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Tag Archives: Lieutenant Colonel (United Kingdom)


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Birth of Sir Thomas Myles, Home Ruler & Surgeon

thomas-myles

Sir Thomas Myles, a prominent Irish Home Ruler and surgeon, is born in Limerick, County Limerick on April 20, 1857. He is involved in the importation of arms for the Irish Volunteers in 1914.

Myles is the third of eleven children born to John Myles (1807-1871), a wealthy corn merchant, and his second wife Prudence, daughter of William Bradshaw of Kylebeg, County Tipperary. The Myles family has been prominent merchants in and around Limerick city since Oliver Cromwell‘s time.

A prominent sportsman from an early age, Myles graduates in medicine at Trinity College Dublin in 1881. One of his duties in his first job as resident surgeon at Dr. Steevens’ Hospital is to render medical assistance to the victims of the Phoenix Park murders on May 6, 1882.

From 1900 until 1902, Myles is President of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. After stepping down, he is appointed a Knight Bachelor in the 1902 Coronation Honours list published on June 26, 1902, and knighted by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, George Cadogan, 5th Earl Cadogan, at Dublin Castle on August 11, 1902. He also receives the honorary freedom of his native city.

Myles is also an active Home Ruler. He owns a yacht, the Chotah. In 1914, he is recruited by James Creed Meredith to help in the importation of guns for the Irish Volunteers with Erskine Childers, Edward Conor Marshall O’Brien and others. Childers lands his part of the consignment from the Asgard at Howth on July 26, 1914. Myles’s cargo is landed by the Chotah at Kilcoole, County Wicklow a week later. Meredith himself helps out aboard the Chotah during the operation. On August 1, 1914, 600 Mauser rifles and 20,000 rounds of ammunition are landed at the beach in Kilcoole. Once the arms are landed, they are taken away by Volunteers on bicycles and in vehicles. The arms are taken to Patrick Pearse‘s St. Enda’s School, in Rathfarnham, County Dublin.

Myles is appointed temporary Lieutenant Colonel in the Royal Army Medical Corps on November 21, 1914, and also becomes Honorary Surgeon in Ireland to the King. He is appointed to be an Additional Member of the Military Division of the Third Class, or Companion, of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, for services rendered in connection with the war, the appointment to date from January 1, 1917.

Sir Thomas Myles dies at the St. Lawrence’s Hospital in Dublin on July 14, 1937, and is buried at Deansgrange Cemetery in Dublin. Every year at the University of Limerick, the Sir Thomas Myles lecture is delivered as part of the Sylvester O’Halloran Surgical Meeting in honour of this remarkable surgeon and son of Limerick.


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Birth of John Blaquiere, 1st Baron de Blaquiere

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John Blaquiere, 1st Baron de Blaquiere, British soldier, diplomat and politician of French descent, is born on May 15, 1732. He serves as Chief Secretary for Ireland between 1772 and 1776. He is the fifth son of Jean de Blaquiere, a French merchant who had emigrated to England in 1685, and his wife Marie Elizabeth de Varennes.

Blaquiere at first serves in the Army, in the 18th Dragoons, later renumbered the 17th Dragoons, where he achieves the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. In 1771 he is appointed Secretary of Legation at the British Embassy in Paris, a post he holds until 1772. The latter year Simon Harcourt, 1st Earl Harcourt, the British Ambassador in Paris, is appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and Blaquiere joins him as Chief Secretary for Ireland. He is admitted to the Privy Council of Ireland the same year and made a Knight Companion of the Order of the Bath two years later.

Blaquiere is to remain Chief Secretary until December 6, 1776. He is elected to the Irish House of Commons for Old Leighlin in 1773, a seat he holds until 1783. After representing Enniskillen for a few months in 1783, he sits then for Carlingford from 1783 to 1790, for Charleville from 1790 to 1798 and for Newtownards from 1798 until the Act of Union comes into force in 1801. He is created a Baronet, of Ardkill in County Londonderry, in 1784, and is raised to the Peerage of Ireland as Baron de Blaquiere, of Ardkill in the County of Londonderry, in 1800, for his support for the Act of Union. Lord de Blaquiere also sits as a Member of the British House of Commons for Rye from 1801 to 1802 and for Downton from 1802 to 1806. He is elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1803.

Lord de Blaquiere marries Eleanor, daughter of Robert Dobson, in 1775. They have four sons, including Peter de Blaquière, and three daughters. Lord de Blaquiere dies at the age of 80 in Bray, County Wicklow, on August 27, 1812. He is succeeded in his titles by his eldest son, John. Lady de Blaquiere dies at Regent’s Park, Marylebone, London, in December 1833.


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Birth of Robert Blair “Paddy” Mayne

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Robert Blair “Paddy” Mayne, British Army soldier, solicitor, Ireland rugby union international, amateur boxer, and a founding member of the Special Air Service (SAS), is born in Newtownards, County Down, on January 11, 1915.

Mayne attends school at Regent House School, a school for students aged 4 to 18. While at Regent he discovers his skill and love for the game of rugby. He also enjoys cricket and golf and becomes a marksman with the rifle club. He goes on to Queen’s University Belfast to study law. At university he takes up boxing and becomes the Irish Universities Heavyweight Champion in August 1936. He also wins the Scrabo Golf Club President’s cup in 1937. He graduates from Queen’s University in 1939.

During 1938, Mayne travels to Africa on the 1938 British Lions Tour to South Africa. He plays on a team that tours around Africa playing other local clubs. While traveling, it is discovered that Mayne has a wild side and on various occasions finds himself in trouble. His “go to” is to trash the hotel rooms of his teammates. The team includes some of the best players from around Ireland and Britain.

In 1939, with outbreak of World War II, Mayne joins the Supplementary Reserves in Newtownards and receives a commission in the Royal Artillery. He serves in several units in Ireland and England, generally with light and heavy anti-aircraft units. He volunteers for the No. 11 (Scottish) Commando unit which is sent to the Middle East. There he sees action during the Syria-Lebanon campaign. Specifically, during the Battle of the Litani River, he draws attention from Captain David Stirling who is forming the new Special Air Service (SAS). Sterling recruits Mayne for the new SAS while he is in jail for striking his commanding officer.

From November 1941 to the end of 1942, Mayne is involved in several raids behind enemy lines with the SAS. He uses jeeps to go to various Axis bases and begin blowing up planes and fuel dumps. It is claimed that he personally destroyed 100 planes during these missions. In addition to serving in the Middle East, he serves as well in Sicily, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Norway and France. In most of these locations he works with the resistance behind the enemy lines. In France he helps to train the French Resistance.

By the end of the war, Mayne has been promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and has also received the British Army’s Distinguished Service Order with three bars, which means he received the award four times. After the war he joins the British Antarctic Survey in the Falkland Islands. He returns home to Newtownards when back issues, which started while he was serving in the Middle East, become more difficult for him.

Mayne is initiated into Eklektikos Lodge No. 542 in Newtownards in 1945. He is a very enthusiastic mason and joins a second lodge in Newtownards, Friendship Lodge No. 447. On the evening of December 13, 1955, he attends a meeting of Friendship Lodge and then joins some of his masonic brothers at a local bar. At about 4:00 AM on December 14, he is found dead in his Riley RM roadster in Mill Street, Newtownards, having reportedly collided with a farmer’s vehicle.

At his funeral hundreds of mourners turn out to pay their respects and to see him interred in a family plot in the town’s old Movilla Abbey graveyard. After his death his masonic jewel is preserved for many years by an old school friend before it is presented to Newtownards Borough Council where it is displayed in the Mayoral Chamber of the Council Offices.


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Lord Killanin Becomes President of the International Olympic Committee

Michael Morris, 3rd Baron Killanin, journalist, author, and sports official, becomes the first Irish president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on August 23, 1972.

Morris is born in London on July 30, 1914, the son of Irish Catholic Lt. Col. George Henry Morris who is from Spiddal in County Galway. The Morrises are one of the fourteen families making up the “Tribes of Galway.”

Morris is educated at Summerfields, St. Leonards-on-Sea, Eton College, the Sorbonne in Paris and then Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he is President of the renowned Footlights dramatic club. He succeeds his uncle as Baron Killanin in the Peerage of the United Kingdom in 1927, which allows him to sit in the House of Lords at the Palace of Westminster as Lord Killanin upon turning 21. In the mid-1930s, he begins his career as a journalist on Fleet Street, working for the Daily Express, the Daily Sketch and subsequently the Daily Mail.

In November 1938, Lord Killanin is commissioned into the Queen’s Westminsters, a territorial regiment of the British Army, where he is responsible for recruiting fellow journalists, including future The Daily Telegraph editor Bill Deedes, and friends who are musicians and actors. He reaches the rank of major and takes part in the planning of D-Day and the Invasion of Normandy in 1944, acting as brigade major for the 30th Armoured Brigade, part of the 79th Armoured Division. He is appointed, due to the course of operations, a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). After being demobilised, he goes to Ireland. He resigns his TA commission in 1951.

In 1950, Lord Killanin becomes the head of the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) and becomes his country’s representative in the IOC in 1952. He becomes senior vice-president in 1968, and succeeds Avery Brundage, becoming President-elect at the 73rd IOC Session (August 21–24) held in Munich prior to the 1972 Summer Olympics. He takes office soon after the Games.

During Lord Killanin’s presidency, the Olympic movement experiences a difficult period, dealing with the financial flop of the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal and the boycotts of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. Denver, originally selected to host the 1976 Winter Olympics, withdraws and has to be replaced by Innsbruck. The cities of Lake Placid, New York and Los Angeles are chosen for 1980 Winter Olympics and 1984 Summer Olympics by default due to a lack of competing bids. He resigns just before the Moscow Olympics in 1980, and his position is taken over by Juan Antonio Samaranch. He is later unanimously elected Honorary Life President.

Lord Killanin serves as Honorary Consul-General of Monaco in Ireland from 1961 to 1984 and as Chairman of the Race Committee for Galway Racecourse from 1970 to 1985. A keen horse racing enthusiast, he also serves as a steward of the Irish Turf Club on two occasions and on the National Hunt Steeplechase Committee. In his business life Lord Killanin is a director of many companies including Irish Shell, Ulster Bank, Beamish & Crawford and Chubb Ireland. He is a founder member of An Taisce (The National Trust for Ireland) and is chairman of the National Monuments Advisory Council until his death.

Lord Killanin dies at his home in Dublin on April 25, 1999, at the age of 84 and, following a bilingual funeral Mass at St. Enda’s Church in Spiddal, County Galway, he is buried in the family vault in the New Cemetery, Galway.

(Pictured: Lord Killanin by Bert Verhoeff / Anefo (Nationaal Archief) [CC BY-SA 3.0 nl (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/nl/deed.en)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons)