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Nicholas Watkins/edited by Penelope Curtis and Victoria Worsley

Alfred Hardiman’s equestrian monument to the war hero was dogged by controversy from its first proposal by the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, on 8 February 1928. Such was the public outcry over Hardiman’s first model, which went on exhibition at Westminster in July 1929, with photographs appearing in the national press, that he was obliged to produce a compromise version in 1930, which pleased no one, and a third definitive state which, after considerable delays and grave financial difficulties for the artist, was finally unveiled on 10 November 1937.

This essay focuses on archive material from the Hardiman Papers at the Henry Moore Institute and Public Records from The National Archive and examines why the Haig monument proved so controversial, detailing the series of hotly contested issues it raises which surround the construction of public memory.