Reed is the son of John Reed of Galway and Mary Adamson of County Meath. He is educated at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) and called to the Bar in 1873. He enters the Royal Irish Constabulary and is appointed District Inspector in 1859; becoming Inspector-General in 1885. He retires 1900.
Aside from being the only RIC cadet officer to be promoted to Inspector General, Reed changes the rules for promotion in the Royal Irish Constabulary. Up until his tenure, Catholics had little success in attaining promotions. Even though most of the force is Catholic, almost all the officers are non-Catholic. He institutes a rule that each year, sixty men who are Catholic and pass the Sergeant’s exam will be promoted.
Reed is appointed a Knight Bachelor in 1889, a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in 1892, a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO) in 1900 and a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in 1897.
Reed dies in Dublin on November 7, 1914, and is buried in Dean’s Grange Cemetery. His epitaph reads: – “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.” (3 John 4.)
He returns to England to be brigade major of the 2nd Infantry Brigade at Aldershot in 1886. He becomes deputy assistant adjutant general at Horse Guards in 1892, and deputy assistant adjutant general at Aldershot in 1894. He takes part in the Fourth Anglo-Ashanti War in 1895 and becomes assistant adjutant general at Horse Guards in 1897.
Stopford takes part in the Second Boer War as military secretary to General Sir Redvers Buller and later military secretary to the general officer commanding Natal, for which he is knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George in November 1900. After his return to Britain, he is appointed deputy adjutant general at Aldershot in 1901, and chief staff officer for I Corps with the temporary rank of brigadier general, on April 1, 1902. Two years later, he is appointed director of military training at Horse Guards. Promoted to major general in February 1904, he is Major-General commanding the Brigade of Guards and general officer commanding (GOC) of the London District from 1906. He is promoted to lieutenant general in September 1909.
On August 5, 1914, a day after the British entry into World War I, he is appointed GOC First Army, part of Home Forces, a position he holds until he takes command of IX Corps the following year.
As GOC of IX Corps, Stopford is blamed for the failure to attack following the landing at Suvla Bay in August 1915, during the Gallipoli campaign. He chose to command the landing from HMS Jonquil, anchored offshore, but sleeps as the landing is in progress. He is quickly replaced on August 15 by Major-General Sir Julian Byng.
After almost 50 years of military service, Stopford retires from the army in 1920.
Stopford dies at the age of 75 on May 4, 1929, at Marylebone, City of Westminster, Greater London, England. He is buried in the Holy Trinity and St. Andrew’s Churchyard in Ashe, Basingstoke and Deane borough, Hampshire, England.
Vicars is born on July 27, 1862 in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England, and is the youngest child of Colonel William Henry Vicars of the 61st Regiment of Foot and his wife Jane (nee Gun-Cunninghame). This is his mother’s second marriage, the first being to Pierce O’Mahony by whom she has two sons. He is very attached to his Irish half-brothers and spends much time at their residences. On completing his education at Magdalen College School, Oxford and Bromsgrove School he moves permanently to Ireland.
Vicars quickly develops an expertise in genealogical and heraldic matters and makes several attempts to be employed by the Irish heraldic administration of Ulster King of Arms, even offering to work for no pay. In 1891 he is one of the founder members of the County Kildare Archaeological Society and remains its honorary secretary until his death.
Vicars first attempts to find a post in the Office of Arms when in 1892 he applies unsuccessfully for the post of Athlone Pursuivant on the death of the incumbent, Bernard Louis Burke. In a letter dated October 2, 1892 his half-brother Pierce Mahony writes that Sir Bernard Burke, Ulster King of Arms, is dying and urges him to move at once. Burke dies in December 1892, and Vicars is appointed to the office by letters patent dated February 2, 1893. In 1896 he is knighted, in 1900 he is appointed Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO) and in 1903 he is elevated to Knight Commander of the Order (KCVO). He is also a fellow of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland and a trustee of the National Library of Ireland.
In 1897 Vicars publishes An Index to the Prerogative Wills of Ireland 1536 -1810, a listing of all persons in wills proved in that period. This work becomes very valuable to genealogists after the destruction of the source material for the book in 1922 when the Public Record Office at the Four Courts is destroyed at the start of the Irish Civil War.
Vicars’ career is very distinguished until 1907 when it is hit by the scandal of the theft of the Irish Crown Jewels. As Registrar of the Order of St. Patrick, he has custody of the insignia of the order, also known as the “crown jewels.” They are found to be missing on July 6, and a Crown Jewel Commission is established in January 1908 to investigate the disappearance. Vicars and his barrister Tim Healy refuse to attend the commission’s hearings. The commission’s findings are published on January 25, 1908 and he is dismissed as Ulster five days later.
On November 23, 1912, the Daily Mail publishes serious false allegations against Vicars. The substance of the article is that Vicars had allowed a woman reported to be his mistress to obtain a copy of the key to the safe and that she had fled to Paris with the jewels. In July 1913 he successfully sues the paper for libel. The paper admits that the story is completely baseless and that the woman in question does not exist. He is awarded damages of £5,000.
Vicars leaves Dublin and moves to Kilmorna, near Listowel, County Kerry, the former seat of one of his half-brothers. He marries Gertrude Wright in Ballymore, County Westmeath on July 4, 1917. He continues to protest his innocence until his death, even including bitter references to the affair in his will.
In May 1920 up to a hundred armed men break into Kilmorna House and hold Vicars at gunpoint while they attempt to break into the house’s strongroom. On April 14, 1921, he is taken from Kilmorna House, which is set afire, and shot dead in front of his wife. According to the communiqué issued from Dublin Castle, thirty armed men took him from his bed and shot him, leaving a placard around his neck denouncing him as an informer. On April 27, as an official reprisal, four shops are destroyed by British Armed Forces in the town of Listowel. The proclamation given under Martial law and ordering their demolition states:
“For any outrage carried out in future against the lives or property of loyalist officials, reprisals will be taken against selected persons known to have rebel sympathies, although their implication has not been proved.”
In 1885, Gildea founds the Soldiers and Sailors Families Association, which becomes the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association in 1919. He serves as its chairman and treasurer until his death.
Gildea is appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in the 1898 New Year Honours and Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO) in 1901. Knighted in 1902, he is later appointed Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO), and in the 1920 civilian war honours is appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE).
James Gildea dies on November 6, 1920, at Earl’s Court, London.
Threatened by lung trouble in 1879, Plunkett goes to the United States and spends ten years as a cattle rancher in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming. He returns to Ireland in 1889 and devotes himself to the agricultural cooperative movement, first organizing creameries and then, in 1894, the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, a forerunner of similar societies in England, Wales, and Scotland. A moderate Unionist member of Parliament for South County Dublin from 1892 to 1900, he becomes vice president (1899–1907) of the new Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland, which he has been instrumental in creating.
Plunkett’s later experience convinces him of the need for the independence of an Ireland without partition inside the Commonwealth, and he fights strongly for this goal, as chairman of the Irish Convention (1917–18) and, in 1919, as founder of the Irish Dominion League and of the Plunkett Foundation for Cooperative Studies, an agricultural research and information centre. He is appointed to the first Senate of the Irish Free State (1922–23). His house in Dublin is bombed and burned during in the Irish Civil War and he lives in England thereafter. In 1924 the Plunkett Foundation also moves to England. In 1924 he presides over a conference in London on agricultural co-operation in the British Commonwealth and in 1925 he visits South Africa to help the movement there.
Initially sent by editor John Delane to Malta to cover British support for the Ottoman Empire against Russia in 1854, Russell despises the term “war correspondent” but his coverage of the conflict brings him international renown, and Florence Nightingale later credits her entry into wartime nursing to his reports. The Crimean medical care, shelter and protection of all ranks by Mary Seacole is also publicised by Russell and by other contemporary journalists, rescuing her from bankruptcy.
His dispatches are hugely significant as for the first time the public can read about the reality of warfare. Shocked and outraged, the public’s backlash from his reports leads the Government to re-evaluate the treatment of troops and leads to Florence Nightingale’s involvement in revolutionising battlefield treatment.
On September 20, 1854, Russell covers the battle above the Alma River, writing his missive the following day in an account book seized from a Russian corpse. The story, written in the form of a letter to Delane, is supportive of the British troops and pays particular attention to the battlefield surgeons’ “humane barbarity” and the lack of ambulance care for wounded troops. He later covers the Siege of Sevastopol where he coins the phrase “thin red line” in referring to British troops at Balaclava.
Following Russell’s reports of the appalling conditions suffered by the Allied troops conducting the siege, including an outbreak of cholera, Samuel Morton Peto and his partners build the Grand Crimean Central Railway, which is a major factor leading to the success of the siege.
Russell spends December 1854 in Constantinople on holiday, returning in early 1855. He leaves Crimea in December 1855 to be replaced by the Constantinople correspondent of The Times.
In 1856 Russell is sent to Moscow to describe the coronation of Tsar Alexander II and in the following year is sent to India where he witnesses the final re-capture of Lucknow.
Russell retires as a battlefield correspondent in 1882 and founds the Army and Navy Gazette. He is knighted in May 1895 and is appointed a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO) by King Edward VII on August 11, 1902.
Sir William Howard Russell dies on February 11, 1907, and is buried in Brompton Cemetery, London.
Threatened by lung trouble in 1879, Plunkett goes to the United States and spends ten years as a cattle rancher in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming. He returns to Ireland in 1889 and devotes himself to the agricultural cooperative movement, first organizing creameries and then, in 1894, the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, a forerunner of similar societies in England, Wales, and Scotland. A moderate Unionist member of Parliament for South County Dublin from 1892 to 1900, he becomes vice president (1899–1907) of the new Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland, which he has been instrumental in creating.
Plunkett’s later experience convinces him of the need for the independence of an Ireland without partition inside the Commonwealth, and he fights strongly for this goal, as chairman of the Irish Convention (1917–18) and, in 1919, as founder of the Irish Dominion League and of the Plunkett Foundation for Cooperative Studies, an agricultural research and information centre. He is appointed to the first Senate of the Irish Free State (1922–23). His house in Dublin is bombed and burned during in the Irish Civil War and he lives in England thereafter. In 1924 the Plunkett Foundation also moves to England. In 1924 he presides over a conference in London on agricultural co-operation in the British Commonwealth and in 1925 he visits South Africa to help the movement there.
Sir William Howard Russell, reporter with The Times and considered to be one of the first modern war correspondents, is born at Lily Vale, Tallaght, County Dublin, on March 28, 1820.
As a young reporter, Russell reports on a brief military conflict between Prussian and Danish troops in Denmark in 1850. Sent by editor John Delane to Malta in 1854 to cover British support for the Ottoman Empire against Russia, Russell despises the term “war correspondent” but his coverage of the conflict brings him international renown. Florence Nightingale later credits her entry into wartime nursing to his reports. The Crimean medical care, shelter, and protection of all ranks by Mary Seacole is also publicised by Russell and by other contemporary journalists, rescuing her from bankruptcy.
Russell is described by one of the soldiers on the frontlines as “a vulgar low Irishman, who sings a good song, drinks anyone’s brandy and water, and smokes as many cigars as a Jolly Good Fellow. He is just the sort of chap to get information, particularly out of youngsters.” This reputation leads to Russell being blacklisted from some circles, including British commander Lord Raglan who advises his officers to refuse to speak with the reporter.
His dispatches are hugely significant. For the first time the public is able to read about the reality of warfare. Shocked and outraged, the public’s backlash from his reports leads the Government to re-evaluate the treatment of troops and lead to Florence Nightingale’s involvement in revolutionising battlefield treatment.
On September 20, 1854, Russell covers the battle above the Alma River. The story, written in the form of a letter to Delane, is supportive of the British troops though pays particular attention to the battlefield surgeons’ “humane barbarity” and the lack of ambulance care for wounded troops. He later covers the Siege of Sevastopol.
Following Russell’s reports of the appalling conditions suffered by the Allied troops conducting the siege, including an outbreak of cholera, Samuel Morton Peto and his partners build the Grand Crimean Central Railway, which is a major factor leading to the success of the siege. Russell leaves Crimea in December 1855.
In 1856, Russell is sent to Moscow to describe the coronation of Tsar Alexander II and in the following year is sent to India where he witnesses the final re-capture of Lucknow.
In 1861, Russell goes to Washington, returning to England in 1863. In July 1865, he sails on the SS Great Eastern to document the laying of the Transatlantic Telegraph Cable and writes a book about the voyage with color illustrations by Robert Dudley. He publishes diaries of his time in India, the American Civil War, and the Franco-Prussian War, where he describes the warm welcome given him by English-speaking Prussian generals such as Leonhard Graf von Blumenthal.
He is awarded the title of Commander of the Royal Victorian Order by King Edward VII. Russell later accuses fellow war correspondent Nicholas Woods of the Morning Herald of lying in his articles about the war to try to improve his stories.
In the 1868 General Election, Russell runs unsuccessfully as a Conservative candidate for the borough of Chelsea. He retires as a battlefield correspondent in 1882 and founds the Army and Navy Gazette. He is knighted in May 1895.
Russell dies on February 11, 1907, and is buried in Brompton Cemetery, London.
