The war memorial that was never built

GS Aujla

IN the heart of Central London is the famous Trafalgar Square with a Corinthian pillar erected for Lord Nelson, the hero of the Battle of Trafalgar (1805). Alongside, a memorial would have been raised to commemorate the First Anglo-Sikh War (1845-46). However, the plan was shelved due to the economic crisis that resulted from the expenses incurred by the East India Company in the Second Anglo-Sikh War (1848-49) and the British Government in the Crimean War (1853-56).
British Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson had spearheaded a decisive victory over the French and Spanish navies, dealing a crushing blow to Napoleon’s plan of invading Britain by sea. The one-eyed Nelson lost his life in the 1805 battle. A decade later, Napoleon lost on land as well in the Battle of Waterloo.
The British Government decided in 1838 that the Nelson Column would be erected at a strategic spot in the city of Westminster. An imposing monument was constructed between 1840 and 1843 at a cost of £47,000. Designed by William Railton, it was built from Dartmoor granite with four Barbary bronze lions at the base of the column. Nelson’s statue that was put atop the pillar was carved by renowned sculptor Edward Hodges Baily.
The parliamentary committee assigned to complete the Nelson memorial ran out of funds; this also stood in the way of the other memorial. The Anglo-Sikh war monument was conceived after the signing of the Treaty of Lahore (1846) following the First Anglo-Sikh War in which the brave forces of the Sikh empire put up an unprecedented challenge to the troops of the East India Company. According to Col George Bruce Malleson, the author of The Decisive Battles of India, ‘Victory for the Sikhs — a victory twice within their grasp — would have meant to the English the loss of India.’ Amid the perfidy of Generals Tej Singh and Lal Singh, the bravery and martyrdom of General Sham Singh Attariwala were legendary.
The design of the Anglo-Sikh War memorial, a drawing of which surfaced in a private collection donated in 2016 to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York by philanthropist and art collector Jayne Kirkman Wrightsman, shows a magnificent structure drawn in water colour and pencil on a white gouache sheet. She and her husband, Charles B Wrightsman, donated rare pieces of art to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Borrowing some features of the Nelson Column, like four relief panels on four sides with Barbary lions, the memorial was to have scenes of four major theatres of the war — Sabraon, Mudki, Ferozeshah and Baddowal. The edifice was to be far more ornate than the Nelson Monument.
The memorial would have symbolised the British pride in having won a significant battle far away from the mainland, while at the same time bearing testimony to the bravery of Punjabi soldiers who delivered a near-fatal blow to the British a century before the rulers’ departure from India in 1947.