Abbey Holds Vigil and Requiem to Mark Somme Centenary

A piper, Lance Corporal Ritchie Spence, Irish Guards, played Flowers of the Forest.

Afterwards a Requiem was celebrated by the Dean of Westminster, the Very Reverend Dr John Hall, at the Abbey's Lantern Altar.

The Reverend Mark Birch, Minor Canon and Chaplain, read the Epistle, Romans 8: 28-39. The Reverend Jane Sinclair, Canon in Residence, read the Gospel, St John 6: 35-40.

The Reverend Paul Arbuthnot, Minor Canon and Sacrist, led the Intercessions.

Order of Service

Historical note

On 1st July 1916, the British and French armies launched an offensive near the River Somme, in Picardy, France. This series of battles, lasting nearly five months, would become one of the bloodiest and most important campaigns of the First World War. In the early hours soldiers moved into forward trenches and advanced into no-man's land, preparing for 'zero-hour' at 7.30 am. As the bombardment lifted, the first wave of Allied troops attacked along a 40 kilometre front. In the south, the French made good progress and British units took Mametz and Montauban, but in the north — at Gommecourt, Serre, Beaumont-Hamel, Thiepval, Ovillers, and La Boisselle — the British Army suffered terrible losses for little gain. On that first day 19,240 British soldiers were killed, the French had 1,590 casualties and the German 2nd Army lost between 10,000–12,000 men.