate within the community and on the letters pages of the local newspaper. Multiple alternative proposals were submitted, including both purely commemorative schemes such as a clock on the town's corn exchange building and functional schemes such as the conversion of Ayscoughfee Hall into a youth centre. The youth centre and Lutyens's proposal emerged as the leaders, and details of both were published in the local newspaper. The district council called a public meeting to debate the proposals, which was held on 1 August 1919. About three hundred people attended the meeting, at which the proponents of the two leading options plus a third proposal (the clock on the corn exchange) were allowed fifteen minutes each to outline their scheme. During the meeting, several other proposals were put forward, including a cenotaph or an obelisk in the market place. The meeting was closed with the decision to hold a public vote, which was held on 23 August. The ballot paper included seven options, with each voter selecting a single choice:
A modified version of the McLaren–Lutyens scheme with a clock on the corn exchange building The McLaren–Lutyens scheme unmodified An obelisk in the market place and a memorial clock The McLaren–Lutyens scheme and a youth centre in Ayscoughfee Hall A cenotaph in the market place A war widows' fund (in lieu of a monument) The youth centre alone The modified McLaren–Lutyens proposal emerged the clear winner, receiving 459 votes. The unmodified scheme was the second most popular option with 286 votes; the proposal for an obelisk and clock was the only other option to garner more than 200 votes. In September 1919, the Spalding War and Victory Memorials Committee was formed to oversee fundraising and construction of the memorial, the total cost of which was £3,500. McLaren and her father-in-law Charles McLaren, 1st Baron Aberconway contributed £1,000 each, Sir Herbert and Dame Agnes Jekyll donated £100, Henry McLaren (Barbara's brother-in-law) donated the stone flags, and the remainder was raised by public subscription, which took until 1922.
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