Manchester Cenotaph is a war memorial in St Peter's Square, Manchester, England.

Manchester was late in commissioning a First World War memorial compared with most
British towns and cities; the city council did not convene a war memorial committee until
1922. The committee quickly raised £10,000 but finding a suitable location for the monument
proved controversial. The preferred site in Albert Square required the removal and relocation
of several statues, and was opposed by the city's artistic community. The next choice was
Piccadilly Gardens, an area ripe for development, but in the interests of expediency, the
council chose St Peter's Square, although it already contained a stone cross commemorating
the former St Peter's Church. Negotiations to move the cross were unsuccessful and the
cenotaph was built with the cross in situ.

The choice of architect was initially to be decided by open competition, but the committee
was criticised in the local press when it reserved the right to overrule the result. It abandoned
the competition and approached Sir Edwin Lutyens, who produced a variation of his design
for the Cenotaph in London. The memorial consists of a central cenotaph and a Stone of
Remembrance flanked by twin obelisks, all features characteristic of Lutyens' works. The
cenotaph is topped by an effigy of a fallen soldier and decorated with relief carvings of the
imperial crown, Manchester's coat of arms and inscriptions commemorating the dead. The
structures, based on classical architecture, use abstract, ecumenical shapes rather than overt
religious symbolism.

The memorial was unveiled on 12 July 1924 by the Earl of Derby, assisted by Mrs Bingle, a
local resident whose three sons had died in the war. It cost £6,940 and the remaining funds
were used to provide hospital beds.

The Cenotaph on its present site

In 2014, Manchester City Council dismantled the memorial and reconstructed it at the
northwest corner of St Peter's Square next to Manchester Town Hall to make room for the
expanded Metrolink tram network. It is a grade II* listed structure and in 2015, Historic
England recognised Manchester Cenotaph as part of a national collection of Lutyens' war
memorials.