20
BCD SPECIAL REPORT ON
HISTORIC CHURCHES
21ST ANNUAL EDITION
The mechanical book of remembrance was removed from the plinth and taken to the University of Manchester’s
Centre for Heritage Imaging and Collection Care. Once the book had been photographed and a condition report
prepared, the pages were removed from the drum with the help of staff and students from Oldham Technical
College. Individual pages were then cleaned and tears in the paper repaired using Japanese tissue fixed in place
using a wheat starch paste. (All photos on this page: The University of Manchester)
THE SCULPTURES
Albert Toft (1862–1949), the sculptor
commissioned to produce the memorial,
was born in Handsworth, Birmingham into a
family of Staffordshire pottery artists. Toft’s
father was Wedgwood’s principal modeller
and Albert also served his apprenticeship
with the firm. This early training may account
for the cameo-like effect of some of his
sculptural work. The plaque depicting the
three Graces on Cannon Hill Park’s Boer
War Memorial in south Birmingham, for
example, has a remarkable delicacy and
definition. His figures too, although they are
frequently war memorials, have a delicacy
and grace that belies the horrors of war.
After working at Wedgwood, Toft went
on to win a sculpture scholarship to the South
Kensington School of Art where his work was
awarded medals in both his second and third
years. Along with such notables as Hamo
Thorneycroft and George Frampton, Toft is
recognised as an important figure in the New
Sculpture movement which, beginning in the
late 19th century, challenged the dominant
neo-classical style with a new naturalism.
Toft was already a well-established name in
the art world by the time he was commissioned
to commemorate the appalling losses of the
first world war. Like many war memorials of
this period, Toft’s sculptures tend to idealise
the soldiers they portray. While soldier poets
like Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon
depicted men physically and psychologically
maimed amid the squalor of the trenches,
memorial sculpture typically presents happier
and healthier images of young men prepared
to die nobly for their country. Toft’s sculpture
for the Oldham memorial, set on its massive
granite plinth, depicts four of these idealised
soldiers, perhaps crawling out of the horror
of the trenches to stand, victorious, aloft.
The memorial was dedicated in April
1923. The model for the topmost figure was
also used for the Royal Fusiliers’ Memorial
in Holborn, London which was unveiled the
previous year, and another sister piece was
cast for the memorial to the 41st Division at
Flers, on the Somme battlefield. The Oldham
memorial is the only composite piece.
Inside the granite plinth is a small
room which was originally sealed by pairs
of imposing bronze coffered doors on the
north and south side. The south doors were
later replaced with a viewing window which
displays the book of remembrance, its pages
turned daily by a special mechanism.
CONDITION
Toft’s bronze sculpture was in a sad state by
the time conservation work commenced,
with corrosion holes and active corrosion
cells, and the surface was disfigured in many
places by dark sulphides and leaching salts.
Inspection also revealed cracks, casting flaws
and holes in the surface where there were
joints in the bronze. The whole of the sculpture
had been cleaned, and possibly over-cleaned,
in the past and a lacquer finish of unknown
date and composition had been applied.
The most active corrosion was apparent
where the lacquer had become degraded or
A conservator carries out surface cleaning on a page from the book of remembrance at The University of
Manchester Library
