La Délivrance

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Reference WMO/119492

Address:

Regents Park Road

Finchley

London

N3 3JH

England

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Status: On original site
Type: Freestanding
Location: External
Setting: Roadside
Description: Allegory (eg: Victory)
Materials:
  • Metal Bronze
  • Stone Granite
Lettering: Inscribed on a plaque
Conflicts:
  • First World War (1914-1918)
About the memorial: UK & French Armed Forces: Spelt La Deliverance by IWM Archive, whose scribe presumably failed O Level French. 'La Délivrance' is one of a number of casts of an allegorical statue by Emile Oscar Guillaume (1867-1942) in memory of an early success in the First World War. The sculpture was inspired by the allied victory in the Battle of Marne, which took place between 6 and 12 September 1914 and in which French and British forces thwarted the German drive on Paris. Guillaume was a well-known early C20 French sculptor who focussed particularly on memorials. Eleven casts of La Délivrance were presented to the cities of France and Belgium which had been occupied or destroyed in the First World War. The statue was exhibited at the 1920 Salon, where Guillaume won a medal. It was purchased by newspaper proprietor Viscount Rothermere, who presented it to Finchley Urban District Council due to his long association with the area. It was, at Rothermere’s insistence, located in a prominent position where this new arterial road joins the Finchley Road – one of the main exits from London to the North, and in an area which at that time was less heavily built up than today. It was originally surrounded by iron rails. The statue was unveiled in a ceremony in 1927 by Lloyd George, Britain’s Prime Minister during the First World War, and was attended by c8,000 people. Rothermere was particularly insistent in his address to the crowd that the statue was not a war memorial in the ordinary sense of the word, but simply a beautiful monument. Lloyd George, in a reportedly powerful speech, stated: '‘gaze at this statue and you will see that its message and meaning represent a symbol of what victory in the war meant to humanity – deliverance. Now we should strive for deliverance, not by the sword, but from it.'’ An information panel was placed in front of the statue by the Finchley Society in September 2007. Details War statue, designed in 1914-1918 by Emile Guillaume, donated to Finchley Urban District Council by Viscount Rothermere, and erected 1927. MATERIALS: the statue is cast in bronze and stands on a pink polished granite pedestal. DESCRIPTION: the figure is a female nude with upward stretched arms with a sword in her right hand. She stands on tiptoes upon a hemisphere which is mounted on a faceted drum pedestal and a square base. The hilt of the figure's sword and the front of the base of the statue are inscribed with the title of the piece. An information panel recounts: ‘LA DELIVERANCE / THIS STATUE BY EMILE GUILLAUME SYMBOLIZES / THE EMOTION INSPIRED AMONG THE ALLIED NATIONS / WHEN THE ARMIES OF BRITAIN AND FRANCE / DEFEATED THE INVADING GERMAN ARMIES / AT THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE SEPTEMBER 1914 / PRESENTED BY VISCOUNT ROTHERMERE’. c Historic England Listing entry
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Grade II* (England)

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1286880

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