Description:This is the first version of Cheadle's first World War I memorial. It consisted of a captured German field gun mounted on a plinth set in a Memorial Garden. It was inaugurated in 1921.
It has not been possible to discover precisely when the gun was removed but anecdotally local ex-soldiers were unhappy about a German-made gun being used as part of the memorial and stole it, passing it on to a local blacksmith to be melted down. If anyone has any further information on this please let us know.
It must have been removed prior to 3rd September 1923 when new bronze panels, inscribed with the names of the 87 men of Cheadle who fell in the war, mounted either side of the gates to Cheadle's War Memorial Recreation Ground, were unveiled by the Lord Lieutenant of Staffordshire, the Earl of Dartmouth. More recently, the bronze panels have been reset into a stone pillar.
The postcard identifies this as a 'real photograph'. These were photographs printed onto the card as opposed to mass-produced lithograph print. As such, these tended to be printed in small batches and published locally.