National Police Memorial
| National Police Memorial | |
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| Police Memorial Trust | |
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| For UK police officers killed in the execution of their duty | |
| Unveiled | April 26, 2005 |
| Location | 51°30′20.67″N 00°7′48.23″W / 51.5057417°N 0.1300639°W |
| Designed by | Lord Norman Foster and Per Arnoldi |
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The National Police Memorial: Honouring Those who Serve
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The National Police Memorial is a memorial in central London, commemorating about 4000 police officers killed in the course of their duties in the United Kingdom. It was designed by Lord Foster of Thames Bank and Per Arnoldi and unveiled in 2005. The Project Architect for Foster was Peter Ridley.
In 1984, following the shooting of Yvonne Fletcher, film director Michael Winner founded the Police Memorial Trust. Initially the Trust concentrated on erecting smaller monuments at the points where officers had died on duty. From the mid-1990s the Trust also lobbied and raised funds for a single, larger scale memorial to commemorate all police officers who had died in the course of their duties. Winner stated that "Memorials to soldiers, sailors and airmen are commonplace, but the police fight a war with no beginning and no end".
Winner donated £500,000 of his own money to the campaign for a national memorial and the remainder of the total cost of £2.3 million was met by a public collection. After a ten-year campaign, Westminster City Council granted planning permission in October 2002.
The Memorial was built to a design by Lord Foster of Thames Bank and Danish designer Per Arnoldi, on the corner of The Mall and Horse Guards Road, directly outside the Old Admiralty Building. The site was occupied at the time by an air shaft on the Bakerloo line of the London Underground.
On 22 July 2004 a symbolic groundbreaking ceremony took place on the site, performed by Prime Minister Tony Blair, Michael Winner, and officers from the Metropolitan Police and Greater Manchester Police, representing the two forces with the highest number of officers killed in the line of duty.
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