1920 – Following the Twenty-Second

11th Nov 1920: The Cenotaph unveiled & the Unknown Warrior laid to rest

On the morning of 11^th November 1920, the casket of the Unknown Warrior was placed onto a gun carriage of the Royal Horse Artillery and drawn by six horses through immense and silent crowds. As the cortege set off, a further Field Marshal’s salute was fired in Hyde Park. The route followed was Hyde Park Corner, The Mall, and to Whitehall where the newly constructed Portland stone Cenotaph, a “symbolic empty tomb”, was unveiled by King George V. The King placed his wreath of red roses and bay leaves on the coffin. His card read “In proud memory of those Warriors who died unknown in the Great War. Unknown, and yet well-known; as dying, and behold they live. George R.I. November 11th 1920”. The cortège was then followed by The King, the Royal Family and ministers of state to Westminster Abbey.

The casket was borne into Westminster Abbey flanked by a guard of honour of one hundred recipients of the Victoria Cross. The guests of honour were a group of one hundred women. They had been chosen because they had each lost their husband and all their sons in the war. The coffin was then interred in the far western end of the Nave, only a few feet from the entrance, in soil brought in a 100 bags from each of the main Western Front battlefields. A temporary stone was placed on top before the unveiling of the present Belgian black marble stone from a quarry near Namur at the remembrance service year later.

10th Nov 1920: The Unknown Warrior arrives in England

On the morning of the 10^th November the Unknown Warrior began its departure from France, where Marshal Foch saluted the casket at the Boulogne quayside before it was carried up the gangway of the destroyer, HMS Verdun, chosen because it bore the name of France’s most famous battle. The Verdun slipped anchor just before noon and was joined by an escort of six battleships. As the flotilla carrying the casket closed on Dover Castle it received a 19-gun Field Marshal’s salute. The body of the Unknown Warrior was carried to Victoria station in London in South Eastern and Chatham Railway General Utility Van No.132, which had previously carried home the bodies of the executed nurse Edith Cavell and mariner Charles Fryatt.

7th Nov 1920: The Unknown Warrior chosen

The remains of four British soldiers were exhumed from various battlefields and brought to the chapel at Saint-Pol-sur-Ternoise near Arras on the night of 7^th November 1920. Brigadier L.J. Wyatt and Lieutenant Colonel E.A.S. Gell of the Directorate of Graves Registration and Enquiries went into the chapel alone. The remains were then placed in four plain coffins each covered by Union Flags. The two officers did not know from which battlefield any individual soldier had come, and Brigadier Wyatt with closed eyes rested his hand on one of the coffins. The other soldiers were then taken away for reburial by the Reverend Kendall.