The memorial was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens with sculpture by Sir William Reid-Dick. The First World War section of the Tower Hill Memorial commemorates almost 12,000 Mercantile Marine casualties who have no grave but the sea. More than one quarter of this total were lost in home waters. In all, 4,786 merchant ships were lost during the war with a total of 32,000 lives.

The heaviest losses were suffered in the Atlantic, but convoys making their way to Russia around the North Cape, and those supplying Malta in the Mediterranean were also particularly vulnerable to attack. In the Second World War, losses were again considerable in the early years, reaching a peak in 1942. The subsequent preventative measures introduced by the Ministry of Shipping - including the setting up of the convoy system where warships were used to escort merchant vessels - led to a decrease in losses but by the end of the war, 3,305 merchant ships had been lost with a total of 17,000 lives. Losses of vessels were high from the outset, but had peaked in 1917 when in January the German government announced the adoption of 'unrestricted submarine warfare'. In the First World War, the civilian navy's duty was to be the supply service of the Royal Navy, to transport troops and supplies to the armies, to transport raw materials to overseas munitions factories and munitions from those factories, to maintain, on a reduced scale, the ordinary import and export trade, to supply food to the home country and - in spite of greatly enlarged risks and responsibilities - to provide both personnel and ships to supplement the existing resources of the Royal Navy.

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