War memorials after 1945

I'm bound to draw attention here to my own article on the Church of England and war memorials after 1945, which is now available online (to subscribing libraries), ahead of print publication in the Forum for Modern Language Studies. I've tried to explore the debates that took place between planners, artists, architects and clergy between 1940 and 1947, and the differing emphases on beauty and utility.
For the purposes of this blog, it is of most interest (I hope) in its examination of the ways in which the various sections of the 'establishment' interact in this period. A fruitful angle from which to view the processes of secularisation is the way in which the informal influence of clergy and lay Christians in the myriad committees in government and civil society changes. It is a theme that Ian Jones and I examined in one of our articles on "establishment" reactions to "pop" church music (in Studies in Church History 42), and also features in my own forthcoming piece on the "revival" in the visual arts (Studies in Church History 44).