Georgetown Cenotaph
The Georgetown Cenotaph, at the junction of Main and Church Streets in Georgetown, Guyana, like all cenotaphs, was erected in commemoration of persons who died and were buried elsewhere.
This Cenotaph, however, has a national significance since it is a memorial to Guyanese soldiers who lost their lives in the First and Second World Wars.
Guyanese soldiers served and fought in such far off places as Egypt, France, Belgium and East Africa, and from all testimonies were both courageous and heroic.
For this reason Guyana continues to observe Remembrance Day on the second Sunday of November each year when wreaths are laid at this central Cenotaph in remembrance of those who fought and died in those wars.
On the four faces of the base of the Cenotaph are inscribed the four words - Devotion, Humanity, Fortitude and Sacrifice.
Although the first Armistice Day was 11 November 1918, the official end of hostilities in the First World War, Guyana's War Memorial was not erected until 1923.
It was unveiled on 14 August 1923 by the then Governor, Graeme Thomson, and the first Armistice Day observance took place at the Church Street Monument on 11 November 1923.
After the end of the Second World War in 1945 Armistice Day was renamed Remembrance Day or Remembrance Sunday, and observed on the first or second Sunday of November. Since 1956 it was internationally agreed to observe Remembrance Day on the second Sunday of November.
Before 1923, however, the site where the Cenotaph now stands was occupied by an ornate drinking fountain which was erected in 1867 to mark the completion of the Water Works in 1866.
That drinking fountain, no longer functional but still impressive, now stands on the green opposite St. Rose's High School in Church Street, just a few hundred feet from where it held centre stage 100 years ago.
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