Overall height: 22cm (8.5in)
Patinated bronze. Finely cast artist approved model of the 1923 Garwhali rifleman as created by LS Merrifield for the Great War memorial at the hill station and garrison town of Lansdowne, Uttarakhand, India; the figure attired in slouch hat and field service uniform of the period and armed with .303 rifle and fixed bayonet. Raised on a tapering marble base. Height of bronze: 14.5cm (5.7in). Signed ‘L. Merrifield to rear of the naturalistic base.
The Garwhal Rifles achieved a remarkable record in France during the opening stages of the First World War that is best recorded by the distinguished Indian Army historian, Philip Mason: ‘1st and 2nd Battalions Garwhal Rifles, with the 2nd/3rd Gurkhas, all stationed at Lansdowne, on the border of the Garhwal District, were brigaded with the 2nd Leicesters to make the Garhwal Brigade. This brigade won three of the five V.C.s awarded to the Indians in France.’
‘The Garhwalis formed a close friendship with the Leicesters which survived long after the war. Their record in France was uniformly good. ‘They never had a bad show and so kept their original morale and prestige,’ wrote the Colonel of the Leicesters in his introduction to one account of their year in France. ‘They were definitely not an advertising regiment, but we were soon to learn what sort of stuff we had alongside of us. They tackled their job very quickly and seemed to shake down to the strange conditions of fighting and climate much sooner than most Indian Units...they never lost their form though they had a full share of casulaties.’ Sir James Willcocks the Corps Commander, wrote: ‘The 1st and 2nd Battalions both... did splendidly on every occasion on which they were engaged...the Garhwalis suddenly sprang into the very front rank of our best fighting men...nothing could have been better than their élan and discipline.’ The whole regiment, not merely a battalion, was later awarded the title Royal.’
Read more
‘They landed at Marseille on October 13th and on the 29th were in the trenches in the Neuve Chapelle-La Bassée area. Five men were hit in the first night, during the relief. The trenches were very shallow hardly deep enough to cover a man kneeling; they started digging at once and. having no sandbags, used timber from ruined houses in the village behind them to improve the trenches. They were always at work on the trenched and every visitor who came congratulated them on what they had done. They had a long spell. twenty days without relief; they worked at night, often bare-legged in icy water, to clear ditches and get the water away. Twenty years later, at home in Garhwal, men showed me feet without any toes. The men were ‘marvellously steady under shell fire’. They were terribly short of everything; they had at first no bombs and the supporting battery was limited to eighteen shells a day. The 2nd Battalion had 1,100 yards of trench to hold with six hundred men; the German front line was only 50 yards away. There were days of severe shelling by the enemy, notably on November 5th, and a few casualties even on the best days. On the 9th a party front both battalions brought off a most successful night attack, crawling right up to the enemy trenches before jumping in with loud yells. Some live prisoners were taken but perhaps the main value was the moral effect. The Germans had run - and in those days it was rare to see their backs.’
‘The Garhwalis were relieved on November 18th but back in the line near Festubert on the 23rd. The Germans were attacking with great vigour and they had taken a section of trench which the 1st Battalion an the Leicesters were ordered to recapture. The Garhwalis; commanding officer believed that a frontal assault would mean very heavy casualties and probably be unsuccessful; he obtained permission to use any method he chose. The tactic used ‘made history’, wrote the Colonel of the Leicesters, but the main credit for the plan must go to an engineer officer, Lt Robson. ‘It was a bitterly cold night’, wrote Colonel Gordon of the Leicesters; ‘we got into the trench, but the Garhwalis did better’ - they took it in flank and then ‘bombed their way along the whole length, capturing over a hundred prisoners, and this became the standard practice.’ In this affair, Naik Darwan Sing Negi was foremost wounded int the head and once in the arm continued fighting till the struggle was over when his company commander saw that he was streaming with blood form head to foot. His was the second Victoria Cross for an Indian soldier.’
Leonard Stanford Merrifield (1880–1943) was born in Gloucestershire. He attended Cheltenham School of Art, the City & Guilds of London Art School and the Royal Academy Schools, where he won the Landseer scholarship and the Armitage prize. He was an assistant in Goscombe John’s studio, but by 1891 was working independently as a stone carver in Fulham. Merrifield showed regularly at the RA summer exhibitions from 1906. In 1913, he was one of ten sculptors selected by the Royal Society of British Sculptors to provide statues for Cardiff City Hall. He was elected a Fellow of the society in 1926. He executed war memorials in Cornwall for Newlyn (1920) and the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry in Bodmin (1922); in Ireland, at Comber and Holywood and at Lurgan, County Armagh (1928). Merrifield lived and worked in Chelsea during the latter part of his life. During the Second World War he was a civil defence warden, and was present at his local ARP post on the day that he died. His memorial service at St Luke’s Church, Chelsea, was well attended. At the time of his death, he was working on a statue of Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith for the House of Commons.