THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER OF WORLD WAR I

In 1916 the Reverend David Railton, while was serving as a chaplain to British forces at the front in France, one day noticed a make-shift grave marked by a wooden cross across which was written "An Unknown British Soldier".  The sight was not lost on him and four years later he wrote to the Dean of Westminster to convey a remembrance of that scene.  Dean Ryle recognized the message spoken by that grave in France and became the leading force that resulted in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier of Great Britain.

Selection of the soldier destined for burial in the Nave at Westminster Abbey began in France, where the remains of four unknown British war casualties were exhumed from France and Belgium.  In St. Pol, in Northern France, in 1920, Brigadier General L.J. Wyatt, commander of all British troops in France and Flanders, selected at random one to become the Unknown Soldier of the Great War.

In November 1920 a service was held to commemorate the sacrifice of the Unknown Soldier, officiated by chaplains from the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Non-Conformist Churches.  The body was then escorted to Boulogne.

After that on the coffin was inserted a 16th century crusaders sword from the Tower of London collection and a plate with the inscription:  "A British Warrior who fell in the Great War 1914-1918 for King and Country".

Then the coffin was transported to Dover, where its arrival was greeted with a 19-gun salute.  Some warrant officers from the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, Royal Air Force and Royal Army then bore the coffin home to British soil to be taken by train to Victoria Station in London. 

Afterwards the coffin was transported to Westminster Abbey. At the west end of the Nave in Westminster Abbey the Unknown Soldier was laid. Following the hymns, King George V sprinkled soil from the battlefield at Ypres on the coffin and the grave was sealed with a temporary stone inscribed with the words: "A British Warrior Who Fell in the Great War 1914-1918 for King and Country.  Greater Love Hath No Man Than This."

In October 1921, American General John J. Pershing presented the Medal of Honor to the Unknown Soldier of Great Britain.  That Medal of Honor now hangs in a frame on a nearby pillar.

In November 1921, the same date on which the American Unknown Soldier was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery, the temporary stone marking the Unknown Soldier of Great Britain was replaced.  A slab of black Belgian marble became the permanent replacement with a guilded inscription to forever commemorate the Unknown soldier from World War I.