The Unknown Warrior conceived in 1916 by the Reverend David Railton, who, while serving as an army chaplain on the Western Front, had seen a grave marked by a rough cross, which bore the pencil-written legend 'An Unknown British Soldier'. He wrote to the Dean of Westminster in 1920 proposing that an unidentified British soldier from the battlefields in France be buried with due ceremony in Westminster Abbey "amongst the kings" to represent the many hundreds of thousands of Empire dead. The idea was strongly supported by the Dean and the Prime Minister David Lloyd George. Arrangements were placed in the hands of
Turn in one's grave unknown in the history of this country ; a thing which would have scared all former politicians ; a thing, which, if our old Whig politicians were now to hear, they would turn in their graves." One of the earliest uses is found in William Thackeray's 1849 work "The History of Pendennis", where Mrs. Wapshot, upset by a man's advances on the widow of Mr. Pendennis whom the widow had "never liked," says it's "enough to make poor Mr. Pendennis turn in his grave." Another early use of the phrase is in historian James Bryce's 1888 work "The American Commonwealth"