members of the public began laying flowers and wreaths around the memorial. Within a week, an estimated 1.2million people came to the Cenotaph to pay their respects to the dead, and the base was covered in flowers and other tributes. According to The Times, "no feature of the victory march in London made a deeper impression than the Cenotaph." After the Victory Parade, the temporary Cenotaph became a point of pilgrimage for many people, including grieving relatives. Deputations arrived from as far away as Dundee, and schools organised excursions to take children to see it. The crowds were particularly large on 11 November 1919, the first anniversary of the armistice. An estimated 6,000 people were crowded round the memorial and it took the intervention of the police to create space for Lloyd George to lay a wreath. The French president, Raymond Poincaré, also laid a wreath; King George V and Queen Mary sent a wreath but were not present at the Cenotaph. A two-minute silence was observed, after which veterans' groups marched past. The government, caught by surprise by the strength of feeling, resolved to lay on an organised event for 1920. Reconstruction in stone Suggestions that the temporary cenotaph should be re-built as a permanent structure began almost immediately, coming from members of the public and national newspapers. Four days after the parade, William Ormsby-Gore, Member of Parliament for Stafford—an army officer who fought in the war and was part of the British delegation at Versailles—questioned Mond about the Cenotaph in the House of Commons, and asked whether a permanent replacement was planned. Ormsby-Gore was supported by multiple other members. Mond announced that the decision rested with the cabinet, but promised to pass on the support of the House. The following week, The Times published an editorial calling for a permanent replacement (though the writer suggested that there was a risk of vehicles crashing into the Cenotaph in its original location and that it be built on nearby Horse Guards Parade); many letters to London and national newspapers followed. The cabinet sought Lutyens's opinion, which was that the original site had been "qualified by the salutes of Foch and the allied armies [and] no other site would give this pertinence." Mond agreed, telling the cabinet that "no other site would have the same historical or sentimental association." The cabinet bowed to public pressure, approving the re-building in stone, and