Chattri memorial

Commemorative service in 2008

By Jennifer Drury

On Sunday June 8th, the annual commemorative service for Sikh and Hindu soldiers who died while in hospitals in Brighton and Hove during the Great War 1914 - 1918, was held. People gather every year at the Chattri on the Downs above Brighton to remember 53 Hindu and Sikh servicemen whose bodies were cremated on the site where the Chattri now stands.

The memorial inscription on the monument reads:

"To the memory of all Indian soldiers who gave their lives for their King-Emperor in the Great War, this monument, erected on the site of the funeral pyre where Hindus and Sikhs who died in hospital at Brighton passed through the fire, is in grateful admiration and brotherly affection dedicated"