The Commonwealth War Graves Commission do an astounding job. But they only look after memorials from 1914 onwards.
Thus the Remembrance Trust, a new body dedicated to conserving pre-1914 Commonwealth graves across the world.
That's why Princess Anne visited Brompton Cemetery, founded in 1840, today. There she saw the marvellous conservation of 18 white headstones, placed around the Brigade of Guards’ Monument, marking the burial place of hundreds of casualties from the Brigade of Guards between 1854 and 1899. She also visited the graves of four of the 12 VCs in the cemetery.
'At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them,' writes Laurence Binyon in For the Fallen. But we can't remember them if we don't know who they were. Some pre-WWI monuments are now so eroded that you can't read the names on them. How good to carve their names with pride once more.
