Memorial to the Titanic. As most Broken Hill people know, this city erected a monument to the musicians of the Titanic. It stands in Sturt Park, which was earlier known as the Central Reserve. It seems remarkable that, in this isolated inland community, the city’s first monument abound commemorates an incident that occurred in icy seas on the other side of the globe. The memorial was designed by an architect (without charge) and consists of a broken marble column, standing a total of 5.8 metres above the ground. The main inscription tells the story of the bandsman and carries the words and music of the main line of the hymn. The opposite face of the monument bears the names of the bandsmen, and elsewhere we can see the names of the builder, the architect, and the four members of the committee who were most closely associated with the monument. There was much debate about the monument before it was officially opened on Sunday, December 21 1913 (20 months after the sinking). There was the row about the direction in which the monument was facing. When it was first erected, it was facing a different direction from its present one. The committee was critical because the front faced ‘a portion of the reserve which is least frequently traversed by the public,’ while the side bearing the names of the committee was facing a much-travelled pathway. The architect, Mr E Barton Hack, strongly opposed any change in the orientation of the structure.“The whole system of monuments,” he explained, “is based on ancient heraldry, which is architecturally followed in respect to all monuments. The system is that the rising sun should shine on the portion of the inscription which includes the names of the persons to whom honour the monument erected; the setting sun should shine on that portion of the inscription which states the object for which the memorial was erected.” The citizens’ committee was unimpressed, and decided that this was one case where tradition would have to go overboard. The monument was changed around, so for all these long years the names of those brave men have faced the setting rather than the rising sun.
Posted on: Wed, 06 Aug 2014 23:58:42 +0000
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