War Cloister and the Search for the Missing

One of the names commemorated in War Cloister is that of George Cecil (first cousin of Robert Palmer, see Tour of Two Cloisters, 14 October) who died in September 1914 when the war was barely a month old.  His body was hastily buried but not identified until two months later when he was reburied in a marked grave.  More recently, Osmund Wordsworth (Coll, 1899-06) was identified using DNA checks after being among the missing for 96 years. Killed in action on 2 April 1917, he was buried in an unmarked grave, only for his remains to be rediscovered in 2013.  After identification, Wordsworth was reburied in a marked grave in June 2021. 

These two stories reflect the central theme of Robert Sackville-West’s book The Searchers, in which he brings together those who dedicated their lives to the search for the missing. Also closely relevant to the story of our War Cloister is the desire to build memorials to those lost.  He weaved his knowledge of century-old searches with some of our own stories, such as those above. Robert Sackville-West (F, 1971-75), 7th Baron Sackville, is a publisher, author and Guardian of Knole House.