St. Giles, Oxford: The Phantom Museum

Available for over a year

In the closing years of the war, a debate raged in Oxford about how best to memorialise the fallen. Today in St. Giles, a main thoroughfare in the centre of the city is the Oxford War Memorial - a large and simple stone cross which sits on an island between two main roads. However, the mayor at the time had different plans altogether: for a grand, and imposing war museum. Professor William Whyte, Fellow of St John’s College, Oxford, and Malcolm Graham, author and historian, tell the story of this ‘Phantom Museum’, what it aimed to do, and why it never happened. Location: Oxford War Memorial, St. Giles, Oxford OX4 Reading by Sue Rae Presented by Rich Ward Image: Sketch of the proposed War Museum for Oxford in the Oxford Journal Illustrated, (Wednesday February 5, 1919). Used with kind permission of Oxfordshire County Council – Oxfordshire History Centre.