Colchester suffered comparatively poorly in the First World War, losing some 1,248 in the conflict. As early as 1918 prominent voices in the town were calling for a war memorial, and a committee was set up to decide the form of the monument, with several practical schemes favoured by the working class of the town. The committee decided on a sculptural monument and, following a visit to the Royal Academy's War Memorial Exhibition, the sculptor Henry Charles Fehr was chosen to undertake the work, for which he was paid £3,000. The memorial, which was dedicated in 1923, consists of three human figures on a sculptural pedestal. The figures are of Saint George, an allegorical representation of peace and the Goddess Nike. Henry Fehr was responsible for many memorials in the UK; two years previously, he had designed one in Grange Gardens, Grangetown, Cardiff. This is similar to the statue in Colchester, except that it does not have the statues on the base.