The Cenotaph on Du Toitspan Road is a memorial to 400 of Kimberley’s men who died in the Great War (World War I) between 1914 and 1918.

Designed by the local architect and artist William Timlin, it was unveiled by four mothers, each of whom had lost either sons, or a husband, during the war. A sketchy documentation of the unveiling means that today we know little about these women.

What Kimberley archives do reveal is that Ethel Annie Pickering, who lost both sons in the war, fired the first shell from the Long Cecil gun, during the event. Historian Steve Lunderstedt reports that research brought to light a Catherine Anderson (vouched for by her grandson in Perth, Australia) and a Katie Solomon, as well.

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