Very interesting.
Education is a bit of a lottery. I'd love to be involved in education, perhaps when Rupert has finished with me (Murdoch not Bodge) in the new year I'll find something to do. Maybe my two O levels, four CSEs and an NVQ won't mean much.
Actually Jack, it was not the King's fault that people had to pay. It all stems from the setting up of the Imperial War Graves Commission and how the funding of it would be generated. HMG expected to put in the largest amount and did so. They agreed shared costs with the Dominions and India and covered the costs of all the others. Each Great War Grave from that time cost HMG £5 in old money at a time when the country was broke - not an inconsiderable sum. Every soldier was guaranteed a grave with his name on, if applicable. The inscriptions were brought in precisely to stop the proliferation of private memorials which could only be afforded by the rich. It was all part of the drive to keep the dead in theatre and have no repatriations, which would, again, have only been affordable by a very few. The whole aim was to have parity in death, no class system - (although this did not stop acceptable for the times burials separated by rank in some cemeteries such as at Etaples).
In practice a form of means testing of NOK was carried out by the IWGC on an ad hoc basis outside of officialdom and a great many inscriptions were made without charge.
Perhaps the most interesting point, which you will not get an official answer to is that in the case of the Unknowns, each unidentified grace was recorded with a map reference. To this day the CWGC ( as is) do not want a proliferation of enquiries from people who have traced battalion records and think they can pinpoint Uncle Albert. All very interesting. This is how they "found" John Kipling. The floodgates might open.
I thoroughly recommend the CWGC's book "The Unending Vigil" to all interested parties. See their website.
MB