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Wagoners' Memorial


The Wagoners' Memorial is a war memorial in Sledmere, in the East Riding of Yorkshire in England. The unusual squat columnar memorial was designed by Sir Mark Sykes, 6th Baronet and built in 1919–20. It became a Grade II listed building in 1966, upgraded to Grade I in February 2016. The memorial stands near a copy of the Eleanor Cross from Hardingstone, which was built as a village cross in the 1890s and converted by Sykes into a war memorial for the men from his estate.

Sykes was the son of Sir Tatton Sykes, 5th Baronet. He served in the Princess of Wales' Own Yorkshire Regiment in the Boer War and later as lieutenant colonel in of the 5th Battalion, Yorkshire Regiment. He was MP for the local constituency of Kingston upon Hull Central from 1911 to his death in 1919. He inherited the baronetcy on his father's death in 1913. The 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement is named after him.

Sykes received permission to raise the Wagoners Special Reserve as a Territorial Army unit in 1912, signing up farm labourers and tenant farmers from across the Yorkshire Wolds for war service as drivers of horse-drawn wagons. Sykes held wagon-driving competitions for his wagoners.

During the First World War, 1,127 men from the corps were called up to serve in the Army Service Corps and the Royal Engineers. Most were sent to serve on the Western Front in France, with little or no military training, and given the important logistical task of moving essential materiel: food, ammunition and equipment. Wagoners also served in Italy, Salonika and the Middle East.


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