Remembrance, Memorialisation and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC)

In 1914, a forty five year old director of an international mining company, finding he was too old to join the British Army, became commander of a mobile unit of the British Red Cross on the Western Front. This was Fabian Ware, a remarkable man who is principally responsible for the beautiful cemeteries you see today.

Ware had been deeply troubled in his first months in France by the obvious lack of an official recording process of the soldiers’ graves that were beginning to spring up near to the battlefields. Ware set about correcting this and, by 1915, his work with the Red Cross was officially recognised as one of major national importance, being transferred into a new Graves Registration Commission in the British Army. By the end of 1915, agreement was reached with French authorities that land would be granted, in perpetuity, to the British Empire for the burial of the fallen and that the British would maintain the cemeteries.

By 1916, Kew Gardens were supplying seeds and plants for the cemeteries and on 2 May 1917 the body was granted a Royal Charter and named the Imperial War Graves Commission. In the same year, Ware began registering photographs of graves and graveyards for relatives of the dead.