Sofia Baldan 4ALS

Key figures in The History and Ritual of the British Unknown Soldier

The idea of the grave of the Unknown Soldier was inspired by the Reverend David Railton who was a curate in Folkestone in Kent before becoming a chaplain to the 2nd Battalion of the Hon Artillery Company on the Western Front during the 1914-1918 war.
David Railton was born in 1884 in Stoke Newington London. The Railtons were a Scottish family and David Railton’s father George Scott Railton was a Commissioner in the Salvation Army.
David Railton shared the life at the front with the British Soldiers and was awarded the Military Cross in 1916 for rescuing injured soldiers under the fire.
In the same year (1916) in a garden near Armentieres in France, he noticed a grave marked by a cross with the inscription “An Unknown British Soldier”. So he thought what he could do to ease the pain of parents, wifes, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters. In August 1920 he wrote to the Dean of Westminster, Herbert Ryle, suggesting a memorial in honour to the fallen of the Great War; Dean Ryle was very impressed with the idea and the arrangements were made to bury the Unknown Soldier in the abbey.
The Brigadier General L.J. Wyatt was put in charge of select the body at random among four unidentified British warriors bodies.
The body of the Unknown Soldier was put in a coffin covered with the Union Flag that Railton used to drape over his makeshift altars during the war. That flag ( the Padre’s Flag) now hangs in St. George’s Chapel near to the Warrior’s tomb.
On 11 November 1920 David Railton saw his dream become reality.
He died in a railway accident at Fort William in 1955.
The texts analysed are informative texts or articles and can be read by everyone is interested in the Unknown Soldier’s history and in how this cult was born.
The language is formal and accurate and the semantyc areas that are mainly used are the ones referred to war and memory. There are quoted some David Railton’s words,too. They involve the reader in the history of the Unknown Soldier’s cult.
From the reading and the analysis of the texts, the reader creates a good idea of the Unknown Warrior’s cult: it was created to comfort all the fallen soldiers’ familiars and to honor soldiers’ sacrifice.