Black Merchant Seamen War Memorial
war memorial in the UK
The Black Merchant Seamen War Memorial is a sandstone stone memorial, It is situated in Falkner Square, Liverpool. The stone is from the Liverpool Seamen's Hostel with a bronze plaque dedicated to all the Black Seamen who served during World War II. It was unveiled in 1993 on the 50th anniversary of the Battle of the Atlantic.
History
The memorial was installed in Falkner Square Gardens in 1993, following a campaign organised by community activist Joe Farrag, whose Egyptian grandfather, Ali Hussain Farrag, served as a merchant seaman during World War II. He went down with his ship, along with 36 other crew members, on 12 May 1943.
Over the years since the memorial was installed, the plaque was defaced and pulled from the stone, it was returned by the local gardener. The War Memorials Trust gave a grant to remove the graffiti by steam cleaning.
After several years of the plants around the memorial being overgrown by branches, a Facebook group was set up by local residents to raise awareness of it and have visitor and road signs installed locally. A celebration was held in August 2019 to mark the installation of the signs and increase awareness of the memorial.
Description
The memorial consists of a freestanding red sandstone stone from the (now demolished) Liverpool Seamen's Hostel which bears an embossed plaque. On top of the plaque is the outline of a ship, "Fort Concord", which was sunk by German U-boat U-456 on 12 May 1943.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Black Merchant Seamen War Memorial” is war memorial in the UK. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Black, Merchant and Seamen, not as a finished interpretation.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q85760405. Authority coordinates are 53.398, -2.963. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1993, 1943 and 2019.
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This entry incorporates text from “Black Merchant Seamen War Memorial” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.