First World War commemorative lamp to start 100-day journey in Portsmouth

The Lamplight of Peace will be at the National Museum of the Royal Navy on August 5, marking 104 years since the first shot at sea was fired.

The original Bonnetted Clanny (Meusler) lamp will commemorate the work of the tunnellers and the millions of soldiers, sailors and merchant seamen that lost their lives.

Its 100-day journey starts at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard and will end on November 11, the centenary of the end of the First World War.

The lamp, measures 2ft square at its base and is one-and-a-half feet tall.

The four sides of its wooden base display strands from German and British barbed wire of the period, coal from the last British major coal mine, shards of trench post and soil from a First World War trench near Ypres, ballast from the railway line where the Armistice was signed in Compiegne, France, and a replica of a Victoria Cross.

It will be lit at a ceremony at the Grave of the Unknown Warrior, in Westminster Abbey, at 6.20pm on August 4 and, on completion of the lighting ceremony, the lamp will be passed into the care of Warrant Officer Paul Jackson and the Chaplain of the Fleet '“ Rev Martin Gough QHC.

WO1 Jackson and two Able Seamen will escort the lamp to arrive by sea at 11am at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard before a short service is held.

Professor Dominic Tweddle, director general of The National Museum of the Royal Navy, said: '˜We are honoured to be the first call for the Lamplight of Peace and urge all our visitors to reflect on the incredible bravery of those who fought in the First World War.

'˜As a museum we have worked incredibly hard to mark the centenary of the Great War. It was important to demonstrate that far from being a war fought in France and in the trenches, the First World War was fought at sea and this had a huge influence on its outcome.'