With the announcement that New Zealand is to have its own Tomb of the Unknown Warrior as a memorial to all who have died in the service of their country, it is fitting to recall how Britain undertook the first of these solemn ceremonies of homage 82 years ago.

Unknown… and yet so well known

In ancient times, kings, chiefs and the famous were often buried in magnificent tombs, which stand as their memorials. After a great battle, the victors would set up a trophy of arms, helmets and armour and even a cenotaph or empty tomb, but the idea of an unknown man being buried with honour is a comparatively recent one. It sprang from the imagination of a British Army Chaplain, the Reverend David Railton, MC (1884-1955).

During World War I, near Armentieres, he saw a grave bearing a pencilled inscription 'An Unknown Soldier of the Black Watch'. It gave him an idea that later became a national memorial.

It was not until 1920, the year that the Cenotaph in London was unveiled, that he was able to put forward his plan. He approached the Dean of Westminster, the Right Reverend Herbert Ryle, and suggested that an unknown soldier be brought from the battlefields of France and buried among the nation's illustrious dead in Westminster Abbey. The Dean was able to persuade the Government of the day to accept this innovative idea.

	Imperial War Museum
	LYING IN STATE: The coffin of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey. It rests on the Actors' Pall, given by that profession to remember their fellow artists who had died in the war.

Armistice Day

A committee, headed by Lord Curzon, recommended that the foreign minister should arrange for an unknown soldier to be disinterred in France and brought to the Abbey. It further recommended that the burial should be on Armistice Day and that King George V should be asked if, after he had unveiled the new Cenotaph in Whitehall, he would follow the gun-carriage bearing the body to Westminster Abbey.

The British authorities gave very little information about the selection of the Unknown Warrior, and it was not until, Armistice Day 1939 - 19 years later - that Brigadier-General L J Wyatt, DSO, in a letter to The Daily Telegraph, made the facts public.

The Brigadier-General as general officer in charge of troops in France and Flanders, and director of the Imperial War Graves Commission, was given instructions that the body of a British soldier, whom it would be impossible to identify, should be brought in from each of the four battle areas - the Aisne, the Somne, Arras and Ypres - on the night of 7 November and placed in the chapel at St. Pol.

The party pinging each body was to return a once to its area, so that there should be no chance of anyone knowing the choice. The bodies, carried in ambulances, were received by the Reverend George Kendall, OBE at the chapel, and a guard set at the door. In front of the altar was the shell of the coffin which had been sent out from Britain to receive the remains.

Body selected

The bodies, each covered with a Union Jack, were placed in a row on stretchers. At midnight on 7 November the Brigadier, accompanied by Colonel Gell, entered the chapel. He selected a body, and with the Colonel's help placed it in the shell and screwed down the lid.

As Brigadier-General Wyatt said, "I had no idea even of the area from which the body I selected had come, and no one else can know it." The other bodies were re-buried in the military cemetery at St. Pol.

The following morning, chaplains of the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church and non-conformist churches held a service in the chapel. At noon the body was sent, under escort, to Boulonge.

At 3.30pm, after passing through troops lining the outskirts of the city, the ambulance drew up at an old castle, the local headquarters of the French Army.

Eight soldiers including a sergeant-major of the Royal Army Service Corps, a sergeant of the Royal Engineers, a gunner of the Royal Field Artillery, an Australian Light Horseman, a private each from the Canadian infantry, and Machine Gun Corps, and a rifleman from the 21st London Regiment (First Surrey Rifles) stepped forward as bearers.

The castle library had been turned into a chapel of rest. The body was taken in through corridors lined by French soldiers. A French company furnished the guard throughout the last night on French soil. No British troops were present.

Plain oak coffin

At noon the next day, the rough wooden shell was placed in a plain oak coffin sent from Britain the previous night. This had wrought-iron bands through one of which was passed a 16th century Crusader's sword from the Tower of London's collection.

The coffin, of Hampton Court oak, presented by the British Undertakers Association, and bearing the inscription A British Warrior who fell in the Great War 1914-18 for King and Country, was placed on a French military wagon drawn by six horses and, escorted by French troops.

It was taken into Boulogne, where the destroyer HMS Verdun was waiting, sent by the Admiralty as a special tribute to the French nation and the gallant defence of that city. The cortege was a mile long.

The French Government sent a division of all arms to pay their last tribute. Marshal Ferdinand Foch, representing the French nation spoke, and Lieutenant General Sir George Macdonagh replied on behalf of King George. General Weygand, together with many other distinguished high-ranking French and British officers were present.

Aboard the destroyer, the bearer party laid the coffin on the deck. Six barrels of soil from the Ypres salient were put aboard to be placed in the tomb in Westminster Abbey, so that the body should rest in soil on which so many troops had given up their lives.

As HMS Verdun moved off, a guard of Bluejackets and guns on shore fired a salute. An escort of six destroyers joined the ship and, later, as she steamed into Dover Harbour, a 19-gun salute was fired from the castle. Six warrant officers from the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, the army and the Royal Air Force acted as bearers and six officers from all services brought the body ashore.

It was followed to the marine station by Sir George Macdonagh, the officers of the garrison and the Mayor and Corporation of Dover, where it received a salute from a guard of honour of the 2nd Connaught Rangers and the Duke of York's Military School. The carriage in which the coffin was placed was that which had carried home Nurse Edith Cavell and Captain Fryatt.

More than an hour elapsed before the London-bound train started, during which time four sentries, one from each service stood guard. The coffin remained on the train overnight and was then taken over by the 1st Battalion, Grenadier Guards.

The coffin, covered by a Union Jack, with a steel helmet, side arms and a webbing belt placed on it, was put on to a gun carriage drawn by six horses and slowly made its way to the Cenotaph, led by the firing party and the bands of the Coldstream, Scots, Irish and Welsh Guards. Troops from all services followed.

The pall bearers were Sir Hedworth Meux, Earl Beatty, Sir Charles Madden, General Gatliff, Sir Henry Jackson, Lord Byng; Lord Home, Sir Henry Wilson, Earl Haig, Lord French, Lord Methuen and Sir Hugh Trenchard.

As the gun-carriage drew up at the Cenotaph, King George stepped forward and placed a wreath of red roses and bay leaves on the coffin.

After the Silence, the gun-carriage moved off with King George, as chief mourner, taking his place behind it, followed by the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, Prince Henry, the Duke of Connaught, the Marquis of Milford Haven, the Prime Minister and ministers of State.

100 Victoria Crosses

At the door of the Abbey, the coffin was met by the clergy, and borne by NCOs of the Guards, passed through two lines of 100 holders of the Victoria Cross, some in uniform, some in plain clothes, under the command of Colonel Bernard Freyberg VC. Behind these were the widows and mothers of the fallen.

The service was conducted by the Dean of Westminster with music by English composers including Kipling's Recessional. During the singing of Lead Kindly Light, the bearers removed the helmet and side arms from the coffin and lowered it into the tomb. At the committal, the King scattered earth from the battlefields from a silver shell.

After a roll of drums, the poignant notes of the Last Post rang out, followed by Reveille. Finally the two lines of VC holders filed past. The honours paid were those due to a Field Marshal.

By 27 November 1920, it was estimated that 1.5 million people had passed slowly in homage to what is perhaps the best known and most visited war grave in the world.

Image: Westminster Abbey
To view a larger image please click here.

In 1923, the then Duchess of York, later Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother placed her wedding bouquet on the tomb. It was an appropriate gesture as her brother, Captain the Honourable Fergus Bowes-Lyon, Black Watch, had been killed at Loos on 27 September 1915 and had no known grave. Who is to know she was not laying the flowers on his grave?

The new black marble stone from Belgium was laid on the Tomb in 1921. The inscription was provided by Dean Herbert Ryle. The famous text, They buried him among the Kings, because he had done good toward God and toward His House, is more than 500 years old and is as King Richard II had inscribed on the tomb of his friend the Bishop of Salisbury, also buried in Westminster Abbey.

Story courtesy Royal British Legion