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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Spalding War Memorial/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 13:25, 31 January 2017 [1].

Spalding War Memorial

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Nominator(s): HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:32, 18 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Another war memorial. Curiously, this one is not for a big city or a county or a rich company, but a relatively obscure town in Lincolnshire. It's interesting for several reasons, not least the personal tragedy suffered by an aristocratic family that led to its creation. Also curious is that little was written about it from its unveiling until relatively recently. Nevertheless, the article has passed an A-class review within the military history project and I think it's of featured quality. Of course, I welcome any and all feedback. Thanks, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:32, 18 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Support on prose per standard disclaimer. I've looked at the changes made since I reviewed this for A-class. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 23:01, 18 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Close to a Support:

  • A nice article. Some thoughts below:
  • "The memorial as-built consists of a brick pavilion" - in the context of the lead, I wasn't sure what the "as-built" was contrasting with (e.g. the first design, later modifications?)
    • I've done away with the "as-built" in the lead.
  • "The memorial as-built consists of a brick pavilion at the south end of the garden and a Stone of Remembrance (designed by Lutyens for the Imperial War Graves Commission, for which he was one of the principal architects), both at the head of a long reflecting pool, which incorporates the remains of an 18th-century canal." - I'd advise losing the bit in brackets - I don't think it is helping the flow of the sentence, and doesn't appear vital for the lead.
    • Agreed.
  • "In the aftermath of the First World War, thousands of war memorials were built across Britain. Amongst the most prominent designers of memorials was architect Sir Edwin Lutyens..." We're picking up the story at an odd moment here. The lead has told us that the plan originated in January 1918, when the war was still ongoing - this is roughly where the next paragraph picks up. So at this point in the main story, there haven't been many war memorials built in England and Lutyens isn't a famous designer of them. The background is therefore giving us the aftermath of the work at Spalding, not really the pre-story. Would this work better if the article described the situation regarding memorials as of early 1918, and pushed this bit down in to the final part of the history section?
  • "Lutyens designed the headstone for McLaren's grave in Busbridge in Surrey, where he was also responsible for the village's war memorial,[3] and had previously designed the McLarens' London house on Cowley Street in Westminster." - the sequencing here is a little out I think. Isn't the village war memorial post-war (1922?); this gives the impression that that Lutyens has already produced it in 1918.
  • "McLaren had hoped to include space for the families of those commemorated to add their own epitaphs—though she insisted that her husband not receive any special commemoration beyond that afforded to the other casualties—but this proved impractical due to the amount of space that would have been required" - is "though" right here? It implies a contrast with the first clause, but the content shows that it is supporting it (i.e. she had insisted her husband not receive any special treatment and had hoped to included space for the other families; this proved impractical however"?)
    • I've reworded this; see what you think.
  • "functional schemes like the conversion of Ayscoughfee Hall into a youth centre" - really, really nit-picky... I think you mean "such as", not "like". ;)
    • If you insist!
  • "The youth centre and Lutyens' proposal emerged as the leading proposals " - "leading options"? (would reduce the repetition)
    • Done.
  • "Henry McLaren (Francis McLaren's brother, Barbara's brother-in-law)" - do you need "Francis McLaren's brother" here? I don't think that she could have had a brother-in-law named McLaren who wasn't Francis's brother, could she?
    • Done.
  • "The stone is a monolith (carved from a single piece of rock)," - I was wondering if this could just say "The stone is carved from a single piece of rock,", which would remove the need to explain what a monolith is.
    • If it really bothers you it can go; I just like the word "monolith".
  • "with a contemporary Peace Garden located to the east" - contemporary to the 1920s, or contemporary to now?
    • Clarified (hopefully).
  • "The unveiling took place at a ceremony on 9 June 1922..." - it felt odd jumping back to 1922 after the architectural description of the gardens in 2016. Personally, I'd have gone for doing the history, then giving a modern description of the architecture etc.
  • "until Tim Skelton's Lutyens and the Great War (first published 2008)" - the brackets felt odd here. "until the publication of Tim Skelton's Lutyens and the Great War in 2008"?
    • Done.
  • Are there any details from local newspapers etc. about the adding of the additional names in 2015? Hchc2009 (talk) 10:04, 19 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much for your comments; I'll come back for the remaining points later in the week. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 11:18, 20 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Iridescent

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Reviewing this version. As usual, I've intentionally not looked at anyone else's comments or the talkpage so there may be some duplication.

Lead
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  • Just a suggestion, but you may want to include the pronunciation of "Ayscoughfee" either in parentheses, a footnote, or as one of those fancy-pants embedded sound links. I've lived in England for over 20 years, and I have no idea whether this is pronounced "ice-coffee", "aye-skog-fee", "ess-koff" or something else, so people in other countries will certainly struggle;
    • I've borrowed the pronunciation form the article about the hall, but I have no idea if that's how it's pronounced locally.
  • The town's Member of Parliament Francis McLaren, was killed in the war is true, but to me seems a little misleading as it implies he died in combat; looking at the Francis McLaren article, he actually died in a plane crash in Scotland;
    • Fixed.
  • I'm no fan of using the "inflation" template for capital expenditure—because it's based on CPI it's misleading for anything other than household staples—but you should probably include something to give the idea of what £3,500 was worth then, as otherwise it may as well be a random number. ("The average labourer's wage at the time was around £200 a year", "a typical house in the area cost £400", etc.);
    • I have absolutely no idea what a labourer's wage was or what a hose in Spalding cost in the 1920s I'm afraid; at least the inflation template would give a rough idea, if only I could get it to stop spitting out nonsense, but as you say even that's not much use.
  • "Painted stone flags" should probably change to "stones painted with the Union Flag and White Ensign", since the common usage of flag stone means something entirely different.
    • But a "stone flag" is not a flagstone and I don't think there's any risk of confusing them. "Stones painted with" sounds like lumps of rock with patterns painted onto them rather than intricate sculptures.
Background
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  • I'd suggest including photographs either of Lutyens or of one or both McLarens here ({{multipleimage}} is your friend). This section is currently unillustrated so another image won't cause sandwiching, and it would solve the problem of the article being illustrated by four very similar photos.
    • There are no free photos of Lutyens (the only one of him used on his own article is fair use); the only free photo of Barbara is from when she was a girl; there is a free photo of Francis, but the connection might be a bit tenuous.
Commissioning
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  • The chronology here is somewhat garbled, as the Background section immediately preceding begins with "In the aftermath of the First World War", the Cenotaph (1920) and an exhibition in 1919, but all of a sudden we're now back in 1918 with the War very much still ongoing (and the winner by no means certain). As I read this, McLaren approached Lutyens before any of his other memorials had been built. This probably needs tidying up to give the actual dates, as if I'm reading that right then it might account for why this design is so different to his other memorials.
    • Working on this.
History and design
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  • If you can find one, this really needs a photo of the internal design. It's not reasonable to expect the reader to visualise what "two painted stone flags, three panels and a central panel, and a stone of remembrance" actually looks like in practice—while there are lots of photos in the article, they're all distance-shots;
    • Those are the only free photos available; I scoured Commons, Geograph, Flickr, and Google Images when I was writing this; I see Carcharoth suggests linking to some non-free photos below.
  • Regarding A central panel bearing further names was added in 2015, do we have any idea why the authorities suddenly decided to alter the memorial after 95 years, and who took that decision?
    • All I can find is a brief report in the local rag (linked above); i'll add it in, but it's not much.
  • Presumably when it was erected, the Stone of Remembrance didn't include the dates of the Second World War. When was that added, and was the memorial itself also altered at the time to include a list of WWII casualties or does it still only list those killed in WWI?
    • It only lists WWI casualties; it was fairly common for the dates of WWII to be added to a town's WWI memorial later on, but if this was reported on at the time, I can't find anything.
  • The pavilion and the pool are surrounded by yew hedges—were these there already, or did Lutyens install them as part of the design?
    • Not in the sources, I'm afraid. It seems there were already yew hedges in the gardens, but whether these ones were added by Lutyens or just remodelled like the canal isn't specified.
  • By a modern peace garden located to the east, do you mean Lutyens designed it in a modernist style, or that it wasn't in the initial plans and was installed at a more modern date?
    • I've found the date (1994) and added that.
  • Was not featured in any publication about Lutyens' works until the publication of Tim Skelton's Lutyens and the Great War in 2008 is sourced to Skelton himself, who has an obvious motivation to boast about how comprehensive he is—do we have a better source for that?
    • It's difficult to prove a negative; I'll see if Historic England have anything to say, but I have several books about Lutyens sitting on my bookshelf for this project and none of them mention Spalding (in fact they largely overlook his war memorials altogether, which is possibly why they're only now being written about).
  • The sources may not exist for this, but does anything exist on its reception? If it was widely condemned when it was unveiled, that might account for why Lutyens didn't re-use the design in his later memorials, and why it slipped into obscurity—at the moment "an exceptional departure" from the usual style of Lutyens' war memorials is just kind of floating there without any explanation.
    • Unfortunately we're dealing with a relatively obscure memorial in a small town in Lincolnshire, not a major monument on Whitehall; whereas everybody who was anybody had something to say about the Cenotaph, this one seems to have gone largely unnoticed. The only thing I can offer, which is a combination of OR, SYNTH, and speculation, is that most of his war memorial commissions for major towns and cities resulted from the Cenotaph and many of his later memorials were based on it; Spalding being somewhat off the beaten track, it never really registered.

All fairly minor quibbles, and I assume unless anything problematic comes to light this will be a support. ‑ Iridescent 13:18, 22 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the comments. I'm still working on a few things, so I'll have more replies later. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:44, 27 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Re-review
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A few further thoughts on re-reading;

  • Does it really need the coordinates both in the corner and in the infobox?
  • I've taken the liberty of adding a photo of the clock and carillon in their current location. As I understand it, the clock is just as much "Spalding War Memorial" as Lutyens's structure; plus, this is quite a striking image and including it at this point breaks up an unavoidable flow of rather similar images. Ideally IMO it would be paired with a photo of the clock in situ on the Corn Exchange; since the Corn Exchange has been demolished for 50 years, you could probably get away with slipping a fair-use image of it (this one might be good, and is blurry enough to be of minimal commercial value but clear enough to show the clock clearly) past Nikkimaria's watchful eyes…
  • …and searching for 1922-published (and thus out-of-copyright) photos of the clock leads me here, which might be worth stripping of anything you can pass off as fair use. (I assume they won't raise any objections, since a Wikipedia TFA will generate public interest in their collection.)
  • Is "The solid rear wall bears two painted stone flags" correct? Looking at this photo, it looks to me like the stone flags are on metal poles embedded in concrete blocks on the floor, although admittedly it's not entirely clear whether they also attach to the wall.
  • On the subject of Flickr photos, if you can persuade this guy to change the licencing for this photo, you really should, as despite having read the article top-to-bottom quite a few times it's only on seeing his photo that it's really made sense to me what's being described and how the parts relate to each other. Since his interest are listed as "trains, churches, canals and weather" if he's not already on Wikipedia he certainly should be, and Flickr users tend to lose their scruples about protecting their rights when you point out that as part of a FA their photo will literally be seen by a thousand times as many people as will see it languishing in a Flickr album.
  • How do we get from she insisted that her husband not receive any special commemoration beyond that afforded to the other casualties to A separate stone is dedicated to Francis McLaren in the space of a couple of paragraphs?

These are all quibbles rather than serious issues, and I'm happy to support. ‑ Iridescent 17:18, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Images are appropriately licensed. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:15, 23 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Carcharoth

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Comments (picking up on a couple of points raised above):

  • The death of Francis McLaren in Scotland was a flying accident while a trainee pilot in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. This was a relatively common occurrence at the time. Not a combat death, but a bit more precise than either 'killed in the war' or 'died in a plane crash'.
  • I haven't been able to find a freely licensed photo of the interior. The painted flags and Stone of Remembrance are visible in one of the images used: this one. Better detail is needed. There are some images out there that could be linked in the external links if all else fails. One is here (Flickr photo). There is also a collection of images at the War Memorials Online page, mostly showing the poor condition at the time of photographing, plus one of the memorial garden. That should be an external link at the very least. There is also a hint there that some restoration work should be happening (or has happened) but I can't find any record at the War Memorials Trust website.
  • The IWM War Memorial Register page here is used in the references. Given that the IWM register is (or aims to be) a standard reference for war memorials in the UK, might it not be worth giving that link in the infobox or external links? ('IWM memorial ID' is a property on Wikidata for what that is worth).
  • It is definitely worth having more on the later history of the memorial, such as the recent commemoration events and the addition of names. An important point: the central panel and its inscription was not added in 2015. The inscription was present from the start. It was only additional names that were added in 2015. The phrasing used in the article gets this wrong at present. The Flickr picture I linked to above was taken in 2014, before the additional names were added. I haven't found any pictures yet from after the additions were made.
  • About the Lutyens design elements and influence on his later memorials (this is mentioned in the article, but does need more explaining or putting in context). The stone flag element of the design (which Lutyens had wanted on the Whitehall Cenotaph but that didn't happen) are seen at Etaples and also on the Rochdale Cenotaph. From the Historic England listing the 'Tuscan pavilion is a precursor to the shelter buildings built in the cemeteries of the Western Front'. Pictures of those exist and could be put in the article. Identifying such architectural features with a reliable source can be a bit of a pain though.
  • Bit of a stretch, but does a photo exist of the 'earlier castellated tower' that this memorial replaced? Or even of the general area before the memorial was built?

Carcharoth (talk) 02:56, 24 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Few additional comments on looking at it again this morning:

  • Northampton War Memorial (a featured article nominated by the nominator of this article) mentions the 'stone flags' design element and goes into some detail about how they are a common element in several memorials by Lutyens. It seems odd that this level of detail is missing from this article. Is this just not mentioned in the sources for this one, or was this level of detail left out for some other reason?
    • I can include it if you want. It just didn't seem relevant here. It is a common design element but its use here doesn't seem to have had much impact or been commented on anywhere (unlike Northampton, which was one of the last to actually be erected, albeit a relatively early design).
  • The wider history of Ayscoughfee Hall is already covered in the article. There should be more on the tower that preceded the memorial and the plans for the 'Victory Clock and Carillon'. Some sources that mention this are here (the 'Owl Tower') and here ("This memorial project was originally meant to occupy the site of the present memorial at Ayscoughfee Hall. On this site was a folly - a 50 foot high Owl tower. However despite protests the Owl Tower was demolished by Spalding Urban District Council and the present Cloister style memorial designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens was constructed on the site."). Pictures of the Owl Tower are here and here. This is mentioned in books as well, such as here. At the very least, the name 'Owl Tower' (built in 1848 and variously described as a 50-foot-high Victorian Gothic folly) should be included in the article.
    • I've added some minimal detail about it but I'm reluctant to add more without better sources. Neither Skelton nor HE go into any detail about it (the listing description for the garden doesn't even mention it), Pevsner gives it the briefest of mentions, and those sources look like local history enthusiasts rather than reliable secondary sources.
  • There seems to be some confusion as to whether the clock and carillon plan was originally for the Owl Tower and later changed to the corn exchange. It seems the bells were funded and purchased, and a tower and memorial arch erected at some point. See the IWM Memorials Register record. Not sure how much of this is worth mentioning. (The bells and clock are still there today, see picture here).
  • You mention Spalding Urban District Council. It would be worth mentioning that changes in local government (in the 1970s) means that the current custodians of the memorial are South Holland District Council.
  • "the connection with Barbara McLaren may have led to his commission for the Royal Naval Division Memorial in London after she married a prominent officer in that unit" - this feels too speculative and too much detail to warrant being in the lead section of the article.
  • The lead says "in conjunction with a clock on the town's corn exchange building." This contradicts the body of the article which says "with a carillon on the corn exchange building". Is it possible to go back to your sources and be clearer on what actually happened here? (Possibly it was both, possibly plans changed again after the vote).
  • "curved so slightly as to barely be visible to the naked eye" - maybe make clearer that you mean the curvature (entasis) is barely visible to the naked eye, not the Stone itself. Entasis would be more useful to link than monolith.
  • "modern peace garden" - see here. If you are going to mention this, it might be worth expanding on the context of what Spalding did to commemorate the Second World War and why there are proposals to add WW2 names to this memorial. (FWIW, the WW2 names appear to be in the local churches). EDIT: I did find this for what it is worth. (added 00:54, 28 December 2016 (UTC)).
  • "McLaren and her son" - she had two sons at this time (Martin McLaren and Guy Lewis Ian McLaren). Both would have been under 10. Was it just one of them with her, and do we know which one? I suppose it is unlikely the source will give that level of detail. This detail probably came originally from a report in a newspaper like The Times or a local newspaper. Similar reports will cover any re-dedication of the Stone of Remembrance for the dead of WW2, which will answer one of the outstanding questions above. (EDIT: Having scoured various news archives, I think only local papers will have details on this. 01:54, 28 December 2016 (UTC))

Carcharoth (talk) 10:33, 24 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • About Skelton and Gliddon's claim that this memorial hasn't featured in previous publications about Lutyens and his works, this memorial was listed here (what looks like a 1981 gallery exhibition publication), but seems to have only been listed and not more than that, so maybe the two co-authors (Gliddon should be mentioned together with Skelton) are indeed the first to actually write about the memorial in any proper sense.
  • It may be useful to try and get hold of a copy of The Builder, Volume 122 (1922) as there is a feature on this memorial on page 906 with illustrations (this is at the time of the unveiling). It is available from the links here, but not outside the USA unfortunately. I did find some pictures in another contemporary architectural journal (Building News and Engineering Journal, volume 118, 1920) of the plans, though from before the actual construction took place (so the details differ). See here and here. The associated text is here. Also here (illustration on the right) and the associated text here. Those illustrations (and the designs they show) should be public domain. I may try and upload them at some point soon to Commons. If used, the image captions would need to make clear they were only showing proposed plans, not the actual plans eventually used. The other architectural journals don't seem to be available online for that period. (For more on how such journals are an important part of the historical record for architecture in their periods, see here).
    • I did manage to get access to volume 122 (a good friend lent me access to VPN) but was disappointed: the feature on page 906 is a full-page photo of the banqueting hall of Cardiff Castle; Spalding gets a short paragraph of prose on page 904.

Carcharoth (talk) 01:54, 28 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Update: I've now uploaded the images and put them in a gallery on the article talk page for consideration: Talk:Spalding War Memorial#Gallery of memorial plans. That makes clearer what the original plans were by Lutyens, and how much the plans were modified by. Whether or not this was the 'unmodified plan' that was part of the vote, I don't know, but these images do show the War Stone at a different orientation, the presence of a Lutyens cross, the u-shaped cloister garth, and the lily pond. The final form of the memorial has the stone facing the canal and just a shelter, rather than a full-blown u-shaped cloister garth.
  • Looking at those 1920 plans again, I am not sure that the following bits from the article are correct: "a plan for a grand memorial cloister sited in the middle of a circular pond" (lead section) and "Lutyens proposed a U-shaped cloister around a Stone of Remembrance with a cross, all mounted at the centre of a circular lily pool". At least in the 1920 proposals, the lily pond is a separate feature. Was there ever really a proposal to surround the entire memorial complex with a lily pond? That sounds... ambitious (but would be typical for Lutyens).
  • The 1919 exhibition catalogue for the Royal Academy War Memorials Exhibition of 1919 is online here. I think the Spalding War Memorial plans are there... Actually, the numbers refer to the exhibition numbers. The catalogue is complete, but just a listing.

Carcharoth (talk) 12:59, 28 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Carcharoth: To save space, I won't reply inline to each bullet point. I think I've actioned almost all of your suggestions, or I've replied inline with an explanation. I believe all that's left is to add a little more background about the state of war memorials in 1918, and to tidy up what's now the "impact" section and add some detail about the shelters in the CWGC cemeteries (sources permitting). I'd welcome your thoughts and those of Iridescent and Hchc2009 on the progress so far. Thanks, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:31, 28 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the changes. Some additional comments/responses:
  • The clock part of the proposal was also a carillon, and is described as a 'chiming clock'. The extensive account given on pages 48 to 57 of Lutyens and The Great War makes it very clear (it is identified as a carillon on page 54 in the account of Dr Farrow's address to the public meeting). The reason I am pressing on this point is that the article says that the option that won the public vote included the clock. This is why I feel something needs to be said about this, even if only in the form of a footnote or an external link to further reading. The clock and carillon clearly exist today. Just falling silent and saying nothing more about the further history here feels wrong.
  • Fair enough, I've added a paragraph about it now.
  • Personally, I'd include (as external links if necessary) the War Memorials Online page, the online copy of the Royal Academy exhibition catalogue (maybe better used as a primary source to accompany the secondary source), a link to a close-up photo of the memorial panels and stone flags, and a link to a photo of the Owl Tower. They would all be of interest to a reader of this article, and would therefore be suitable as external links, IMO.
  • Do you intend to use the images I put on the article talk page? They would need an image review.
  • I've now included three of them; thank you very much for those!
  • Is it worth including the connections with Francis McLaren's childhood home of Bodnant Garden? The flowers laid by Barbara McLaren and her sons were from Bodnant Garden, and Skelton says on page 56 of Lutyens and The Great War that the setting is "very reminiscent of the well known view of Pin Mill" (see picture here).
  • Yes, it's worth a brief mention.
  • Should there not be a link somewhere to a list of the names of those on the memorial? There are several possibilities: 1, 2, 3. The first one is nice, the second one is full of details, the third one from the IWM should be authoritative, but in my experience they get spellings and names wrong far too often. They also miss out Francis McLaren (I checked, he is not on the IWM list for this memorial). I also have a horrible feeling that the figure of 224 currently given in the article for the number of names is not right. If you count the visible names, there are 250 (including McLaren but not including the names added in 2014). Where did you get the figure of 224 from? Most sources use that, so if it is wrong there is a bit of a problem. This source (the second one listed above) quotes from a 1923 account in Ayscoughfee and its History, stating that there are 250 names (but actually gives 252, the extra two names are Henry Beecham and Fred Freeman). I have no idea where the number of 224 came from and how it got established in the sources out there, but it is clearly wrong. I suspect the IWM register got the number wrong and everyone else has been following that ever since. If anyone wants to double-check, they can use this photo and this photo and compare with the list here. Further update: There are 26 names on the memorial that are not on the IWM list of 224 names: Francis McLaren and the 25 names at the end of the memorial list, from VINE, R. to YORKE, ALBERT P.
  • I've included the South Holland Life page as an external link. It's a shame the IWM's records are so poor but that's probably due to bad OCR given the sheer number of names they endeavour to list. I got 224 from Historic England (who list the IWM among their sources), but given that now two sources seem to agree on the exact number I've removed it altogether and gone with "over 200".
  • There are two additional inscriptions that are not mentioned yet in the article: (1) the stone mentioning Francis McLaren (visible at lower right here and at the bottom of this page) with the inscription "This stone commemorates Francis Walter Stafford McLaren Member of Parliament for the Spalding Division 1910-1917 when he fell in the service of his country at the age of 31." (this is difficult to source, Google it and only two websites have this); and (2) the inscription above the names: "Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon them." This can be sourced from several of the references you are already using. Whether you want to say where that comes from I don't know, but it should be included.
  • And I've added these now as well.
Carcharoth (talk) 02:30, 29 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
NB: this gives a total of around 270 names (which I think is after the modern additions). Hchc2009 (talk) 07:26, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Carcharoth, Hchc2009, and Iridescent: Many apologies for the delay; I've been hard pressed for more than small snippets of time lately and didn't have as much time over Christmas as I expected. I believe I've addressed everything outstanding (with a lot of help from Carcharoth on the impact section) but it's possible I've missed something. If you could take a look to see if you have any more concerns, I'd be very much obliged. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 04:50, 7 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
All looks good to me. You will need another image review, and someone needs to review what I added, but I don't have any more concerns. Carcharoth (talk) 12:41, 8 January 2017 (UTC) Sorry, there was one thing I forgot to mention: the lead section doesn't say who the memorial was raised for - the infobox says it, but the lead section should say this as well. War memorials cover a wide range, so even though this is an example of the most common kind (the local village/town/parish memorials), it still needs to be explicitly stated. Carcharoth (talk) 12:48, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Will look at this tomorrow. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:41, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Coming back to this, was the additional review of the new images ever done? As I said, all looks good to me. I don't have any concerns, but am not sure if I should be explicitly supporting unless what I added has been reviewed. The edits I have made are here. The substantial edits are: [2], [3], [4], [5]. I don't think that disqualifies me from supporting, but am not sure. Carcharoth (talk) 23:04, 26 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support per the response here to my query above, and with the caveat about the image review stated above. Carcharoth (talk) 20:38, 28 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's changed a bit since I last read it through properly; will try to do a second run through this evening, HJ. Hchc2009 (talk) 13:02, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Th substance is mostly the same but some things have moved around or been expanded slightly. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:41, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator note: Carcharoth, what you added does not disqualify you from supporting. Also, Hchc2009 do you have anything further to add? Sarastro1 (talk) 11:03, 28 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Have read through again, some thoughts on the current text:

  • "The memorial was designed by the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens in a departure from the usual style of Lutyens' war memorials." Could we go for a pronoun for the second use of this name? I'm also not sure that "departure" in this context is right; when he designed it in 1917, he hadn't built the majority of his war memorials yet, so he couldn't really depart from anything. The cited source is written in the present tense, not the past, btw, and is about the memorial,not the act of designing, which I think is why it works in that context.
    • I've removed this; its significance among Lutyens' works is explained later in the lead.
  • "After a public meeting in August 1919, followed three weeks later by a vote, a reduced-scale version of McLaren's proposal emerged as the preferred option, in conjunction with a clock on the town's corn exchange building." - in the lead, could we simplify this slightly? I was thinking "After a public meeting and a vote in 1919, a reduced-scale version of McLaren's proposal emerged as the preferred option, in conjunction with the construction of a clock on the town's corn exchange building." - I don't think the month or the time between that and the vote is critical, and it would make it easier for the reader.
    • Done.
  • "Spalding War Memorial is today a grade I listed building, having been upgraded when Lutyens' war memorials were declared a "national collection" and all were granted listed building status or had their listing renewed." - I wasn't sure you needed the "having been upgraded..." half of the sentence in the lead; it draws the reader away from this article, and you've already given the key fact in the first half of the sentence.
    • I think this is important; the memorial, like the article, is part of a series. Its significance is as part of Lutyens' work. There wouldn't be 2,000 works to write about a random war memorial in a Lincolnshire town.
  • "Spalding was one of his first private war memorial commissions." - in 1917, how many public war memorial commissions had he actually had? It makes it sounds as though he had done many public war memorials by then, which surely isn't correct. (Could we just say "Spalding was one of his first war memorial commissions."?)
    • Done.
  • "with the clock and carillon housed in a brick tower on the roof" - "rehoused" might sound more natural here
    • Done.
  • "which on the east side are broken at regular intervals by iron gates which lead to a peace garden (added in 1994)" - the brackets here felt awkward - would a comma work just as well?
    • I can live with either, so done.
  • There's a bit of duplication in "History and Design". In para one, we say "Further names were added in 2014." Para 3 then starts off, "The names of an additional 24 casualties from the First World War were added to the central panel of the memorial prior to Remembrance Sunday 2014." I think the problem remains here that you cut away from the historical sequence at the end of the "Commissioning" section to the modern day at the start of "History and Design", and then go back to 1922 for the second half of the section. If you, for example, took out the two design paragraphs and made that its own section at the end, you'd have the ability to tell the entire historical story from commissioning, opening and then impact, without repeating the information in a single section. Hchc2009 (talk) 08:42, 29 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • File:Crop_to_show_entrance_at_Anneux_British_Cemetery,_Cambrai,_France.jpg: as France does not have freedom of panorama, this needs a tag for the original work as well as the photo. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:48, 30 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Nikkimaria: thanks for the extra image review. The architect (Lutyens) died on 1 January 1944, so as far as I am aware, all his works and the copyright to those works became part of the public domain on 1 January 2015. Does that over-ride the freedom of panorama considerations? Commons:Freedom of panorama states: "old buildings and statues where the architect or artist died more than a certain number of years ago (depending on the country), are in the public domain". So I am thinking that the image needs a public domain tag to clarify the copyright status of the work shown in the image. I have used Template:PD-old-auto and a suitable US PD tag (see here). Are you happy with that? Carcharoth (talk) 07:48, 30 January 2017 (UTC) Technically, even UK pics showing a potentially copyrighted work need a freedom of panorama tag: see Template:FoP-UK. Carcharoth (talk) 07:48, 30 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
      • So the URAA tag requires that the work be out of copyright in its source country by 1996, but your explanation would have it out of copyright only in 2015 - that suggests that URAA is not the correct tag. Is there another that would apply? Does "1920s" mean pre-1923? Nikkimaria (talk) 12:47, 30 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
        • Oops. You are right. The PD-US tags confuse me. Some of them have the wording 'published in the United States' so I never know whether they apply to works published outside the United States or not (clearly a building erected outside the USA has not been 'published' there). If there is some equivalent, I am not sure what it should be. The first CWGC cemeteries for WWI were constructed in 1920 and the majority of construction had been completed by 1927. Finding the exact dates for each cemetery can be difficult (the closest you might get could be when the cemetery registers were published - in this case the cemetery register was published in 1926). It would be nice to know the exact date of construction, but I am not optimistic. Do you get the (sinking) feeling that though it shouldn't really matter, it will? The image can clearly be used under a fair use rationale, but this sort of thing is why I hate the way the complexity of copyright laws ties people in knots (and it is a real motivation killer as well). I think these works are unpublished in the USA, so maybe Template:PD-US-unpublished applies? I suppose it depends on whether it was published in France or not. In some places on Commons, it says that "the construction of a work of architecture shall not constitute publication", while in other places, it is clearly implied that the date of construction is the date of publication. I wish Commons would be clearer on how architectural copyright works. Carcharoth (talk) 14:54, 30 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done

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