Herbert Edward Ryle

Sir Herbert Edward Ryle (1856 – 1925) was a British writer, an Old Testament scholar and consecutively the Bishop of Exeter, the Bishop of Winchester and the Dean of Westminster.

Ryle was born in London on the 25^th  May 1856 and he was one of the son of the first Bishop of Liverpool.

He attends King's College in Cambridge, as a classical scholar, and there he excelled in every competition and exam.

Throughout his life, Ryle became a teacher and also a Principal  in different colleges; during his career he published a lot of books related with his academic interests (Philosophy, Holy scriptures).

As concern his occupation as a clergy man he was designed deacon in 1882, priest in 1883, Chaplain to Queen Victoria in 1896, in 1898 a Chaplain-in Ordinary to Her Majesty, in December 1900 Ryle was nominated Bishop of Exeter.

In December 1910 Ryle was appointed Dean of Westminster. He was installed in Westminster Abbey in a period when the edifice was being arranged for the coronation of King George V.

In 1920 the Reverend David Railton wrote to Ryle proposing the Unknown Soldier’s project.

That consist of an unidentified British soldier from the battlefields in France would be buried with due ceremony in Westminster Abbey "amongst the kings" to symbolize the Great War’s victims. This idea was sustained by Ryle indeed the inscription on the tomb was composed by him.

Ryle always had hearth trouble and in 1925 died. He was buried on 25 August in Westminster Abbey in a near to The Unknown Warrior’s tomb.