The soldier with the donkey statue
Introduction
The photograph on this page of The soldier with the donkey statue by Robert Graham as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
The soldier with the donkey statue
Image: © Robert Graham Taken: 9 May 2022
On Ocean Road in South Shields town centre. This represents John Simpson Kirkpatrick, a native of the town who was living in Australia just before the first world war and joined the army there. He was part of the Anzac force which went to Gallipoli in 1915. He was a stretcher bearer and found a local donkey which he used to carry the wounded. Eventually on May 19th 1915 he was killed by machine gun fire. Commemorated as a hero in Australia, he was however refused a gallantry award by the British authorities. The statue is by local artist Bob Olley and was erected in 1988.
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
54.999124
Longitude
-1.430966