The idea of a ceremonial burial for an unknown soldier came from a WW1 Army padre, Rev. David Railton. The French and the British acted on the idea in 1920 and over the years many other countries have followed suit. The British monument is in Westminster Abbey and the first, annual, service took place there on 11 November 1920. To encompass all three armed services the body is known as the unknown warrior.
There is an interesting follow-up to the burial of the unknown warrior. By 2005 the number of surviving British veterans of WW1 had reduced to nine and the government decided that the last one should be offered a state funeral. In 2008 only three remained, by chance, representing the three services. In July 2009 only Harry Patch remained. Harry was never a man to allow his life or death to be used for empty nationalism; he repeatedly condemned war as 'a calculated and condoned slaughter’ and thus he refused a state funeral. But he did allow a large public one at Wells Cathedral near where he had lived all his life.
2023: We heard the 99% Invisible podcast episode "The Known Unknown". In the States an unknown was buried to represent all the unknown dead of WW1. Another unknown was then buried to represent all the unknown dead of WW2, and one was buried for the Korean War, and yet another for the Vietnam War. However, due to advances in medical science such as DNA analysis, it seems they had great difficulty finding any unidentified body from that war, and ended up burying one who, actually, they knew who it was. This truth did not come out for 14 years. Since then they have buried no more unknowns.
2025: Alan Bennett (in a TV programme celebrating his 90th) drew our attention to the foreign soil in the Westminster grave of the unknown warrior. That grave contains earth brought from each of the main battlefields. Bennett pointed out that this is the reverse of Rupert Brook's line "there’s some corner of a foreign field that is for ever England." There's a corner of Westminster Abbey that is forever foreign.
For more tales of memorial-related soil transportation See George Washington.
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