The poignant war memorial in the iconic Company’s Garden - which salutes by name black South African soldiers whose sacrifice during World War 1 was never acknowledged - has become an asset to the CBD.
As World War 1 got underway in July 1914, thousands of black South Africans were sent to serve in the military labour corps in a war they knew nothing about. Just more than 1 700 never returned.
For decades, these were the forgotten men who gave their lives in one of the bloodiest conflicts in human history.
Earlier this year, the ultimate sacrifice that these men made was commemorated in a striking memorial in Cape Town’s Company’s Garden, paying homage to them in a in a unique and profound way.
An inscription on a granite block at the memorial says, simply: “Your legacies are preserved here.”
Established by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) and inaugurated by its president, Britain’s Princess Anne, in January 2025, the memorial honours these brave men who perished far from home, in a war estimated to have claimed the lives of more than 16 million combatants and civilians across the globe.
CORRECTING WRONGS OF THE PAST
David McDonald, operations manager for the commission’s Non-Commemoration Programme and the memorial’s project lead, says it was created to correct wrongs from the past, in which a clear omission was identified in the memorial landscape.
“Whilst the commission, a global leader in commemoration, maintains the graves and memorials to thousands of South Africans who lost their lives in both World Wars – both in South Africa and around the world at the places where they fell – the names of these men were not previously in the commission’s archives and had not previously been formally commemorated,” he says. The commission, founded by the Royal Charter in 1917, works on behalf of the governments of Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa and the United Kingdom to commemorate the 1.7 million men and women from the Commonwealth who lost their lives in the two World Wars.
The South African Labour Units, also known as the Carrier Corps, carried equipment, food, supplies and materials required by active troops.
INDIVIDUAL MARKERS
McDonald says the winning scheme for the memorial featured individually engraved timber posts to represent each of the fallen, with 1 772 individual markers evoking “a forest ravaged by war” and offering visitors a sense of the scale of the losses.
As opposed to a more traditional memorial, it was intended to be experiential and to allow visitors to “move through and engage with it in a different way”.
McDonald says: “The fact that there is an individual timber post for every casualty who lost their lives, immediately gives you a sense of scale in terms of the number of men who perished. The shadows cast by the posts move throughout the day as the trajectory of the sun changes and evoke the historical images of the labourers who often marched in long caravans transporting all the supplies needed to conduct the war efforts,” he says.
Eddie Andrews, Deputy Mayor of Cape Town and MayCo member, believes the memorial is “an act of correction and recognition: restoring names to the public record and acknowledging the sacrifices of those who were previously overlooked”.
He says: “From a distance, the ensemble reads as a unified sculptural field; on approach, the viewer discovers each individual name. The design stands out because it combines minimalist materiality with a powerful human scale: the repetition of similar posts emphasises the magnitude of loss, while the individual inscriptions restore personal identity and dignity. The use of timber, weathering over time, evokes natural cycles of memory and renewal, integrating the memorial into its landscape”.
The design was chosen through a competition organised by the Institute of Architects. The winning submission was selected for its sensitive treatment of scale, material, and for its ability to balance individual commemoration with a coherent public presence.
The project involved collaboration between the winning designers, the commission, the City and Heritage Western Cape to ensure the memorial met both commemorative and contextual requirements.
AN ESSENTIAL ROLE
Speaking at the memorial’s inauguration, Cape Town Executive Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said: “We are proud to honour, through this memorial, the 1 700 servicemen who made the ultimate contribution in the fight against tyranny more than a century ago. This memorial is a wonderful tribute to black South Africans who perished in WW1, and whose stories were often overlooked in the telling of that history.
The role of the South African Labour Corps was essential to the war efforts during the World War 1. Unlike the scenes of trench warfare which were commonplace on European battlefields, the campaigns in modern-day Namibia and across East Africa were predominantly Guerrilla campaigns fought through vast territories. Almost all logistical support for the war effort was undertaken by these Labour Regiments.
“This would include working at ports, supply depots and medical stations. But for many the work took place along the vast lines of communication which stretched across the breadth of modern-day Tanzania and were traversed on foot … these men would carry supplies across vast distances to the locations where the fighting regiments were stationed and battles were taking place.”
Some men would also have served as machine gun porters and would have been working close to the front lines, bringing ammunition and supplies into combat.
No matter which role they played, the war effort could not have taken place without their involvement.
LEST WE FORGET
Tasso Evangelinos, CEO of the Cape Town Central City Improvement District (CCID), says the striking memorial is a poignant addition to the CBD’s cultural landscape.
“The Company’s Garden is a great asset to the Cape Town CBD. Not only is it steeped in history, but it is a valuable ‘green lung’ in the urban landscape where everyone is welcome. The Commonwealth War Graves memorial has become a striking and poignant addition to this special space. Not only is it a fitting salute to the fallen soldiers of the Carrier Corps, but it has been sensitively imagined and beautifully executed and has become an attraction for many local, national, and international visitors to the CBD.”
Andrews says the Company’s Garden was chosen because it is a prominent and honourable site, freely accessible to a wide cross-section of residents and visitors, “integrating remembrance into everyday civic life”. “The site sits within the existing Delville Wood Memorial precinct, providing continuity with other commemorative spaces and linking the new memorial to established narratives of military remembrance.”
He says the inauguration ceremony – marked by emotional testimony, praise singers and visible involvement of descendant families – reinforced the memorial’s role as a living place of remembrance rather than a purely symbolic artefact. “It was a beautiful ceremony that will always be remembered”.
The emotional responses of visitors to the memorial include contemplation, sorrow and empathy. “Visitors often experience a heightened awareness of the futility and human cost of war, combined with a sense of relief or closure that previously neglected individuals are now acknowledged. For many, the memorial provokes personal reflection – on family histories, on national narratives, and on the broader consequences of conflict”.
Perhaps now, more than a century after losing their lives in foreign lands, and while, in the backdrop, the tablecloth settles on the most famous landmark in the country of their birth, the souls of these heroic South Africans will finally rest in peace.
IMAGES: CCID, Commonwealth War Graves Commission