Anti-Air War Memorial

Anti-Air War Memorial

Anti-Air War Memorial in 2011, prior to restoration
Location	High Road, Woodford Green, London, England
Designer	Eric Benfield
Material	stone
Opening date	20 October 1935
Listed Building – Grade II
Official name	Anti Air War Memorial
Designated	22 February 1979
Reference no.	1081040

The Anti-Air War Memorial is located in Woodford Green, London, England. It was commissioned and erected by the socialist suffragist Sylvia Pankhurst in 1935 as "a protest against war in the air". It is Britain's first anti-war memorial, and is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building.

Pankhurst held strong pacifist and anti-war beliefs as a result of witnessing Zeppelin raids on London during World War I. In 1932, she expressed opposition to England's bombing of Burma and India, and in 1935 was vocal against Mussolini's aerial attacks on Ethiopia. One of the inscriptions on the memorial dedicates it to "those who in 1932 upheld the right to use bombing aeroplanes", an ironic reference to the participants of the 1932 World Disarmament Conference, who voted to maintain the right to use aerial bombing in warfare. In the words of the sculptor, "Those who had preserved bombing were politically and morally dead, and this was their gravestone".

The memorial was unveiled on 20 October 1935 by R. P. Zaphiro, secretary of the Imperial Ethiopian Legation. Also present were socialist friends of Pankhurst's, such as James Ranger. On its first night in place, the memorial was vandalised and it was later stolen; a replacement was built by Benfield and unveiled on 4 July 1936. The second unveiling was attended by representatives of Germany, France, Hungary, Austria and British Guyana, as well as Ethiopia.

In 1979, the memorial was given a Grade II heritage listing in recognition of its special historic interest, under the name "Anti-Abyssinian War Memorial"; the record was corrected at the time of the restoration in 2014.

In the 1980s, the memorial became a focus for anti-nuclear activists and an annual Peace Picnic was held there. In 1985, for the memorial's 50th anniversary, local resident Sylvia Ayling organised a street march and re-enactment of the unveiling, this time by peace activist Maggie Freake.