Some distance south of the centre of the city of Cambridge, on Hills Road near the railway station, stands a towering bronze statue. Known as 'The Homecoming' or simply 'Coming Home', this sculpture is the Cambridge War Memorial. Crafted by Canadian sculptor Robert Tait McKenzie, the statue stands seven feet tall, showing a soldier purposefully striding with his rifle hung over his left shoulder. Its history can be traced back to the debates in Cambridge following World War I, when the city and university were grappling with the appropriate war memorial, its location, and fundraising.
Initially intended to stand 8 feet tall, the statue was ultimately reduced to 7 feet due to a funding shortage. A memorial committee was convened in January 1919 by the Lord Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire Charles Adeane. The estimated £30,000 for all three proposed works were slow to materialize. By December 1919, only £12,000 had been raised. A new nurses' home at Addenbrooke's was completed in 1924. The war memorial origins of the nurses' home had been all but forgotten by 1976, when the hospital moved away from the Old Addenbrooke's Site.
The oak panels initially destined for Ely became the memorial for the 6,000 war casualties, listed alphabetically by town and parish, without any rank distinctions. These panels cost £3,500 and were dedicated on 11 May 1922, with an address by General Lord Horne, commander of Eastern Command.
Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons
Written by Nicolo Ciampini
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