War Memorials Advisory Board

History

The Australian Government set up a War Memorials Advisory Board. The Board "judged all matters put before it upon their artistic design, upon their proposed situation, upon their suitableness for their proposed purpose, and upon their appropriateness and dignity as an expression of the depth of national feeling and sentiment towards our war heroes. Size and cost are factors with which the Board will have no concern, except in so far as the character of a design may render it necessary to consider whether that particular design is one which must be carried out on a large scale to be effective.

Section 511 of the Local Governemnt Act, 1919, provides that:-

Monuments shall not be erected in pubic places or public reserves unless and until the design and situation thereof shall have been approved by the Minister.

"To be worthy of selection as a memorial of our great war dead, to be suitable to signalise the deeds of our great living, a statue should express either the spirit of their deeds, or our own feelings of gratitude, pride, or grief on their account, their voluntary offering of service, their fortitude in suffering, their courage in the face of odds, their forgetfulness of self, their generosity to the fallen, their succouring of those in need, their struggle for the preservation of freedom - these and countless others of the great virtues which they displayed on the field of battle, on sea, on land and in the air.

Members of the War Memorials Advisory Board

The Trustees of the National Art Gallery, the town Planning association, the Institute of Architects, the Royal Art Society, and the Society of Artists, offed their services to assist in the approval of designs for War Memorials.War Memorials Advisory Board.

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