Dover
Lock and Key of the Kingdom

The Unknown Warrior was selected to rest in Westminster Abbey, as a representative of the hundreds of thousands of British troops who had died during the First World War. In late 1920 four groups of British soldiers were sent out to the four biggest battlefields of the Western Front - Aisne, Arras, Somme and Ypres - where crude wooden crosses marked the graves of British soldiers.

Each group located a cross which showed that the identity of the soldier buried there was unknown. The body was then exhumed and taken to a temporary chapel at St Pol in Northern France. The four sets of remains were guarded overnight and the next day a high ranking British officer (some reports say that he was blind-folded) entered the chapel and touched one of the bodies, all of which were covered with Union flags.

The chosen body was placed in a plain coffin and taken to Boulogne. With the coffin went sacks of soil dug from the spot where the soldier had died, so that the earth of France that he was defending would cover his last resting place in Westminster Abbey. On 10 November 1920 the body was placed in a larger oak coffin and, amid great ceremony, taken aboard HMS Verdun. The ship sailed from Boulogne to Dover escorted by six destroyers.

At Dover people lined the cliffs to see the Unknown Warrior return home. At the Admiralty Pier representatives of the nation were waiting and Dover’s civic leaders were among those there to pay homage. With great ceremony the remains were loaded onto the special train and taken to London. The next day, 11 November 1920, the second anniversary of the signing of the Armistice, the remains of the Unknown Warrior were carried through the streets of London and laid to rest in Westminster Abbey.

By the end of the day 200,000 people had visited his graveside. He represented more than 300,000 British and Dominion soldiers with no known grave.