A MUSEUM being built at the Defence Academy in Shrivenham will house artefacts carried by the creator of the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior

This year's Remembrance Day marked the centenary of the national monument in Westminster Abbey. Army chaplain Rev David Railton MC came up with the idea for the tomb which represents the thousands of unknown soldiers killed during wartime.

He stood with troops at battles including High Wood, the Aisne and Passchendale while carrying a wooden cross and altar candlesticks through the trenches.

The simple, 5-inch-high cross used by Rev Railton on the Western Front has his name and unit in his own handwriting in pencil on the base.

This and the candlesticks found their way back to the Home of Chaplaincy, like so many other religious objects carried by padres on campaigns.

The Armed Forces’ Chaplaincy Centre moved from Amport House to Beckett House at Shrivenham earlier this year.

Former AFCC principal Padre Andrew Totten said the reverend's prized possessions will be given pride of place in the new Royal Army Chaplains’ Museum which is due to open in 2021.

Padre Andrew sees a parallel between what David Railton recognised as the bereaved relatives’ desperation for somewhere to mourn their loved one and what he himself observed as a chaplain on operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Unlike in the First World War, personnel who were killed in Afghanistan and Iraq were repatriated to the UK, but their comrades in arms felt the need to remember them somehow, to create their own, very personal memorials.

Mr Totten said: “Soldiers who lost comrades felt the need to create tributes, and even symbolic graves, for their fallen friends. Many a small patrol base had a corner for memorials where soldiers could reflect on their own loss."

Rev Railton supported soldiers, buried the fallen, comforted the wounded, wrote to the families of missing and killed troops, and helped survivors pay tribute to their lost comrades.

He received the Military Cross for rescuing an officer and two men under heavy fire on the Somme.

He thought of repatriating the body of an unidentified fallen colleague from the battlefields after seeing the grave of an unnamed soldier of the Black Watch in a back garden near Armentières.

The sad scene made him realise how distressing it would be for relatives who would never know where their husband, father or son was buried or had died.

On Armistice Day 1920, David Railton’s vision was realised when the coffin of the Unknown Warrior, covered by his own wartime Union flag, was laid to rest with full honours in Westminster Abbey, in the presence of King George V, field marshals,and admirals..

Padre Geoff Withers, Padre Andrew Totten’s successor as principal of the AFCC, explained that Beckett House has another significant link with the monument.

Hanging in the Grand Hall is a painting by Frank Salisbury depicting soldiers from across what was then the British Empire standing in reverence at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior.

In the bottom corner of the painting rests the wedding bouquet of the Queen Mother, a poignant symbol that was replicated last week by her daughter the Queen when a bouquet of her wedding flowers was laid by her Equerry on the corner of the tomb in Westminster Abbey during an act of remembrance.