Westminster Abbey is the home to tombs of Kings and Queens and some of the country's greatest people yet perhaps the most famous of all the tombs is that of the Unknown Soldier. This simple tomb in the floor of Westminster Abbey symbolise all those who have died fighting for their country and has become a focal point for national remembrance for all most 90 years.
The idea for a tomb to an unknown soldier first came in to being in 1916 when a Church of England clergyman who was serving on the Western Front came across a grave in a French garden dedicated to an unknown British solider. This idea grew to become a potent symbol that is still in use today and has been replicated in countries across the world.
After the end of World War I there were thousands of bodies that were left unidentified leaving families and loved ones without a grave to visit or pay there respects too. The tomb to the Unknown Soldier became something real and tangible that could represent their loss.
The tomb though could not be just an empty symbol it actually need a body of an unknown soldier from the fields of France or Belgium. In order to choose a soldier, servicemen were exhumed from four prominent battle ground, the Somme, Aisne, Arras and Ypres. The bodies were then brought to a chapel on 7th November 1920 where the officer in charge of the troops in France and Flanders, General Wyatt, would choose the Unknown Soldier.
General Wyatt had no idea who the bodies were or where they had come from, they were simply laid out on stretchers before him and covered with the Union Jack. The idea that the soldier could have been a farmers son from Devon or the son of a Duke really caught the publics imagination.
When the body was chosen it was placed in a coffin and sent to England while the other bodies were reburied. When the body reached Boulogne it was placed inside another coffin made of oak from Hampton Court with a plaque which bore the inscription "A British Warrior who fell in the Great War 1914-1918 for King and Country". The coffin also bore a 16th century crusader's sword that was fixed on top.
On 11th November 1920, the second anniversary of the end of the war, the body of the unknown warrior was drawn in a procession through London to the brand new war memorial in Whitehall, the Cenotaph. At the end of the two minute silence the body was taken to Westminster Abbey where it received a guard of honour of 100 Victoria Cross winners. The grave was filled with soil from France and covered with black marble from Belgium. In the first week after the burial 1,250,000 people came to pay their respects and still today almost 90 years later people for across the country and all over the world come here to pay there respects for the men and women who gave so much to their country.
横浜市都筑区 霊園
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