The driver

The driver is a bronze recasting of a figure from the Royal Artillery Memorial at Hyde Park Corner in London, built by Charles Sargeant Jagger and Lionel Pearson in 1925.

The sculpture portrays a soldier of the rank of driver holding a whip and bridles for two horses. He is wearing breeches, spurs and a protective legging on his lower right leg (the driver always rode the left hand horse of a pair, and the legging protected his leg from the second horse and the tow-bar of the wagon being pulled). He has a steel helmet for protection.

Jagger was a British sculptor who served with the Artists’ Rifles during the First World War. He served in the Worcestershire Regiment at Gallipoli and on the Western Front, and was awarded a Military Cross for gallantry. Following the war he worked on many war memorials.