The Somme, 1916, Reverend David Railton comes upon a the grave a soldier. The cross rough, the lettering done in pencil. The grave was simply identified as belonging to an "Unknown British Soldier."
It was from this experience that led Rev. Railton, in 1920 to write to the Dean of Westminster proposing the idea of burying an unknown British soldier in Westminster Abbey to represent those soldiers who had no known grave. Afraid that it would re-open still fresh wounds of the War, King George V opposed it. With the support of the Dean and Westminster, David Llyod George and the still grieving public, the idea was adopted.
On November 7th, 1920, a body was chosen from four flag draped coffins at a chapel near Arras. The next day, the coffin was loaded onto a French military wagon, pulled by six black horses. At 10:30am, the procession, made up of hundreds of French school children, the French Cavalry and a division of French soldiers made its way down to the harbor at Boulogne.
On November 10th, the casket arrived at the Dover Maritime Railway station and from there was taken to Victoria Station, where it sat overnight.
The next morning, November 11th, the casket was loaded onto a gun carriage of the Royal Horse Artillery. The route followed Hyde Park Corner, the Mall and then to Whitehall where the cenotaph was unveiled. Crowds of ten to twenty deep crowded around Whitehall and Westminster Abbey, all there by invitation, all chosen by ballot from the mothers, fathers, wives, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters who lost a loved one. (The Unknown Soldier, Neil Hanson, Doubleday 2005, p445.) After a brief service, the coffin was interred in the far western end of the nave of the Abbey.
The scale of mourning involved in the burial of the Unknown Warrior was like nothing the world had seen. After the interment, the crowds around Westminster Abbey that had been gathering for days began to file in. In a week, it was estimated that 1.2 million people visited the tomb. The inscription on the grave reads:
BENEATH THIS STONE RESTS THE BODY
OF A BRITISH WARRIOR
UNKNOWN BY NAME OR RANK
BROUGHT FROM FRANCE TO LIE AMONG
THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS OF THE LAND
AND BURIED HERE ON ARMISTICE DAY
11 NOV: 1920, IN THE PRESENCE OF
HIS MAJESTY KING GEORGE V
HIS MINISTERS OF STATE
THE CHIEFS OF HIS FORCES
AND A VAST CONCOURSE OF THE NATION
OF A BRITISH WARRIOR
UNKNOWN BY NAME OR RANK
BROUGHT FROM FRANCE TO LIE AMONG
THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS OF THE LAND
AND BURIED HERE ON ARMISTICE DAY
11 NOV: 1920, IN THE PRESENCE OF
HIS MAJESTY KING GEORGE V
HIS MINISTERS OF STATE
THE CHIEFS OF HIS FORCES
AND A VAST CONCOURSE OF THE NATION
THUS ARE COMMEMORATED THE MANY
MULTITUDES WHO DURING THE GREAT
WAR OF 1914 - 1918 GAVE THE MOST THAT
MAN CAN GIVE LIFE ITSELF
FOR GOD
FOR KING AND COUNTRY
FOR LOVED ONES HOME AND EMPIRE
FOR THE SACRED CAUSE OF JUSTICE AND
THE FREEDOM OF THE WORLD
MULTITUDES WHO DURING THE GREAT
WAR OF 1914 - 1918 GAVE THE MOST THAT
MAN CAN GIVE LIFE ITSELF
FOR GOD
FOR KING AND COUNTRY
FOR LOVED ONES HOME AND EMPIRE
FOR THE SACRED CAUSE OF JUSTICE AND
THE FREEDOM OF THE WORLD
THEY BURIED HIM AMONG THE KINGS BECAUSE HE
HAD DONE GOOD TOWARD GOD AND TOWARD
HIS HOUSE
80 years later Canada buried its own Unknown Soldier from the 1, 603 unknown Canadians buried near Vimy Ridge.HAD DONE GOOD TOWARD GOD AND TOWARD
HIS HOUSE
