Fabian Ware

Major-General Sir Fabian Arthur Goulstone Ware (17 June 186928 April 1949) was a British educator, journalist, and the founder of the Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC), now the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC). He also served as Director of Education for the Transvaal Colony and editor of The Morning Post.

Ware was born in Clifton, Bristol, and graduated from the University of Paris in 1894. Several years after graduation, he travelled to the Transvaal Colony where, as a member of Milner's Kindergarten, he became Director of Education in 1903. Two years later, Ware became editor of The Morning Post and returned to England. While editor, he expanded the paper and reoriented it to focus on colonial affairs. After several controversies, culminating in a failed effort to purchase an airship for the United Kingdom, Ware was forced to retire in 1911.

When the First World War started in August 1914, Ware attempted to join the British Army but was rejected because he was too old. With the assistance of Alfred Milner, he obtained an appointment as the commander of a mobile ambulance unit provided by the British Red Cross Society. In this role he began marking and recording the graves of those killed. The unit soon began to focus exclusively on graves, and the organisation was transferred to the British Army in 1915. The following year the Army Department of Graves Registration and Enquiries was created with Ware at its head. On 21 May 1917 the Imperial War Graves Commission was founded. Ware served as vice-chairman. He ended the war as a major-general, having been mentioned in despatches twice.

Post-war, Ware was heavily involved in the IWGC's function. He frequently led negotiations with foreign nations over cemeteries and memorials, dealt with prominent figures in the commission, and worked to ensure the commission's financial security. Ware also attempted to raise support for his ideal of cooperation between the Dominions. In the lead-up to the Second World War, he attempted to use the IWGC's work as a tool for ensuring peace. When war broke out, he continued to serve as vice-chairman of the IWGC and was re-appointed director-general of Graves Registration and Enquiries. He retired from the Commission in 1948 and died the following year.

Early life

Ware was born in Clifton, Bristol, on 17 June 1869 to Charles and Amy Carew Ware, Goulstone. He was privately tutored until his father died when he was 18. Ware then taught in private schools to pay for tuition at the University of London. Dissatisfied with his education, Ware left the university and after saving enough money began attending the University of Paris, graduating with a Bachelor of Science in 1894. He worked as an assistant schoolmaster from 1889 to 1899; the last four years at the Bradford Grammar School. While teaching, he was occasionally employed as an examiner for the Civil Service Commission. Ware aimed to make the paper "the authority on all colonial questions," and supported social and tariff reform. He invited radicals such as William Beveridge and R. H. Tawney to contribute to the paper. Warewho was 45 years oldhad been rejected from serving in the British Army because he was too old, and obtained an appointment to command a mobile Red Cross ambulance unit with the assistance of Lord Milner. As the war continued, Ware and others became concerned about the fate of the graves in the post-war period. Following a suggestion by the British Army, the government created the National Committee for the Care of Soldiers' Graves in January 1916, with Edward, Prince of Wales agreeing to serve as president and Ware as a member. Ware was promoted to temporary lieutenant colonel on 11 February 1916 as a result of his increasing responsibility over grave-related matters as the war expanded to more fronts.

Directorate of Graves Registration and Enquiries

Ware competed with Sir Alfred Mond, the First Commissioner of Works, for responsibility over the graveyards. The Department of Works had managed war graves during previous British conflicts, and Mond wanted a share in managing graves from the First World War. Ware felt the scale of the war was so unprecedented a new organisation was needed to care for the graves and wanted to keep Mond out of the work. Though the feud continued into the 1930s, Ware's Commission was ensured priority when the GRC was formally integrated into the Army in May 1916 as the Directorate of Graves Registration and Enquiries (DGRE).

Representatives from various relevant government departments were included and in September 1916 representatives from the dominions of the British Empire were included. Ware was made director of Graves Registration and Enquiries at the War Office on 15 May 1916, a post he held until the end of the war. That month he began working in London at Winchester House, St James's Square.

The move to London was in part because it was easier to develop photographs and women could work as clerks. It also became necessary as the DGRE expanded operations to areas outside France and Belgium. Only one-fifth of the typists Ware had requested initially arrived, but his staff eventually grew to around 700. The DGRE had expanded to include an Italian and an Eastern section; the latter included Salonika, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. Ware was soon given the nickname 'Lord Wargraves', reflecting his heavy involvement in grave-matters.

As Ware's work with graves continued, discussion about a "double identity disc" (previously there was only one per soldier) began in 1915 and continued into early 1916. Ware wrote Macready on 21 June 1915; in the letter he included a sketch of a pair of discs made of compressed fibreone could be removed and the other left with the corpse. On 24 June his proposal was accepted and four million were ordered. Discs began arriving in large numbers in mid-November. Such discs were issued to soldiers throughout the rest of the First World War and the Second World War despite the fibre decomposing quickly. The British Army stopped using the design in 1960.

While director, Ware was made a temporary brigadier-general on 12 August 1916. The DGRE regulated graves, making every aspect from spacing of graves to marking the graves uniform. He attempted to resolve differences between soldiers of different religious affiliations, decreeing for instance: "On no account should [Egyptian] Mohammedans be buried in Christian consecrated ground [...] Jewish graves were to be marked with a double triangle on a stake [and] under no circumstances should a cross be erected over an Indian Grave."

Efforts to neaten the cemeteries had begun in early 1916 when Ware invited Arthur William Hill, assistant director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, to tour the cemeteries and advise upon further planting efforts. Hill visited 37 cemeteries and wrote a report on how to plant them. Efforts began slowly, but by 1917 the commission had established four nurseries. In the 1917 New Year Honours, Ware was made a companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG). By April 1917 the DGRE had registered over 156,500 graves; at least 150,000 in France and Belgium, 2,500 in Salonika and 4,000 in Egypt.

Imperial War Graves Commission

By early 1917 several members of the National Committee for the Care of Soldiers' Graves believed a formal imperial organisation would be needed to care for the graves after the war. With the help of the Prince of Wales, Ware submitted a memorandum to the Imperial War Conference in 1917 suggesting that such an organisation be constituted. The suggestion was accepted and on 21 May 1917 the Imperial War Graves Commission was established by royal charter, with the Prince of Wales serving as president and Secretary of State for War Lord Derby as chairman.

The IWGC had the responsibility for soldiers of members of the British Empire who died in active service. At its first meeting on 20 November, Ware was appointed vice-chairman. Historian Tim Skelton wrote that he was "de facto, chief executive" of the commission. The IWGC could purchase land, build memorials, and restrict other memorials in the cemeteries.

In September 1917 Ware was given authority to wear the insignia of a commander of the Belgian Order of the Crown. That month Belgium granted Britain land for cemeteries in perpetuity. Similar agreements were soon negotiated with Egypt, Italy, Serbia, and Greece. Once land for cemeteries and memorials had been guaranteed, the task of recording the details of the dead could fully begin. Around 587,000 graves had been identified and 559,000 soldiers listed as having no known grave by 1918. On 7October 1918 Ware was given the temporary rank of major-general as director-general of the DGRE. alt=A stone inscribed with the words "Their Name Liveth For Evermore"

Planning

In May 1917 architect Edwin Lutyens wrote to Ware, urging "great stone of fine proportion twelve feet long set fair or finely wrought". The proposal, supported by Ware, was criticised by figures such as Randall Davidson, the Archbishop of Canterbury, for its lack of religious motifs. Ware told Lutyens he was "shocked" by the response and was considering giving the Office of Works responsibility for graves. He still felt "the 'stone' will win yet." Lutyens considered Ware "a most excellent fellow and very keen to do the right thing without fear or favour of the present sentiment. With a preference for the most permanent and perfect."

In June 1917 Ware proposed a £10 budget per grave (equivalent to £ in terms), which became the standard sum for the IWGC. On 9July a committee organised by Ware, consisting of the Director of the Tate, Charles Aitken, the author J. M. Barrie, and the architects Lutyens and Herbert Baker, toured the cemeteries in order to form a plan for the post-war activities of the commission. The committee met on 14 July and decided all cemeteries should have a general theme, though one had not yet been decided. They agreed there would be four variations on the theme: monumental, garden or woodland, village, and town cemeteries; and grave markers would be uniform, with no individual crosses or monuments. In August Lutyens suggested there be "one kind of monument throughout [the cemeteries], whether in Europe, Asia, or Africa". He suggested that his Great War Stones be used as the monument.

On 21 September Ware, Hill, Lutyens, and Baker met in London to discuss preliminary plans. No agreement was reached. Lutyens continued to promote his concept of war stones as respectful to all religions, but Aitken and Baker favoured crosses. Both sides attempted to gain Ware's endorsement for their view. Upon Ware's invitation, author Rudyard Kipling was appointed the commission's literary adviser in October 1917. In late 1917 Ware began searching for a replacement to Aitken, who did not fully support Ware's vision for the commission. He also looked into establishing a 'Religious Advisory Committee' to help settle religious questions.

As Aitken's replacement, Sir Frederic Kenyon was made artistic director of the Commission on 20 November 1917, largely to serve as a mediator in frequent conflicts between the architects. As part of his job he began to write a report deciding which proposals would be instituted in the IWGC's cemeteries.

In 1918 Kenyon finished his report, titled War Graves: How the Cemeteries Abroad Will Be Designed, and presented it to the commission. The report outlined many factors of how the cemeteries would be designed, particularly emphasising equal treatment of all soldiers. It also supported the programme of planting under Arthur Hill. Kenyon proposed having young architects design the cemeteries under the supervision of more experienced and senior architects such as Baker and Lutyens. Kenyon accepted Lutyens' proposal and critics were appeased by support for a Cross of Sacrifice designed by Blomfield, and a recommendation that a cross be placed in every cemetery. The war stones became known as the Stones of Remembrance, and more than a thousand were erected. Kipling proposed the inscription "their name liveth for evermore" for the monuments. Sir James Remnant started the debate, followed by numerous speakers; notably speeches by Burdett-Coutts in favour of the commission's principles and Lord Robert Cecil (Lady Florence Cecil's brother-in-law) supporting those who wanted repatriation and opposed uniformity of grave markers.

Winston Churchill, the then Secretary of State for War, closed the debate and asked that the issue not proceed to a vote. Remnant withdrew his motion, allowing the commission to carry out its work assured of support for its principles. In 1921 the commission moved to offices at 82 Baker Street. Most cemeteries were completed by the mid-1920s, at a total cost of £8,150,000 (about £ million in terms), in what was, according to architectural historian Gavin Stamp, "one of the largest schemes of public works ever undertaken".

Monuments

Following the end of the war, there was an influx of Commonwealth organisations that wanted to construct memorials in France and Belgium. Private divisional monuments and memorials for individual countries were quickly proposed and the National Battlefield Memorial Committee was set up in 1919 to oversee the construction of monuments for the United Kingdom. Ware and the IWGC had the ability to license all such memorials and he began working with the various groups.

Although Ware felt the primary focus of the IWGC should be cemeteries, by August 1921 it had gained responsibility for battlefield monuments as the National Battlefield Memorial Committee was dissolved. The Commission planned to build twelve monuments to missing soldiers in France and Belgium, and several others to sailors lost at sea and across Europe.

Discussions on how to commemorate the Ypres Salient, the first monument the IWGC worked on, dated back to 1919, when Winston Churchill said, "I should like us to acquire the whole of the ruins of Ypres as a memorial [...] A more sacred place for the British race does not exist in the world". The IWGC struggled to navigate various commissions when building monuments in the United Kingdom.

During planning for the Mercantile Marine Memorial in London, the Royal Fine Arts Commission (RFAC) rejected Lutyens's initial proposal at Temple Gardens on the bank of the River Thames, suggesting Tower Hill instead. Upset, Lutyens and Ware unsuccessfully urged the RFAC to reconsider. To commemorate sailors lost at sea, the IWGC planned three naval memorials of the same design in Chatham, Portsmouth, and Plymouth. They were designed by Sir Robert Lorimer with Henry Poole as a sculptor. Though Ware worked closely with the Admiralty on the monuments, he disliked it, saying the idea of their involvement "fills me with dismay".

When the Menin Gate was completed in 1927, 57,000 names were inscribed on the monument. In July 1932 he urged the Canadian prime minister R. B. Bennett to support an 'Imperial Economic Committee' outside the British Treasury's control. Ware was the first to seriously propose something of the kind, submitting a draft charter for the establishment of the 'Imperial Economic Commission', which would function as an economic general staff for the empire. The proposal gained little support.

Ware was an honorary associate at the Royal Institute of British Architects, chairman of the executive committee of the Parents' National Educational Union in 1939, and chairman of the Gloucestershire Branch of the Council for the Preservation of Rural England.

Second World War and death

Ware travelled to Cologne in October 1936 and attended a conference of the German War Graves Commission . In his speech he said war cemeteries would promote "a blessed healing of wounds", but at the same time warned "armed conflict [...] between these great nations would result in deeper wounds, wounds so deep that they would defy healing." The speech was well received and republished by the German press.

Ware continued his efforts against war even as the Anschluss and the Munich Agreement occurred. He spoke at the Volksbund'' 's celebration in 1938, again advocating against war. In 1939 he spoke to Ivan Maisky, the Ambassador of the Soviet Union to the United Kingdom, and worked on negotiations between the USSR and IWGC. That year Ware began preparations for a possible war.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Ware was recalled to serve as director-general of Graves Registration and Enquiries at the War Office on 30 August 1939. On 3September he was granted an emergency commission with the honorary rank of major-general. He also continued in his role as vice-chairman of the commission and facilitated cooperation between the organisations.

Fabian Ware's gravestone in Amberley.Ware resigned as director-general of Graves Registration and Enquiries in 1944, leaving the army, to continue his work with the commission. Progress was hampered as the DGRE and IWGC struggled to cooperate. In April 1944 Ware spoke at a conference on war memorials organised by the Royal Society of Arts. He toured cemeteries in France and Belgium in August 1945. He resigned as vice-chairman of the Commission in 1948 due to old age and failing health, particularly his chronic phlebitis. The road Boulevard Fabian Ware in Bayeux, the location of Bayeux War Cemetery, is named in his honour.

List of works