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Death of Florence Stoney, First Female Radiologist in the UK

Florence Ada Stoney, Irish physician who is the first female radiologist in the United Kingdom, dies of vertebral cancer in Bournemouth, Dorset, England, on October 7, 1932. During World War I she serves abroad as head of the X-ray department and of staff in makeshift hospitals.

Stoney is born in Dublin on February 4, 1870, to George and Margaret Sophia Stoney. Her father is a mathematical physicist who later serves as Secretary of Queen’s University of Ireland and is an advocate for women’s right to higher education in Ireland. His efforts are considered to be among the principal reasons that women can qualify for a medical license. Of weak health as a child, she is at first privately educated in the home but then attends the Royal College for Science of Ireland with her sister Edith. In 1883, the Stoney family moves to London in order to provide higher education for the daughters since this is unavailable for women in Ireland at the time. She attends the London School of Medicine for Women where she is a distinguished student with great academic achievements in subjects such as anatomy and physiology. She obtains her MBBS with honours in 1895 and a Doctor of Medicine in 1898, going on to specialise in radiology.

Stoney works as an ENT clinical assistant at the Royal Free Hospital as well as spending six years as a demonstrator in anatomy at the London School of Medicine for Women.

After this she spends a short amount of time in the Victoria Hospital for Sick Children in Kingston upon Hull and then goes on to establish an X-ray department in the Elizabeth Garret Anderson Hospital for Women in London in 1902. At the hospital she carries out a variety of work but mainly deals with X-rays, often developing the radiographic plates at her own house. She is the first female radiologist to work in the United Kingdom at a time when knowledge on radiology and the equipment involved is still in its developmental stages. She is forced to work in poor conditions with badly ventilated rooms and a lack of space for X-ray work. She is given no assistance and has to do the majority of the work on her own. Furthermore, she is excluded as a member of the medical staff and from the X-ray department committee. In 1906 she sets up a practice in Harley Street.

Stoney leaves the hospital at the start of the war. She has 13 years of experience in her field when World War I breaks out in August 1914. She and her sister Edith, a medical physicist, volunteer to assist the British Red Cross, but both are refused by surgeon Frederick Treves since they were women. Despite the refusal, Stoney prepares an X-ray installation and helps to organise a unit of women volunteers alongside Mrs. St. Clair Stobart, Women’s Imperial Service League and the Belgian Red Cross to aid the Belgian soldiers in Antwerp. The team converts an abandoned music hall into a makeshift hospital where she manages the surgical unit as head of the medical staff and radiologist. The hospital comes under fire and after enduring ongoing shellfire for 18 hours, the hospital is evacuated. The team walks to Holland, where they manage to cross the Scheldt River on buses carrying ammunition, twenty minutes before the bridge is blown up. She and her unit earn the 1914 Star for bravery.

Stoney continues working in a hospital near Cherbourg in France, mainly dealing with cases relating to compound fractures and locating bullet fragments in wounds. During this time, she becomes experienced in recognizing dead bone and discovers that removing it will speed up recovery.

In March 1915, the Cherbourg hospital is no longer needed, and Stoney moves back London. She begins full-time work at the 1,000-bed Fulham Military Hospital. She is one of the first female physicians granted to serve as a full-time worker under the British War Office and goes on to receive the Order of the British Empire in June 1919. She works as the Head of the X-ray and Electrical Department and remains there until 1918.

In her later years, Stoney suffers from ill health, largely attributed to her over-exposure to radiation in her work. It is reported that she has X-ray dermatitis of her left hand, a painful skin condition associated in modern times with radiation therapy as a treatment for cancer. She moves to the south coastal town of Bournemouth in England where she is on the staff of two hospitals, practicing radiology part-time. She occupies the position of Honorary Medical Officer to the Electrical Department of the Royal Victoria and West Hants Hospital in Bournemouth. She is the founder and president of the Wessex branch of the British Institute of Radiology. She serves as the consulting actinotherapist at the Victoria Cripples Home. During retirement she pens a number of articles in contribution to the medical literature of the time. She publishes research on topics such as fibroids, goitre, Graves’ disease, soldier’s heart, rickets and osteomalacia.

Stoney retires from all of her hospital positions in 1928 at the age of 58. She, along with her older sister Edith, travel in retirement. One trip is to India, where she writes her final scientific paper, the subject of which is osteomalacia (bone softening), in particular in relation to pelvic deformities in childbirth. She studies and investigates this topic overseas, and specifically the association between UV exposure, vitamin D and skeletal development. In India, she also uses her expertise to advise on the use of UV light in hospitals.

Stoney dies at the age of 62, on October 7, 1932. She is suffering from a long and painful illness, vertebral cancer, again largely attributed to her work in the presence of high levels of radiation. Her funeral takes place on October 11 at Golders Green Crematorium, London. The British Journal of Radiology publishes her official obituary which spans five pages, containing many warm personal testimonials. After her sister’s death, Edith Stoney continues to travel and research.


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Birth of Kitty Wilmer O’Brien, Landscape Artist

Kitty Wilmer O’Brien, Irish oil and watercolour landscape artist, is born in India on August 7, 1910.

Wilmer is born to Major Harold Gordon Wilmer and Alice Violet McEntire. Her father is killed at Gallipoli when she is four years old. She has a younger brother, Harold, who follows in the family military tradition and is killed in 1942. She learns her skills in the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) schools in Dublin, starting in 1926, where she wins a number of awards for her art. She is trained by Lilian Davidson who is working out of her studio in Earlsfort Terrace in Dublin. She wins the Taylor Scholarship in 1933 which sends her to the Slade School of Fine Art in London.

In 1936, Wilmer marries Dr. Brendan O’Brien, a Dublin surgeon and son of Dermod O’Brien. She and her husband settle in Dublin after working abroad for a few years. They have two sons, Dermod and Anthony, who is also an artist. Another artistic relative is Geraldine O’Brien.

In the period from the 1940s and 1950s O’Brien exhibits in Dublin with Brigid Ganly, RHA, her sister-in-law, as well as submitting works to the Society of Dublin Painters, the Royal Hibernian Academy and the Water Colour Society of Ireland. She exhibits annually in the Irish Living Art Exhibition and the Oireachtas Art Exhibition. O’Brien is elected a member of the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1976. She is president of the Water Colour Society of Ireland from 1962 to 1981.

O’Brien dies in Dublin in 1982.


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Death of “Mick” Mannock, British-Irish Flying Ace

Edward Corringham “Mick” Mannock VC, DSO & Two Bars, MC & Bar, a British-Irish flying ace who serves in the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and Royal Air Force (RAF) during World War I, is killed on July 26, 1918, when his plane crashes behind German lines. He is a pioneer of fighter aircraft tactics in aerial warfare. At the time of his death, he has amassed 61 aerial victories, making him the fifth highest scoring pilot of the war. He is among the most decorated men in the British Armed Forces. He is honoured with the Military Cross (MC) twice, is one of the rare three-time recipients of the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) and is posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross (VC).

Mannock was born on May 24, 1887, to an English father, Edward Mannock, and an Irish mother, Julia Sullivan. His father serves in the British Army and in 1893, deeply in debt and exasperated with civilian life, he re-enlists, and the family moves to Meerut, India when he is five years old. In his early years, he is sickly and develops several ailments. Soon after arriving in Asia, he contracts malaria, narrowly avoiding death. Upon his return to England, he becomes a fervent supporter of Irish nationalism and the Irish Home Rule movement but becomes a member of the Independent Labour Party (ILP).

In 1914, Mannock is working as a telephone engineer in Turkey. After the Ottoman Empire‘s entry into the war on the side of the Central Powers he is interned. Poorly fed and cared for, his health rapidly declines in prison. Dysentery racks his intestines, and he is confined to a small cell. Turkish authorities repatriate him to Britain believing him to be unfit for war service. He recovers and joins the Royal Engineers (RE) and then the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC). He moves services again and in 1916 joins Royal Flying Corps (RFC). After completing his training, he is assigned to No. 40 Squadron RFC. He goes into combat on the Western Front, participating in three separate combat tours. After a slow start he begins to prove himself as an exceptional pilot, scoring his first victory on May 7, 1917.

By February 1918, Mannock has achieved sixteen victories and is appointed a Flight Commander in No. 74 Squadron. He amasses thirty-six more victories from April 12 — June 17, 1918. After returning from leave he is appointed commanding officer of No. 85 Squadron in July 1918, and scores nine more victories that month.

On July 26, Major Mannock offers to help a new arrival, Lt. Donald C. Inglis from New Zealand, obtain his first victory. After shooting down an enemy LVG two-seater behind the German front-line, Mannock is believed to have dived to the crash site to view the wreckage, seemingly breaking one of the unwritten rules of fellow pilots about the hazards of flying low into ground fire. In consequence, while crossing the trenches the fighters are met with a massive volley of ground fire. The engine of his aircraft is hit and immediately catches fire, and shortly thereafter the plane crashes behind German lines. His body is believed to have been found, though this is unproven, about 250 yards (250m) from the wreck of his plane, perhaps thrown, perhaps jumped. The body shows no gunshot wounds although he had vowed to shoot himself if shot down in flames.

The exact cause of Mannock’s death remains uncertain. A year later, after intensive lobbying by Ira Jones and many of his former comrades, he is awarded the Victoria Cross (VC).

Mannock’s body is not subsequently recovered by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), so officially he has no known grave. His name is commemorated on the Arras Flying Services Memorial to the missing at the Faubourg d’Amiens CWGC Cemetery in Arras, France. There is also a memorial plaque in his honour in Canterbury Cathedral.

Mannock’s name is listed on the Wellingborough War Memorial with the other fallen men from the town and the local Air Training Corps (ATC) unit bears his name – 378 (Mannock) Squadron. Additionally, Mannock Road, a residential street in Wellingborough, is named after him.

On June 24, 1988, a plaque is unveiled at 183 Mill Road, Wellingborough, by top scoring World War II British fighter pilot Air Vice-Marshal Johnnie Johnson. Mannock had lived at that address prior to the war after being befriended by the Eyles family.


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Birth of Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener

Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener of Khartoum and Broome in Kent, British Army officer and colonial administrator, is born on June 24, 1850, at Gunsborough Villa, north of Listowel, County Kerry.

Kitchener is the second son of Lieutenant Colonel Henry Horatio Kitchener and his first wife, Frances Anne (née Chevallier), daughter of clergyman John Chevallier. Col. Kitchener resigns his commission in 1849 and purchases Ballygoghlan House estate near Tarbert, County Kerry, in early 1850 under the provisions of the Encumbered Estates Act of 1849. Ballygoghlan House is in a state of disrepair, however, and the family lives in Gunsborough Villa until the end of 1850. In 1857, Col. Kitchener purchases Crotta House, near Kilflynn, County Kerry, and the Kitcheners divide their time between the two residences. While innovative and successful in his agricultural methods, Col. Kitchener is harsh towards his tenants and, after carrying out many evictions, becomes extremely unpopular in the area. He is a rigid disciplinarian and occasionally punishes his son severely.

Although Kitchener attends Ballylongford village school, his education is largely neglected. When examined by his cousin Francis Elliot Kitchener, fellow of Trinity College Dublin (TCD), he is found to have only the most rudimentary knowledge of grammar and arithmetic. Education by private tutors follows. In 1864, his father sells his Irish estates and moves to Switzerland for the sake of his wife’s health. After further private tuition, he passes into the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, in 1868, and is commissioned into the Royal Engineers in December 1870.

Kitchener begins his career on survey missions and carries out such work in Palestine (1874–78) and Cyprus (1878–82). He then enters the Egyptian Army and takes part in the Sudan campaign of 1883–85, organised to relieve Genral Charles George Gordon. Subsequent appointments include governor of Suakin (1886–88), adjutant-general of the Egyptian Army (1888–92), and Sirdar (Commander-in-Chief) of the Egyptian Army (1892–96). After the Dongola Expedition in 1896, he is promoted to major-general. He commands the Khartoum Expedition of 1898, defeating Mahdist forces at Atbara and Omdurman, and is raised to the peerage.

At the outbreak of the Second Boer War in 1899, he is appointed chief of staff to Frederick Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts, and assumes total command, with the rank of lieutenant-general, in 1900. While acting as commander-in-chief in South Africa he reorganises the British forces and, using new tactics, manages finally to defeat the Boers. He is severely criticised in the world press for the conditions in the concentration camps where Boer families are confined, but is made a viscount, promoted to general, and awarded £50,000 by parliament at the end of the war.

Kitchener serves as commander-in-chief in India beginning in 1902, is promoted to Field Marshal in 1909, and is a member of the Committee of Imperial Defence (1910) and consul-general in Egypt (1911–14). At the outbreak of World War I he is made Secretary of State for War and begins to reorganise the British Army, an immense achievement, raising 1,700,000 men in service battalions by May 1915, creating an army of volunteers to reinforce the depleted regular army in Belgium and France. An archconservative, he totally opposes Home Rule for Ireland, and initially blocks plans by John Redmond for the formation of a southern Irish division from members of the National Volunteers. Convinced that an all-Irish brigade or division would be a security risk, he rejects Redmond’s suggestions in a meeting of August 1915 and originally proposes dispersing Irish recruits through the numerous regiments in the army. Impressed by Redmond’s persistence, and impelled by the recruiting crisis of late 1915, he finally reverses his decision and sanctions the establishment of the 16th (Irish) Division.

On June 5, 1916, Kitchener is making his way to Russia on HMS Hampshire to attend negotiations with Tsar Nicholas II when in bad weather the ship strikes a German mine 1.5 miles (2.4 km) west of Orkney, Scotland, and sinks. He is among 737 who perish. He is the highest-ranking British officer to die in action in the entire war.

Although he only spends his early years in Kerry, Kitchener occasionally returns to Ireland. While on leave in June 1910 he goes on a tour of County Kerry, visiting places connected to his childhood. There are numerous portraits and memorials to him in England, including a marble effigy by W. Reid Dick in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London and a statue by John Tweed in Horse Guards Parade, London. There is a commemorative bible in the Church of Ireland church at Kilflynn, County Kerry, where he regularly attended Sunday service as a boy. There are some Kitchener letters in the John Redmond papers in the National Library of Ireland.

(From: “Kitchener, Horatio Herbert” by David Murphy, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009)


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Birth of Richard Colley Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley

Richard Colley Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley, Anglo-Irish politician and colonial administrator, is born on June 20, 1760, at Dangan Castle, County Meath. He, as governor of Madras (now Chennai) and governor-general of Bengal (both 1797–1805), greatly enlarges the British Empire in India and, as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1821–28, 1833–34), attempts to reconcile Protestants and Roman Catholics in a bitterly divided country. Throughout his life he displays an ever-increasing jealousy of his younger brother Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, despite his own achievements.

Born Richard Colley Wesley, he is the eldest son of Garret Wesley, 1st Earl of Mornington (he changes the family surname to Wellesley in 1789). He is educated at the Royal School, Armagh, Harrow School, Eton College, and Christ Church, Oxford, although he leaves the latter in 1781, following his father’s death, before completing his degree. He enters the Irish House of Commons in 1780 and, after he inherits his father’s Irish titles in 1781, moves to the Irish House of Lords. A moderately liberal disciple of Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, he wins a seat in the British House of Commons in 1784 and serves there until 1797. From 1793 he is a member of the British Privy Council and a commissioner of the India Board of Control.

As Governor-General of India, Wellesley uses military force and diplomacy to strengthen and expand British authority. East India Company forces defeat and kill Tipu Sultan, Indian Muslim ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore (present-day Mysuru) and sympathizer for Revolutionary France, in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War (1799), and he then restores the Hindu dynasty there that had been deposed by Tipu’s father, Hyder Ali. He annexes much territory after his brother Arthur and General Gerard Lake defeat the Maratha Confederacy of states in the Deccan Plateau (peninsular India). In addition, he forces the Oudh State to surrender numerous important cities to the British, and he contracts with other states a series of “subsidiary alliances” by which all parties recognize British preponderance. He receives a barony in the British peerage in 1797 at the time of his appointment as governor-general, and in 1799 he is awarded a marquessate in the Irish peerage for his victory in the Mysore War.

When Wellesley is faced with an invasion by Zaman Shah Durrani, ruler (1793–1800) of Kabul (Afghanistan), he utilizes his envoy, Captain John Malcolm, to induce Fatḥ-Alī Shah Qajar of Qajar Iran to restrain Zaman Shah Durrani and to give British political and commercial interests preference over the French. On receiving a British government order to restore to France its former possessions in India, he refuses to comply. His policy is vindicated when the Treaty of Amiens (1802) is violated, and Great Britain resumes war against Napoleonic France.

Wellesley’s annexations and the vast military expenditure that he had authorized alarms the court of directors of the East India Company. In 1805, he is recalled, and soon afterward he is threatened with impeachment, although two years later he refuses an offer of the foreign secretaryship. In 1809, he goes to Spain to make diplomatic arrangements for the Peninsular War against France and later that year becomes foreign secretary under Prime Minister Spencer Perceval. In that office he antagonizes his colleagues, who consider him an indolent megalomaniac and welcome his resignation in February 1812. Unlike most of them, however, he had urged a stronger war effort in Spain and had advocated political rights for British Roman Catholics. After Perceval’s assassination on May 11, 1812, he attempts unsuccessfully to form a government at the request of the prince regent (the future King George IV).

As Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Wellesley disappoints the anti-Catholic George IV, and he is about to be removed when his brother, Arthur, is appointed prime minister in January 1828. He then resigns because his brother is opposed to Roman Catholic emancipation, although the duke is constrained to accept that policy as a political necessity in 1829. His second term as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1833–34) ends with the fall of Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey’s reform government. When the Whig Party returns to power in April 1835, he is not sent back to Ireland, and in his rage, he threatens to shoot the prime minister, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne. He wants to be created Duke of Hindustan so that his rank will equal that of his brother.

Wellesley dies at the age of 82 on September 26, 1842, at Knightsbridge, London. He is buried in Eton College Chapel, at his old school. He and Arthur, after a long estrangement, had been once more on friendly terms for some years. Arthur weeps at the funeral and says that he knows of no honour greater than being Lord Wellesley’s brother.

Wellesley’s library is sold at auction in London by R. H. Evans on January 17, 1843 (and three following days); a copy of the catalogue, annotated with prices and buyers’ names, is held at Cambridge University Library.

Wellesley has several children, including three sons, but none are legitimate. The marquessate thus becomes extinct upon his death. The earldom of Mornington goes to his next surviving brother, William Wellesley-Pole.

(From: “Richard Colley Wellesley, Marquess Wellesley, British statesman,” written and fact-checked by the Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, http://www.britannica.com, April 2024 | Pictured: “Richard Colley Wellesley, Marquess of Wellesley (1760-1842),” oil on canvas portrait by Thomas Lawrence, 1812-13)


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Death of Helen Maybury Roe, Librarian & Antiquarian

Helen Maybury Roe, Irish librarian and antiquarian and a champion of medieval Irish art and iconography, dies on May 28, 1988, at Grove Nursing Home in Killiney, County Dublin.

Born on December 18, 1895, Roe is the daughter of William Ernest Roe and Anne Lambert Sheilds of Mountrath, County Laois. Her grandfather is Francis Henry Sheilds of Parsonstown (now Birr, County Offaly), owner of the King’s County Chronicle. She is sent first to the local primary school and then to the Preston School in Abbeyleix. Although she attends Trinity College Dublin (TCD), she does not begin her career due to the outbreak of World War I. She joins the St. John’s Ambulance Brigade and serves at the Cambridge Military Hospital and at Aldershot Barracks. In the immediate aftermath, she continues her medical career with the Military Hospital in Bray, County Wicklow. She also spends time touring in Europe visiting museums and beginning her appreciation for medieval art. She is raised Protestant and has done her duty as part of the aristocracy by serving in the war. But the soldiers treat her as Irish and abuse her especially during the Easter Rising of 1916. The result is that she supports nationalism from that point forward. She goes back to TCD and completes her degree in modern languages in 1921. She finally completes her MA in 1924 and begins a teaching career. She spends time working in the Royal School, Dungannon, and Alexandra College, Milltown, Dublin.

In 1926, Roe’s parents need her, and she returns home. She then becomes the County Librarian in Laois. While working as a librarian she is able to study further and, as a rare person with a car, she tours sites and visits schools. One result of her presentations to schools is to inspire Ireland’s first female archaeologist, Ellen Prendergast. In 1940, she retires from the library and moves to Dublin where she is able to buy a house and garden. Apart from her antiquarian work, she is a regular supporter of charities and is honorary secretary of The Queen’s County Protestant Orphan’s Society and actively involved in The Dublin University Mission to Chota Nagpur, India.

Roe becomes a regular contributor to various journals and newspapers including Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, An Leabharlann, Béaloideas, Seanchas Ard Mhacha, Carloviana, the The Irish Press and the Leinster Express. From 1965 until 1968 she serves as the president of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, the first woman to be elected to the position. She is elected to be a member of the Royal Irish Academy in 1984. She continues touring and lecturing into her nineties.

Roe lives at Santry, Dublin, and later at Oak House, Sussex Road, Dublin. She dies on May 28, 1988, at Grove Nursing Home, Killiney, County Dublin, and is buried beside her parents at St. Peter’s Churchyard, Mountrath, County Laois.

The Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland have an annual lecture in her honour and have named one of their lecture rooms after her.


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Death of Surrealist Sculptor F. E. McWilliam

Frederick Edward McWilliam CBE RA, Northern Irish surrealist sculptor, dies in London on May 13, 1992. He works chiefly in stone, wood and bronze. His style of work consists of sculptures of the human form contorted into strange positions, often described as modern and surreal.

McWilliam is born in Banbridge, County Down, on April 30, 1909, the son of Dr. William McWilliam, a local general practitioner. Growing up in Banbridge has a great influence on his work. He makes references to furniture makers such as Carson the Cooper and Proctors in his letters to his friend, Marjorie Burnett.

McWilliam attends Campbell College in Belfast and later attends Belfast College of Art from 1926. After 1928, he continues to study at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. He originally intends to become a painter, but influenced by Alfred Horace Gerrard, head of the sculpture department at the Slade, and by Henry Moore whom he meets there, he turns to sculpture. He receives the Robert Ross Leaving Scholarship which enables him and his wife, Beth (née Crowther), to travel to Paris where he visits the studio of Constantin Brâncuși.

During the first year of World War II, he joins the Royal Air Force and is stationed in England for four years where he is engaged in interpreting aerial reconnaissance photographs. He is then posted to India. While there he teaches art in the Hindu Art School in New Delhi.

After his return from India, McWilliam teaches for a year at the Chelsea School of Art. He is then invited by A. H. Gerrard to teach sculpture at the Slade. He continues in this post until 1968.

The 1950s see McWilliam receive many commissions including the Four Seasons Group for the Festival of Britain exhibition in 1951. A major commission in 1957 is Princess Macha for Altnagelvin Area Hospital in Waterside, Derry.

During the Northern Ireland Troubles McWilliam produces a series of bronzes in 1972 and 1973 known as Women of Belfast in response to the bombing at the Abercorn Tea-Rooms.

In 1964 McWilliam is awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters from Queen’s University Belfast. In 1966 he is appointed CBE and in 1971 he wins the Oireachtas Gold Medal. He is represented in many public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and Tate Britain in London. In 1984 the National Self-Portrait Gallery purchases a McWilliam self-portrait amongst acquisitions from fellow Northerners Brian Ballard, Brian Ferran and T. P. Flanagan.

The Arts Council of Northern Ireland organises a retrospective of his work in 1981 and a second retrospective is shown at the Tate Gallery in 1989 for his 80th birthday.

McWilliam continues carving up to his death. He dies of cancer in London on May 13, 1992.

In September 2009 Banbridge District Council opens a gallery and studio dedicated to the work of and named after McWilliam.


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Birth of George Roupell, British Army Officer & Victoria Cross Recipient

Brigadier George Rowland Patrick Roupell, VC, CB, DL, a senior officer in the British Army and a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces, is born on April 7, 1892, in Tipperary, County Tipperary.

Roupell is born into a military family. His father, Francis Frederick Fyler Roupell, having served with the British Army in the 70th (Surrey) Regiment of Foot and commanded the 1st Battalion, East Surrey Regiment from 1895 to 1899, is promoted to colonel in 1901. He had married Edith Maria Bryden at Kingston in 1887.

Roupell is educated at Rossall School and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He is commissioned into the East Surrey Regiment, his father’s regiment, on March 2, 1912, and is appointed a lieutenant on April 29, 1914, shortly before the outbreak of World War I.

At the outbreak of war in the summer of 1914, the 1st Battalion the East Surreys are deployed as part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) into northern Belgium. Roupell commands a platoon in the BEF’s first major action, the Battle of Mons, in August 1914. He keeps a diary throughout the war, which has since been a, sometimes humorous, source of insight and observation on the events that he witnessed and participated in. In the trenches at Mons, he recounts how he had to hit his men on the backside with his sword in order to gain their attention and remind them to fire low as they had been taught.

Soon after, following the retreat from Mons in September 1914, Roupell leads his platoon in the First Battle of the Aisne. Once again, he comes under heavy fire, this time while crossing the Aisne on a raft. The Surreys’ advance is pushed back with heavy casualties.

On April 20, 1915, during the continued fighting around Ypres, Roupell is commanding a company of his battalion in a front trench on “Hill 60,” which is subjected to a most severe bombardment throughout the day. Although wounded in several places, he remains at his post and leads his company in repelling a strong German assault. During a lull in the bombardment, he has his wounds hurriedly dressed, and then insists on returning to his trench, which is again being subjected to severe bombardment. Toward evening, his company being dangerously weakened, he goes back to his battalion headquarters, represents the situation to his commanding officer, and brings up reinforcements, passing back and forth over ground swept by heavy fire. With these reinforcements he holds his position throughout the night, and until his battalion is relieved next morning. For these actions he is awarded the Victoria Cross.

Roupell is presented with his VC by King George V on July 12, 1915. In addition to his Victoria Cross, he is awarded the Russian Order of St. George (4th Class) and the French Croix de guerre and is mentioned in dispatches. He is retrospectively appointed temporary captain with effect from December 29, 1914, to April 20, 1915, inclusive, and again later the same year.

Roupell is aboard TSS The Queen when it is captured and sunk in the English Channel in October 1916. He is appointed acting brigade major on December 29, 1917. On May 9, 1918, he is seconded to the general staff with the rank of temporary major.

Following the end of hostilities in Europe, Roupell, still an acting major, is promoted to acting lieutenant colonel in charge of a battalion from December 1918 to March 1919. His appointment to the general staff is confirmed on July 1, 1919. During this time, he is attached to the allied force under Edmund Ironside and sent to support Tsarist Russians as part of the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. On a visit to a Tsarist unit, they mutiny, and he and others are taken prisoner near Arkhangelsk, sent to Moscow, and finally repatriated in 1920.

Early in 1921, Roupell marries Doris P. Sant in Paddington. Daughter Phoebe and son Peter are born in 1922 and 1925, respectively.

Roupell’s inter-war military career continues with appointments as staff captain (1921), brigade major (1926), and promotion to substantive major (1928). During the inter-war period, he serves in Gibraltar, the Regimental Depot, India and the Sudan and he attends the Staff College, Camberley. As major (GSO2), he spends two years from 1929 at the Royal Military College of Canada, and in 1934 a year with the British troops in China. Following his return, he is promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1935.

At the outbreak of World War II, in September 1939, Roupell is promoted to colonel and made an acting brigadier, placed in command of 36th Infantry Brigade from October 7, 1939. His brigade is deployed as part of the 12th (Eastern) Division in April 1940 and becomes part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), taking part in the Battle of France. The German thrust near the river Somme toward Abbeville eventually cuts off the BEF, northern French and Belgian forces from the rest of France. His brigade headquarters near Doullens is attacked by enemy troops and, on being told of the threat, he exclaims, “Never mind the Germans. I’m just going to finish my cup of tea.”

When the brigade headquarters is overrun on May 20, 1940, Roupell gives the order for the survivors to split up into small groups and endeavour to re-contact Allied troops. He, with a captain and French interpreter, avoid capture, hiding by day and walking at night for over a month. They arrive at a farm near Rouen where the two officers remain for almost two years, working as labourers. With the help of the French Resistance, they are moved through unoccupied France into non-belligerent Spain, finally boarding a ship in Gibraltar and returning to the United Kingdom.

Following his return, Roupell is appointed commanding officer of the 114th Brigade, part of the 38th (Welsh) Infantry Division, on March 18, 1943, a command he holds until November 2 of that year. The brigade is not destined to see battle, however, and he is soon appointed as garrison commander at Chatham, where he remains until retirement.

In 1946, Roupell is formally retired from the army on retirement pay and granted the honorary rank of brigadier and, at the age of 58, is excused from the reserve list of officers in 1950. He is appointed a Deputy lieutenant of Surrey in 1953.

In 1954, Roupell is appointed Colonel of the East Surreys, succeeding Lieutenant General Arthur Dowler, and is to be the last Colonel of the East Surrey Regiment, relinquishing office in 1959 when amalgamation with the Queen’s Royal Regiment (West Surrey) takes place to form the Queen’s Royal Surrey Regiment. He is appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1956.

Roupell dies at the age of 81 in Shalford, Surrey, on March 4, 1974. His body is cremated at Guildford Crematorium, where his ashes are scattered.


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Birth of Arthur MacMurrough Kavanagh

Arthur MacMurrough Kavanagh, Irish politician, is born on March 25, 1831, at Borris House, a country house near Borris, County Carlow. His middle name is spelled MacMorrough in some contemporaneous sources.

Kavanagh is the son of Thomas Kavanagh MP and artist Lady Harriet Margaret Le Poer Trench, daughter of Richard Trench, 2nd Earl of Clancarty. His father traced his lineage to the medieval Kings of Leinster through Art Óg Mac Murchadha Caomhánach. He has two older brothers, Charles and Thomas, and one sister, Harriet or “Hoddy.” He is born with only the rudiments of arms and legs, though the cause of this birth defect is unknown.

Kavanagh’s mother insists that he be brought up and have opportunities like any other child and places him in the care of the doctor Francis Boxwell, who believes that an armless and legless child can live a productive life. Kavanagh learns to ride horses at the age of three by being strapped to a special saddle and managing the horse with the stumps of his arms. With the help of the surgeon Sir Philip Crampton, Lady Harriet has a mechanical wheelchair constructed for her son, and encourages him to ride horses and engage in other outdoor activities. He also goes fishing, hunting, draws pictures and writes stories, using mechanical devices supplementing his physical capacities. His mother teaches him how to write and paint holding pens and brushes in his mouth.

In 1846, Lady Harriet takes three of her children, Thomas, Harriet and Arthur, traveling to the Middle East for two years. Kavanagh nearly drowns in the Nile when he falls in while fishing and is rescued by a local antiquities salesman who dives in to pull him out.

In 1849, Kavanagh’s mother discovers that he has been having affairs with girls on the family estate, so she sends him into exile to Uppsala, and then to Moscow with his brother and a clergyman, whom he comes to hate. He travels extensively in Egypt, Anatolia, Persia, and India between 1846 and 1853. In India, his letter of credit from his mother is cancelled when she discovers that he has spent two weeks in a harem, so he persuades the East India Company to hire him as a despatch rider. Other sources say that this is due to the death of his eldest brother, Charles, of tuberculosis in December 1851, which leaves him with only 30 shillings.

In 1851, Kavanagh succeeds to the family estates and to the title of The MacMurrough following the death of his older brother Thomas. He serves as High Sheriff of County Kilkenny for 1856 and High Sheriff of Carlow for 1857. A Conservative and a Protestant, he sits in Parliament for County Wexford from 1866 to 1868, and for County Carlow from 1868 to 1880. On being elected, he has to be placed on the Tory benches by his manservant. The Speaker of the House of Commons, Evelyn Denison, gives a special dispensation to allow the manservant to stay in the chamber during sittings. He is opposed to the disestablishment of the (Anglican) Church of Ireland but supports the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act 1870. On losing his seat in 1880, William Ewart Gladstone appoints him to the Bessborough Commission, but he disagrees with its conclusions and publishes his own dissenting report. In 1886, he is made a member of the Privy Council of Ireland.

Kavanagh dies of pneumonia in London at the age of 58 on December 25, 1889. He is buried in Ballicopagan cemetery. He is succeeded in the title of The MacMurrough by his son, Walter MacMurrough Kavanagh, who also serves as MP for County Carlow from 1908 to 1910. The 1901 novel The History of Sir Richard Calmady, written by Lucas Malet (pseudonym of Mary St. Leger Kingsley), is based on his life.

Kavanagh marries his cousin, Mary Frances Forde-Leathley, in 1855. Assisted by his wife, he is a philanthropic landlord, active county magistrate, and chairman of the board of guardians. Together, they have seven children.


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Birth of Sir John Greer Dill, Irish-born British Army Officer

Sir John Greer Dill, senior British Army officer with service in both World War I and World War II, is born on December 25, 1881, at Lurgan, County Armagh. From May 1940 to December 1941, he is the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), the professional head of the British Army, and subsequently serves in Washington, D.C., as Chief of the British Joint Staff Mission and then Senior British Representative on the Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS).

Dill is the only son of John Dill, bank manager, and Jane Dill (née Greer). He is educated at Cheltenham College in England before entering the Royal Military College (RMC), Sandhurst. Commissioned as a second lieutenant, he joins the Prince of Wales’s Leinster Regiment (Royal Canadians) in May 1901 and serves in South Africa for the remainder of the Second Boer War. Promoted to captain in 1911, he is a student at the Staff College, Camberley, at the outbreak of World War I. He holds several important staff appointments during the war, including brigade major of 25th Brigade (8th Division) and General Staff Officer (Grade 2) to the Canadian Corps. Present at the battles of Neuve Chapelle, Aubers Ridge, Arras, and Third Ypres, at the end of the war he is serving as chief of operations branch at GHQ with the temporary rank of brigadier general. He is awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) (1915), the Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG) (1918), the French Legion of Honour and the Belgian Order of the Crown.

Remaining active during the interwar years, Dill serves as chief assistant to the commandant of the Staff College (1919–22) before commanding the Welsh Border Brigade, TA (1922–23), and 2nd Infantry Brigade at Aldershot (1923–26). In late 1926, he is appointed army instructor at the newly established Imperial Defence College. A period in India follows as general staff officer of the Western Command (1929–31), based at Quetta. On return to England, he is promoted to major general and made commandant of the Staff College. Appointments as commander of the British forces in Palestine and Transjordan (1936–37) and the Aldershot Command (1937–39) follow. During this period, he shows a remarkable ability to both train and inspire those under his command. Most of his colleagues expect him to become the new chief of the Imperial General Staff and are surprised when Major General Lord Gort, junior to Dill in both rank and seniority, is appointed to the post.

At the outbreak of World War II Dill commands I Corps British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France and is made a full general. In April 1940, he is made vice-CIGS and in May takes over as CIGS. His initial period in office is not a happy one, and he has to inform the public of setbacks in both Norway and France. His workload is enormous, and after the evacuation at Dunkirk in late May he devotes himself to preparing the defences of Britain against invasion. He clashes with Winston Churchill throughout 1941, advocating a more cautious and realistic approach to the situations in North Africa, Greece, and Crete.

The workload begins to affect his health adversely, and in November 1941 it is announced that he will resign as CIGS on reaching the age of 60 and serve as governor-designate of Bombay with the rank of field marshal. He seeks to be more actively involved in the war effort, however, and in December 1941 he visits the United States with Churchill, remaining there as head of the British joint staff mission in Washington, D.C. He plays a significant role in promoting Anglo–American military cooperation and attends the Casablanca, Quebec, and Tehran conferences.

In late 1944 his health again breaks down and he dies from aplastic anemia on November 4, 1944, at the Walter Reed General Hospital, Washington, D.C. After a memorial service at Washington National Cathedral, he is buried with full military honours at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia. President Franklin D. Roosevelt later pays tribute to him as a great soldier and friend, “the most important figure in the remarkable accord which has been developed in the combined operations of our two countries.”

Dill first marries (1907) Ada Maud Le Mottée, daughter of Col. William Le Mottée of the 18th Regiment. Their son, Major John de Guerin Dill, serves as an artillery officer throughout World War II. In October 1941, Dill marries Nancy Isabelle Charrington, widow of Brigadier Denis Walter Furlong. Dill’s honours include a GCB (1942), an honorary degree from Princeton University (1944), the Howland Memorial Prize of Yale University (1944), and a posthumous Distinguished Service Medal (DSM) from the United States government. There are portraits of him in Cheltenham College and the Imperial War Museum, and a statue in Washington, D.C.

(From: “Dill, Sir John Greer” by David Murphy, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009 | Pictured: Sir John Greer Dill, bromide print, 1932, by Walter Stoneman, National Portrait Gallery, London)