Charles Sargeant Jagger

Detail from the Royal Artillery Memorial

Charles Sargeant Jagger (1885-1934) was a British sculptor who, following active service in the First World War, sculpted many works on the theme of war. He is best known for his war memorials, including the Memorial for First Battle of Ypres at Horse Guards Parade, the Royal Artillery Memorial at Hyde Park Corner and the Great Western Railway War Memorial in Paddington Railway Station, all in London.

Biography

Charles Jagger was born in Kilnhurst, Yorkshire in 1885. He was the son of a colliery manager, and at the age of 14 he became an apprentice metal engraver with the Sheffield firm Mappin and Webb.

He studied at the Sheffield School of Art before moving to London to study sculpture at the Royal College of Art (1908–11). His early works dealt with classical and literary themes and were influenced by the New Sculpture movement in the focus on medievalism and on surface qualities . His student work won him a travelling scholarship that made it possible for him to spend several months in Rome and Venice. In 1914 he won the Prix de Rome .

Military service

When war broke out in 1914, Jagger gave up the Prix de Rome to join the army. At first, Jagger joined the Artists' Rifles, and in 1915 he was commissioned in the Worcestershire Regiment. Jagger served in Gallipoli and on the Western Front, and was wounded three times. He was awarded the Military Cross for gallantry.

Work as a sculptor

Although Jagger was commissioned as a sculptor of monuments, it is for his war memorials that he is chiefly remembered.

Whilst convalescing from war wounds in 1919, he began work on No Man's Land, a low relief which is today is part of the Tate Collection . It depicts a 'listening post', a technique of trench warfare in which a soldier would hide among the corpses, broken stretchers and barbed wire of No Man's Land, in order to listen for the enemy.

The Royal Artillery Memorial (side view)

His Royal Artillery Memorial (1925) at Hyde Park Corner in London is one of his best-known works. It features a giant sculpture of a howitzer surrounded by four bronze soldiers and bronze relief scenes, and is dedicated to casualties in the British Royal Regiment of Artillery in World War I.

Jagger was made an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1926.

After the demand for war memorials had subsided, Jagger copnintued to receive important commissions and his works were increasingly influenced by Art Deco. Some of his works include allegorical stone figures at Imperial Chemical House, London (1928) and The Kelham Rood (1929).

Charles Jagger died in 1934.

Selected works

Statue of Shackleton outside the Royal Geographical Society headquarters

London, United Kingdom

• No Man's Land (1919–20) Tate Collection, London
• Memorial to the First Battle of Ypres at Horse Guards Parade
• The Great Western Railway War Memorial ("a Soldier Reading a Letter", 1922) in Paddington Railway Station, London
• The Royal Artillery Memorial (1925) at Hyde Park Corner
• Sculpture of Ernest Henry Shackleton, Royal Geographical Society, London
• Sculptured figures on Imperial Chemical House (1928), Millbank, London
• The Kelham Rood (1929), originally Kelham Hall, Nottinghamshire, now in St John the Divine, Kennington, London
• Sculptured figures on Thames House, Millbank, London

Elsewhere in the United Kingdom

• Torfrida (c.1911), Clifton Park Museum, Rotherham
• The Guildhall Square Cenotaph (1921) in Portsmouth city centre
• Hoylake and West Kirby War Memorial (1922), Hoylake, Merseyside
• Sculpture of a Sentry, Britannia Hotel, Manchester
• The Bedford War Memorial, Bedford
• War Memorial in the Church of St Michael and All Angels, Brimington, Yorkshire
• Monument to Charles Pelham, Lord Worsley in All Saints Church, Brocklesby, Lincolnshire

Worldwide

• The Anglo-Belgian Memorial (1923), Brussels, Belgium
• The Nieuwpoort Memorial [1], Nieuwpoort, Belguim
• The Cambrai Memorial [2], Louverval Military Cemetery, Cambrai, France
• Port Tewfik Memorial (1926, destroyed 1956), Suez Canal, Egypt
• [[Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne, Australia
  

Two of Jagger's sculptures, the "Wipers" figure from Hoylake and West Kirby and the "Driver" figure from the Royal Artillery Memorial, were re-cast and erected outside the Museum and State Library in Melbourne, Australia. They were transferred to the Melbourne Shrine of Remembrance in 1998 and stand in the Shrine Reserve.

• 
  The Royal Artillery Memorial
• 
  Detail from the Royal Artillery Memorial
• 
  The Royal Artillery Memorial
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  Statue of Shackleton at the Royal Geographical Society
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  The Millbank entrance to Thames House
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  The Kelham Rood
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  The Kelham Rood
• 
  GWR War Memorial

External links

• Great Western Railway War Memorial - York University Institute of Railway Studies and Transport History
• Charles Sargeant Jagger. Sculptor (1885-1934) - extensive summary of works on the National Archives wiki
• Brits Oorlogsmonument/Monument britannique - the Jagger's Brussels Monument (Flemish language)
• No Man's Land in the Tate Collection (with biography)