Context 161 - September 2019

C O N T E X T 1 6 1 : S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 9 51 JEREMY PRESCOTT War memorials: sacrifice and remembrance Remembrance can not be taken for granted: the creation and conservation of war memorials, and agreeing the principles on which they are based, is a challenge for every generation. My interest in war memorials stems from a career in the army. Having seen sacrifice at first hand I strongly believe that if we are to send our young men and women to war, we as a nation should remember the sacrifice that many have made and continue to make. This interest continued when I left the army and became CEO of a charity in Leicestershire. Thinking of how my charity was to support rural communities in their own commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the first world war, a bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund was submitted which led to the start of a series of presentations under the umbrella title of Sacrifice and Remembrance (www.sacrificeandremembrance.com) . The custom of commemorating the fallen in conflicts with war memorials and headstones is a relatively new occurrence, emanating mainly from the horrific casualties experienced in the first world war. There was little respect for the fallen at the Battle of Waterloo (1815), where bodies were pillaged, mainly for their teeth, and burnt on funeral pyres. In the aftermath of the terrible defeat the British suffered in the Anglo-ZuluWar at Isandlwana in 1879, bodies were buried but in mass graves, with no individual recognition of who lay in each grave. At the Battle at Spion Kop in the second BoerWar in 1900 bodies were again buried in mass graves, but attempts were made to commemorate some of the names of the fallen on war memorials. The scale of the sacrifice in the first world war, particularly on the western front, presented the War Office with a real problem in dealing with the logistical problems of how to deal with death at such unprecedented levels. On the first day (1st July 1916) of the Battle of the Somme 19,240 British soldiers were killed; losses on one day that have not occurred on such a scale before or since. Solutions such as creating mass graves behind the front line were mooted but dismissed as relatives sought to be informed where their loved ones were buried to allow them to pay their respects. In the early days of the first world war the registration of the fallen was in its infancy, but at least efforts were made to record where soldiers were buried with temporary wooden crosses. It was FabianWare, in charge of the Red Cross Mobile Ambulance Service, who realised the Bodies were buried in mass graves after the British defeat at Isandlwana in 1879.