HRH The Princess Royal inaugurates new Memorial in Cape Town

A new Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) memorial, which honours the contribution of South African military labourers of the First World War, has been inaugurated by HRH The Princess Royal today.

The new Cape Town Labour Corps Memorial is situated in the Company’s Garden, Cape Town, near Cape Town’s prominent cultural landmarks. As a site of remembrance, it addresses past inequalities in commemoration.

Praise singer Lwanda Sindaphi and Sindiswa Mabadi holding a Calabash burning sage to honour the ancestors who have passed.

Retired teacher Elliot Malunga Delihlazo is the great nephew of Bhesengile Delihlazo, now commemorated on the Cape Town war memorial. He said: “It makes us proud really, that at last, we can be one of the families that people can talk about in the due course of history. That we have made a mark, not just any mark, but an indelible mark."

The South African Youth Choir provided a fitting and inspiring accompaniment to the ceremony.

Director General of the CWGC, Claire Horton CBE, said: "We are deeply honoured and grateful to our President for joining us in unveiling this truly remarkable memorial today, in the presence of descendants whose relatives put their lives on the line for the freedoms we all enjoy today. This landmark memorial, designed and built collaboratively in South Africa, testifies to our shared global history and responsibility to honour all those who gave their lives in service. It acts as a poignant tribute to the predominantly black South Africans who fought in Africa during the First World War and who were not commemorated at the time. The careful and deliberate design of this new memorial offers visitors the space to contemplate the scale of loss of military labourers who gave their lives - ensuring their contribution to the war effort is never forgotten."

CWGC Vice Chairman Vice Admiral Peter Hudson speaking at the Ceremony, HRH The Princess Royal is presented with a bouquet of flowers.

The Mayor of Cape Town Mayor, Geordin Hill-Lewis, said: “We are proud to honour, through this Cape Town Labour Corps Memorial, more than 1700 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 African servicemen who perished in the First World War, and whose stories were often overlooked in the telling of that history. I can think of no better place to remember their contribution than right here in our beautiful and much-loved Company’s Garden in the heart of the Mother City.”

Many came to pay their respects, CWGC Director General Claire Horton tours the new Memorial.

The story of the memorial

It is now known that the (then) Imperial War Graves Commission, alongside colonial administrations, failed to honour at least 100,000 African and Indian service personnel with the same recognition given to Europeans. The landmark new memorial stands as a tribute to the long-overlooked contributions of South Africa’s military labourers during the First World War. It uses contemporary design to share a fuller, inclusive historical narrative of global conflict.

Zweletu Hlakula, a bank manager in Port St Johns, Eastern Cape, is the great grandson of Job Hlakula who was part of the Labour Corps and who is commemorated on the new memorial. He said: “We are very proud of him. We even rejoice when we talk about Job, it’s a pride that we’ve got in our name, for him to be remembered, for him to be in the history of our South Africa, that makes us very humble.”

Wreaths were laid, many from current family members of the commemorated.

The new CWGC site welcomes South Africans and international visitors to pause, reflect and honour these individuals who are, at last, now rightfully commemorated.

Integral to the design is a specially commissioned poem and epitaph, which was part of a joint project between the CWGC and the Royal Society of Literature. Poets Koleka Putuma and Daljit Nagra collaborated on the verse, which expresses the sentiment of loss and retrospective recognition in the context of modern-day South Africa.

Wording from this new poem, your legacies are preserved here, has been etched on to the new memorial.

To read more about the building and features of the Memorial including a time-lapse video of its construction, use the button below: