Also, from the minutes of the urban district council we can give a little more information about the gun on the March Quay. On June 9 1919, the clerk reported that the Territorial Force Association had allocated one of the guns of heavy calibre offered to the county by the War Office to March and, acting on instructions of the chairman, he accepted the offer.

On October 6 1919, the clerk reported that the 105m/m Howitzer had been received from the Army Ordnance Department.

However, it was not until the February 6 1922 that the council ‘ordered the gun to be placed on the quay’. The next year on July 2 1923, it was reported that a letter was received from Mr Francis (Manager of Barclays Bank) complaining that the children playing on the gun were a nuisance and suggesting the removal of the gun.

There is no further mention in the Council minutes of the Gun even when in October 1941 the Council were required to carry out a survey of suitable iron railings, gates, posts etc for requisitioning and in December 1942 the request from the Ministry of Works and Planning for the demolishing of the Fountain for scrap was refused.

So what happened to it? Did the council remove it because of Mr Francis’s complaint? Was it removed when Mrs Crowson and the London Central Meat Co had temporary stalls on the quay during the rebuilding of Bridge House in 1924? Perhaps we shall never know.

RICHARD MUNNS

Vice-chairman,

March Museum