Baldan Sofia
Danielis Alice
Ongaro Alessia
CLASSE :4ALS

ACTIVITY II

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

The present text is a summary of the documents provided by the English teacher about David Railtonhe was born on 13 November 1884 in London, he was a clergyman, a Military chaplain and the creator of the Unknown Warrior’s cult.
He was educated by private tutors before attending Macclesfield Grammar School as a boarder. After that David went up to Keble Collegein Oxford and was led to ordination in the Church of England. He was ordained deacon in 1908 and priest in 1909 by the Bishop of Liverpool.
During the First World War he volunteered to serve there as an Army chaplain in France.
The idea of the Unknown Soldier was born when he saw a grave, near Armentieres, on which there was a wrote cross with the inscritpion “An Unknown British Soldier”.
In August 1920 he wrote a letter to Dean Ryle of Westminster Abbey with the suggestion that an Unknown Soldier should be buried in the Abbey and his dream became reality on 11 November 1920.
He thought that in this way he could ease the paino g parents, wives, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters.
After the war he became Vicar of St. John’s Church at Margate in Kent.
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 semantic 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 cult: it was created to comfort all the fallen soldiers’ relatives and to honor soldiers’ sacrifice.