Equality in death? The Commonwealth War Graves Commission

Approximate read time: 10 minutes

1. Purpose and history

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission has said that its mission is to “ensure those who died in service, or as a result of conflict, are commemorated so that they, and the human cost of war, are remembered forever”.^[1] Originally known as the Imperial War Graves Commission, the organisation was founded by royal charter in 1917. Its creation came about because of the large number of soldiers who died during the first world war. Their bodies needed to be identified and buried, with these processes recorded. The burial sites created also needed to be cared for on an ongoing basis.

The commission’s work was not universally welcomed at the time of its creation.^[2] Some bereaved families criticised their loss of decision making about how and where their loved ones would be remembered. There were also complaints about the lack of repatriation of bodies, the neutral rather than Christian nature of headstones, and the challenges for families trying to find their loved one’s remains.^[3] In addition, there were accusations that the creation of such sites was a form of denial of the horrors of war.^[4] The commission has said that over the course of the 20th century public opinion gradually shifted to a general consensus of approval for its work.

Today, the commission works on behalf of the governments of Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa, and the UK.^[5] It commemorates the 1.7 million men and women from the Commonwealth who died during the two world wars. The cemeteries, memorials, graves, landscapes, and records which the commission cares for are found across 23,000 locations and in more than 150 countries and territories. In addition, with work to discover and identify the remains of personnel continuing to the present day, the commission oversees reburials and the transfer of names from memorials to the missing to individual final resting places. The commission’s work also includes active public engagement and education programmes to “ensure the stories of the fallen are told to all generations”. Each May, the commission’s ‘War graves week’ highlights its work and those it commemorates.

2. ‘Equality in death’

One of the key founding principles of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission was the idea of equality in death. The commission’s founders were determined that all men and women of the British Empire who died, whether on land or at sea, should be commemorated equally, with no difference between the dead on the grounds of social or military rank, or by religion.^[6]

This principle was tested early on by the case of Prince Maurice of Battenberg, the highest-status aristocrat to die in the first world war.^[7] His mother, Princess Beatrice, did not want the standard commission design for his grave. However, the commission was keen for Prince Maurice’s grave to be an example of equality in action and eventually Princess Beatrice was persuaded by her son’s regiment to have the commission-designed headstone. This meant that Prince Maurice was commemorated in the same way as his comrades, regardless of his high social rank.

3. Work of the special committee

In 2019, the commission appointed a special committee to examine how successful it had been in applying its founding principle.^[8] This special committee was tasked with identifying any gaps in commemoration and producing recommendations to help shape the future of the commission.

The special committee’s report was published in 2021.^[9] Due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the “apparent size of the task once begun”, the special committee explained that it had restricted its focus to commission operations during and following the first world war. It found that while the principle of equality in death was admirable and in Europe had been effectively achieved, it had limits elsewhere. The committee estimated that between 45,000 and 54,000 casualties were commemorated unequally. These were predominantly Indian, East African, West African, Egyptian, and Somali personnel who were commemorated collectively on memorials rather than individually as in Europe. Others who were missing were recorded in registers rather than in stone. In addition, a further 116,000 casualties, who were predominantly but not exclusively East African and Egyptian personnel, were not commemorated at all, with estimates of this group reaching as high as 350,000.

On the reasons behind the inequality, the special committee reported that the commission was never given the names or places of burial by either the military or colonial authorities.^[10] However, it also found that the commission “chose to diverge from its principles” believing that the communities the personnel came from would not recognise or value individual forms of commemoration. The special committee said that imperial ideology outside of Europe in the 1920s had influenced the commission’s operations and this had led to rules and principles that were “sacred” in Europe not always being upheld elsewhere. Although the special committee found the commission had not made the decision to diverge from its principles “unilaterally”, it argued that the commission should “at least be considered complicit”. The special committee noted that while sight should not be lost of the inclusive and successful work of the commission in Europe and elsewhere in the world, “we also should not overlook the mistakes in the organisation’s early history—many of which have been forgotten or reimagined over the century of its existence”.

The special committee made 10 recommendations based around three central themes. These called on the commission to:

• extend geographically and chronologically the search in the historical record for inequalities in commemoration and act on what is found
• renew the commitment to equality in commemoration through the building of physical or digital commemorative structures
• acknowledge and accept this difficult history and share it with all the communities of the former British Empire touched by the two world wars^[11]

3.1 Commission response

In response to the findings, the commission apologised “unreservedly for the historical wrongs” found and for failing to “live up to [the] founding principle of ‘equality of treatment in death’”.^[12] However, it also said that the findings did not diminish the commission’s past achievements.

Looking forward, the commission said it would “accept and embrace in full” the special committee’s recommendations and had already started implementing many of them. The commission has said that a non-commemoration project is working to identify cases where names have been missed from its records, with research “yielding important information helping ensure all Commonwealth war dead are commemorated as originally promised”.^[13]

3.2 House of Lords debate

The House of Lords debated the special committee’s report following a statement by the then Conservative government on the findings on 26 April 2021.^[14] The previous government apologised for the failures of the commission. It said that while it could not change the past, “we can make amends and take action” and noted the commission’s acceptance of the special committee’s recommendations. In addition, the then government noted some more general work relating to the armed forces and the values of equality and diversity which it said it would lead on. It also argued that the recognition of past mistakes should not diminish the commission’s “ground-breaking achievements”.

Lord Tunnicliffe, the then shadow spokesperson for defence, said that the report was “a credit to the commission of today”, but that its content was a “great discredit to the commission and the Britain of a century ago”.^[15] He asked whether the commission had the resources to undertake the next stages of work. Citing transparency, he also questioned if the commission and government’s apologies would be communicated more widely. In addition, Lord Tunnicliffe asked if a similar investigation would take place into the ways in which the dead from the second world war were commemorated.

Baroness Smith of Newnham, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for defence, argued that the memorialisation of the dead needs to be accurate to understand the contribution made by the citizens of the British Empire.^[16] She also welcomed the then government’s apology and asked about the commission’s resources to rectify the identified inequalities. Baroness Smith additionally questioned what other work could be done to honour all those who gave their lives.

Viscount Younger of Leckie, then parliamentary under secretary of state for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, responded to these questions for the then government.^[17] On funding, Lord Younger reassured the House that the funding given to the commission by the Ministry of Defence was in place and that if further funding was required, it would be looked at “with great care”. He also explained that there was a programme of regular reporting on the progress being made to help with transparency. In addition, Lord Younger agreed with Baroness Smith about the need to remember each individual and argued that the special committee’s recommendations would help with this. He said that the commission’s work relating to the second world war would be looked at as part of an expanded plan “some way down the line”.^[18]

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Cover image by Gary Blakeley on Wikimedia Commons.