On the outbreak of World War I in 1914 , Fabian Ware , a director of the Rio Tinto Company , found that at 45 years old he was too old to join the British Army . He used the influence of Rio Tinto chairman , Viscount Milner , to become the commander of a mobile unit of the British Red Cross . He arrived in France in September 1914 and whilst there was struck by the lack of any official mechanism for documenting or marking the location of graves of those who had been killed and felt compelled to create an organisation within the Red Cross for this purpose . In March 1915 , with the support of Nevil Macready , Adjutant @-@ General of the British Expeditionary Force , Ware 's work was given official recognition and support by the Imperial War Office and the unit was transferred to the British Army as the Graves Registration Commission . The new Graves Registration Commission had over 31 @,@ 000 graves of British and Imperial soldiers registered by October 1915 and 50 @,@ 000 registered by May 1916 .