The Ypres League

The Ypres League was a British World War I veterans and remembrance society. It was founded on 28 September 1920 to act as a brotherhood for veterans of the battles of the Ypres Salient, to remember those who died there, and to aid pilgrims traveling to the battlefields. It later became an incorporated society, based in London. It produced a quarterly newsletter and a guide book to Ypres, and provided a variety of services to its members, including specially designed membership certificates. It also worked to successfully erect a memorial church at Ypres. International branches were established, and the League celebrated its tenth anniversary in 1930. Publication of its newsletter continued well into the 1930s, and branches were still active in the 1940s.

The founder of the League was a Canadian Ypres veteran, Colonel Beckles Willson. By December 1920, King George V had agreed to become the League's patron. By 1925, there were three patrons: the King, Edward, Prince of Wales and Princess Beatrice. Beatrice, the youngest daughter of Queen Victoria, was herself a mother bereaved by the fighting at Ypres, as her son, Prince Maurice of Battenberg, had been killed in action in 1914 during the First Battle of Ypres.

The League's President, the Earl of Ypres, had been the first commander of the British Expeditionary Force during the war, and presided over one of the League's first committee meetings. Other officials of the League in 1925 included several who had been generals during the war: Earl Haig, Viscount Allenby, Lord Plumer, and Sir William Pulteney Pulteney. The committee also included Viscount Burnham as a representative of the Anglo-Belgian Union.

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