First World War online exhibition shows how the empire grieved

Previously unseen documents from the First World War will reveal how an empire struggled to reconcile hundreds of thousands of deaths, a century after the guns fell silent.

Letters from grieving mothers,imagesof Rudyardkipling visiting his son’s memorial, and a copy of King George V’s passport for his battlefield pilgrimage are among items to be displayed in Shaping Our Sorrow, an online exhibition from Monday. It aims to illustrate the “monumental task of honouring the dead”, said the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Chief archivist Andrew 0 Images of Rudyard Kipling visiting his son’s memorial

Fetherston said: “Our rituals of remembrance are too often taken for granted, but this online exhibition is a stark reminder that commemorating one million people equally, regardless of class and rank, was unprecedented and often very controversial.”

Poignant petitions from mothers angry at the policy of non-repatriation of Commonwealth dead are set to feature heavily.

One extract from Anna Durie, writing of her efforts to bring her son William home, reads: “I was going like a criminal by night to exhume the body of the bravest officers that ever left Canada.”

The online exhibition, structured around the five stages of grief, will allow viewers to scroll through the items in detail to discover the enormous struggle to create the culture of remembrance today.

It can be viewed at http:// shapingoursorrow.cwgc. org/start/