6 minute read
We Will Remember Them
In November the Club will host a walking tour to mark 100 years since the Unknown Warrior was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey; we find out more about its huge significance, and why one of our members is qualified to deem it “the most important memorial in the Abbey”.
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IT IS THE QUIET simplicity of the Grave of the Unknown Warrior, perhaps, that gives it such power. At Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, which was inspired by the British memorial, a huge marble sarcophagus looks out over the landscape. In Paris, a permanent flame burns under the arch of Europe’s grandest monument. But in Westminster Abbey, a rectangle of black marble lies flush with the floor at the West End of the nave. If it wasn’t permanently fringed in poppies, it might be one more slab in a cathedral replete with them.
The inscription, however, carries its own intrinsic power. It records the presence beneath of “… a British warrior, unknown by name or rank, brought from France to lie among the most illustrious of the land… They buried him among the kings because he had done good toward God and toward his house”.
The Unknown Warrior was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey on 11 November 1920, the second anniversary of the World War One armistice. It’s hard to fathom now quite what a moment of national unity and catharsis this was: the cortege’s passage through London, and the huge ceremonial funeral that followed, brought to a standstill a nation still deeply traumatised.
“It was a moment of incredible national poignancy,” says Kim Dewdney, who will be leading a walking tour on the subject for members on 4 November, a century on from the event. “The newspapers published details of the route and people stood alongside and witnessed it in their thousands. Edward VII’s funeral in 1911 would have been comparable in scale, but for ordinary people this probably had even more pull. It was personal.”
It was an army chaplain serving on the Western Front, Reverend David Railton MC, who first dreamed up such a memorial when, in 1916, he saw a grave marked by a wooden cross with a pencil-scrawled inscription: ‘An Unknown British Soldier’. Railton wrote to the commander of British forces, Lord Douglas Haig, but received no reply. In 1920 he put his idea to Herbert Ryle, the Dean of Westminster Abbey. Ryle immediately took it to the Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, who gave it his enthusiastic support.
The King, George V, took more convincing – the country, after all, was officially on a victory footing, and wounds needed to be healed rather than reopened. However, the outpouring of sentiment around the Cenotaph, initially erected in 1919 as a temporary monument to celebrate victory, revealed a deep-set need to commemorate and grieve: unprompted, the public had begun laying wreathes at the structure, turning the victory monument into a memorial. A permanent stone Cenotaph was duly commissioned to fulfil that role, while Railton’s idea was put into action.
In early November 1920, teams were dispatched to former battlefields to unearth the decomposed – and therefore unidentifiable – remains of four soldiers killed early in the war, from which one was selected at random by Brigadier L J Wyatt, commander of British forces in Flanders at the time. Placed in a coffin made of oak from the trees of Hampton Court Palace, the body was transported with solemn ceremony to Britain aboard the destroyer HMS Verdun, and by train to Victoria Station. From there, the funeral cortege made its way past vast, silent crowds to the Cenotaph, where the
This page: the Grave of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey Far right; HRH The Prince of Wales with Sir Stephen Lamport
Princess Beatrice was the latest royal bride to follow the tradition of having their wedding bouquet placed on the tomb
King and dignitaries laid wreaths – a tradition that continues to this day. At the Abbey, the congregation mostly comprised the widows and mothers of fallen servicemen, with a guard of honour from 100 recipients of the Victoria Cross.
In subsequent days, more than a million people would visit to pay their respects. “The government didn’t anticipate that people would take it so much to heart,” says Dewdney. “But at that time, you held on to the fact that this could be your father, husband, son. There’s no question that that’s how people saw it.”
And today? While the Great War has faded from living memory, the memorial’s potency has only broadened and endured, says Sir Stephen Lamport, a Club member who served at Westminster Abbey as Receiver General (the cathedral’s senior lay position and de facto chief executive) from 2008-2018. “It is the most important memorial in the Abbey, and part of what defines it. Over the years it has become a universal symbol of suffering and of sacrifice in all conflicts. Each Remembrancetide, the quantity of poppies that people throw onto the grave is extraordinary. It has that power still, and you see it resonating with people in a very personal way.
“The story of the soldier’s journey to the Abbey,” Sir Stephen adds, “is made even more poignant by the fact that the Lutyens Cenotaph was actually unveiled on that day, with the gun carriage standing beneath it.”
It is a tradition that visiting heads of state pay their respects by laying a wreath at the grave – Sir Stephen witnessed such ceremonies with Presidents Trump and Obama, and France’s Emmanuel Macron, among others. “It conveys the message, and does so very powerfully, that peace is not something you can take for granted. It has to be striven for all the time, and while conflict will always be with us, the price is extremely high.”
When Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon married the future George VI in 1923, she laid her bouquet on the grave in memory of her brother Fergus, killed at Loos in 1915, whose body was never found. Since then, the bouquets of all Royal brides have been placed there. Moreover, of all the graves and memorials in the Abbey, that of the Unknown Warrior is the only one which is never walked upon – not even by the monarch at coronation.
“It is doing huge national honour to the humblest of individuals, because of what he stands for and what that sacrifice means,” says Sir Stephen, whose tenure included the centennial commemorations for the start and end of World War One, and for the Battle of the Somme, for which an all-night vigil was held; members of the public filed through the Abbey as the hours to the moment troops went over the top were counted down.
For the Armistice centenary, the poppies around the grave were for once replaced with spring flowers – a symbol of renewal. “That was incredibly powerful in itself,” says Sir Stephen. “It helps to realise the power that symbols can have, and it’s key that this one is permanent. It’s not just history.”
For further information about the walking tour on 4 November, and to book, please visit the Events section of the Club website.
