Louis John Wyatt

14 September 2020

Louis was born in Islington, London, on 14 September 1874. His father was James Matthew George Wyatt, a civil engineer, and his mother was Eliza Pinta Wyatt. He was the youngest of five children.

It can be assumed that he joined the army straight from school, as by the age of 20, he was already a 2nd lieutenant in The King’s Liverpool Regiment.

He moved to the North Staffordshire Regiment in 1895 and fought in The Boer War from 1899 to 1902, being injured at Jackfontein in 1900.

Louis continued to serve with the North Staffordshire Regiment and by the end of the war he was a brigadier general, commanding forces in France and Flanders. He was given the task of choosing the body of the ‘UnknownWarrior’ who was finally laid to rest in Westminster Abbey.

There were over 850,000 deaths among British military personnel in WW1. Many of these were buried in war graves, but unidentified. Their headstones are inscribed with the words:

“a soldier of the Great War known unto God”

About 3 million people in Britain lost a close relative and many more lost friends. An Anglican Army chaplain, Rev David Railton, is attributed with having the idea of burying an unknown soldier. King George V disliked the idea, but the prime minister, Lloyd George, intervened and arrangements were put in place for the ceremony. Records are sparse, but either four or six bodies were exhumed from the Somme, Aisne, Arras and Ypres. They were taken to a makeshift chapel in St Pol, covered and concealed.

Brigadier General Louis John Wyatt chose one of them. The body was guarded and honoured and taken to Boulogne, where it was put into a coffin made of oak from Hampton Court.

On armistice day, 11 November 1920, the coffin was draped with a union flag and taken on a gun carriage to the Cenotaph. The king placed a wreath upon it. From there it was taken to Westminster Abbey where a short funeral service was held and the soldier’s body was entombed just inside the west entrance.

Louis was awarded the DSO as part of the King’s Birthday Honours in 1916, but there is no published citation. At the time, he was commanding officer of the 4th York and Lancaster Regiment.

The London Gazette, October 20 1920, reports that he was also decorated by the President of the Portuguese Republic, being made a Grand Officer the ‘Military Order of Aviz’.  This was an honorary award and may be connected to a battle in April 1918 in which the Portuguese participated and suffered very badly.  

Louis and Marion had two daughters, Patricia and Laetitia. We don’t know when Louis left the army, but he took up various directorships and moved to Kirby Lonsdale with his family. In 1939, he was chair of John Hare (colours), Bristol, Director of the Mersey White Lead Company, Warrington and Director of the Moore Management Trust Ltd. In 1945 he was appointed sheriff of Westmorland and held the post for at least five years.

He died in 1955, aged 80. He is now buried in a church in Kirby Lonsdale.

A local Blue Badge tourist guide, Tess, has been researching military history in her home town Kirkby Lonsdale, during lockdown. She has begun guided walks for small groups and part of the walk revisits the church and grave where BGW is buried. Some donations have been received by the Branch and the original idea was to have a Centenary Commemoration in November and raise funds for Cumbria Branch, whilst increasing the profile and awareness of SSAFA Cumbria. 

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