In this episode, Brian McClure will be following the transformations around the First World War grave markers which, a century after their creation, became a medium to inform the public about the First World War. Bryan is a PhD candidate in the History Department at Western University in London Ontario. He has an undergraduate degree at Queen’s University before beginning to travel overseas to complete his Master of Philosophy in modern Irish history at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland. After examining the nature of First World War commemoration in Dublin, he returned to Canada to research personal memory and commemoration of the First World War in the British Empire. Brian researched memorials to individuals across the Commonwealth including the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand and his Ph.D. dissertation is titled, ‘He Gave His Life for the Empire: Memory, Memorials and Identity in the British Empire after the First World War.

Initially managed by the Red Cross, during the First World War, the burial of the dead became an official enterprise of the British Army in 1915.  Two years later, the organization was named the Imperial War Grave Commission, and from 1921 to 1931 managed to setup 2,400 cemeteries in France and Belgium. Thousands of families were affected by the tragedy of losing their own and the depleted communities shared the grief.