St Symphorien Military Cemetery

St Symphorien Military Cemetery
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Military Cemetery (English and German) and British memorial of Saint-Symphorien
Used for those deceased World War I
Established	1916
Location	50°25′56″N 4°0′38″E / 50.43222°N 4.01056°E / 50.43222; 4.01056 near  Saint-Symphorien, Belgium
Designed by	Captain Bäumer (original) William Harrison Cowlishaw (redesign)
Total burials	513
Unknowns	105 (40 German, 65 Commonwealth)[1]
Burials by nation
Germany: 284 United Kingdom: 227 Canada: 2
Burials by war
World War I: 513
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Official name	Funerary and memory sites of the First World War (Western Front)
Type	Cultural
Criteria	i, ii, vi
Designated	2023 (45th session)
Reference no.	1567-WA08
Statistics source: Cemetery details. Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

The St Symphorien Military Cemetery is a First World War Commonwealth War Graves Commission burial ground in Saint-Symphorien, Belgium. It contains the graves of 284 German and 229 Commonwealth soldiers, principally those killed during the Battle of Mons. The cemetery was established by the German Army on land donated by Jean Houzeau de Lehaie. It was initially designed as a woodland cemetery before being redesigned by William Harrison Cowlishaw after the Imperial War Graves Commission took over maintenance of the cemetery after the war.

Notable Commonwealth burials in the cemetery include John Parr and George Lawrence Price, traditionally believed to be the first and last Commonwealth soldiers killed in action during the First World War, and Maurice Dease, the first posthumous recipient of the Victoria Cross of World War I. Notable German burials include Oskar Niemeyer, the first Iron Cross recipient of World War I.