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Royal Tank Regiment Memorial

London, Italy

Royal Tank Regiment Memorial

The Royal Tank Regiment Memorial is a sculpture by Vivien Mallock in Whitehall Court, London. It commemorates the Royal Tank Regiment. The sculptural group depicts the five-man crew of a World War II–era Comet tank at 1½ times life size. General Sir Antony Walker, who was in charge of fundraising fo

r the memorial, described it as "a memorial to the men of the regiment, rather than the machines". It is an enlarged version of a maquette by George Henry Paulin in the Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset, which dates to 1953. Mallock's husband had been an officer in the RTR in the 1960s. A resin cast of Mallock's group also stands outside the Tank Museum. The memorial was unveiled by Queen Elizabeth II, Colonel-in-Chief of the RTR, on 13 June 2000. She was escorted to the ceremony by an armoured Rolls-Royce from 1924, a precursor to the tank. The date was the centenary of a battle in the Second Boer War in which the tank pioneer Sir Ernest Dunlop Swinton took part. Other memorials to the RTR are in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and the National Memorial Arboretum in Alrewas, Staffordshire.

Listen to the audio guide for Royal Tank Regiment Memorial Free on WIP — starts by itself when you arrive, even with the screen off

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