South African War Memorial

The monument was erected to the memory of the Royal Sussex's casualties in the Second Boer War but includes dedications to other conflicts from around the turn of the 20th century. The memorial was designed by the local architect John William Simpson and the statue was sculpted by Charles Leonard Hartwell, whose signature is on the base. The contractors were B&W Bennett of Lewes Road, Brighton. The memorial was unveiled by William Nevill, 1st Marquess of Abergavenny, the Lord Lieutenant of Sussex, on 29 October 1904. Regency Square was filled with soldiers for the ceremony, to the extent that the Brighton Herald described it as being "under military occupation". The memorial cost £1,400 of…

The memorial stands at the southern end of Regency Square, an upmarket housing development to the west of the centre of Brighton. It consists of a statue of a soldier from the Royal Sussex Regiment on a substantial plinth and faces the sea. The soldier is playing the bugle, an allusion to a real event at the Battle of Doornkop, a major event in the Second Boer War. The figure was modelled on a real sergeant from the regiment. The plinth is decorated laurel wreaths and bears the dedicatory inscription: "In memory of the officer, non-commissioned officers, and men of the Royal Sussex Regiment who fell in South Africa 1900–1902". The names and dates of other battles and campaigns are inscribed…