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Nottinghamshire County Council
Second World War monument
Introduction
A recommendation was made by the Salaries and Establishments
Committee on 4 February 1947 that the committee be authorised, “to take all the
necessary steps for the erection of a suitable memorial in honour of those
officers of the Council who became casualties in the war, and it is proposed
to place a bronze tablet in the entrance hall of the Shire Hall and the cost
is estimated to not to exceed £300”.
A ‘new county hall’ was being built outside the city and departments based at the Shire Hall were slowly being transferred to the new building. The Committee therefore decided that the tablet should be designed so that, “if desired”, it could be removed to the new county hall.
On 3 February 1948 the Committee reported that the tablet had been completed and arrangements had been made for it to be unveiled by the Chairman of the County Council. The precise date for the ceremony was not recorded but it was to have been “immediately before the Council reassembles after the adjournment.” Certainly the memorial had been unveiled by the time of the Committee’s meeting in July 1948. It was noted that, “Owing to uncertainty as to the precise time of unveiling the bronze memorial tablet in the main entrance in the Shire Hall and to the fact many of the relatives of those whose names appear on the tablet live at considerable distances, it was not practicable to invite such relatives to the unveiling ceremony.” However, the Clerk to the Council (Mr K G Tweedale Meaby), arranged for a photograph of the tablet to be sent to the relatives of those who had been killed or reported missing.
The County Council finally closed its offices at the Shire Hall in the early 1960s when the last of the departments transferred to County Hall in West Bridgford. The First World War and Second World War memorials were not moved from the Shire Hall to the new offices. After a period of disuse the building was re-opened by the Museum of Law Trust as the Galleries of Justice.
On 11 November 2008, the chairman of the County Council, Councillor the Hon Mrs Joan Taylor, laid a wreath at the Shire Hall memorials on behalf of the County Council.