The Searchers

To help the public cope with grief on the scale of World War One, volunteers took it upon themselves to trace those with no known grave; the beginnings of a centur y of painstaking work that is continuing today

BELOW: THE POIGNANT ‘BLOOD SWEPT LANDS AND SEAS OF RED’ INSTALLATION AT THE TOWER OF LONDON IN 2014, DESIGNED BY PAUL CUMMINS AND TOM PIPER. MORE THAN 888,000 HANDMADE CERAMIC POPPIES REPRESENTED A WORLD WAR ONE BRITISH FATALITY MEZ MERRILL/MOD

It was the torrent of ceramic poppies cascading down the Tower of L ondon in 2014 that compelled one man to question how people coped with death on such a massive scale as that during World War One. Sons, brothers, uncles, cousins and grandsons were among the much-loved kin of all classes who disappeared on the French and Belgian battlefields.

And so, historian and author Robert Sackville-West, 7th Baron Sackville, began his hunt for answers. In it, he chanced upon the rare tale of the volunteers – writers, scientists and politicians – who first took steps to help ever-hopeful families of the missing.

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