Centenary Talk: Empire of the Dead - The Birth of Modern Commemoration

Dr George Hay, Official Historian, Commonwealth War Graves Commission

George Hay is the Official Historian at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), an Honorary Academic at the University of Kent and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He writes widely on the social history of British and Commonwealth armies in peace and war, and works to generate greater understanding of the CWGC’s history, its sites and the casualties in its care. He authored the CWGC’s 2021 and 2025 reports on historical inequalities in commemoration and continues this work by leading the research strand of the organisation’s ongoing Non-Commemoration Programme.