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Robert Erskine Childers

Robert Erskine Childers DSC (25 June 1870 – 24 November 1922), universally known as Erskine Childers,123 (IPA: /ˈɝː skɪn ˈtʃɪldɝːs/)4 was an author and Irish nationalist who was executed by the authorities of the nascent Irish Free State during the Irish Civil War. He was the son of British Orientalist scholar Robert Caesar Childers; the cousin of Hugh Childers and Robert Barton; and the father of the fourth President of Ireland, Erskine Hamilton Childers.

Contents

Early life

Childers was born in Mayfair, London, the second son to Robert Caesar Childers, a translator and oriental scholar from an ecclesiastical family, and Anna Mary Henrietta, neé Barton, from an Anglo-Irish landowning family of Glendalough House, Annamoe, County Wicklow, Ireland.5 When Erskine was six his father died from tuberculosis and, although seemingly healthy, Anna was confined to an isolation hospital, where she was to die six years later. The children, by this time numbering five, were sent to the Bartons at Glendalough. They were treated kindly there and Erskine came to identify himself closely with the country of Ireland, albeit at that stage from the comfortable viewpoint of the "Protestant Ascendancy".6

At the recommendation of his grandfather, Canon Charles Childers, he was sent to Haileybury College. There he won an exhibition to Trinity College, Cambridge, studying the classical tripos and then law. He distinguished himself as the editor of Cambridge Review, a university magazine. Notwithstanding his unattractive voice and poor debating skills, he became president of the Trinity College Debating Society (the "Magpie and Stump" society). Although Erskine was an admirer of his cousin Hugh Childers, a member of the Cabinet in favour of Irish home rule, he spoke vehemently against the policy in college debates.5 A sciatic injury sustained while hill walking in the summer before he went up, and which was to dog him for the rest of his life, had left him slightly lame and he was unable to pursue his intention of earning a rugby blue, but he became a proficient rower.7

Having gained his degree in law, and with the vague intention of one day following cousin Hugh into parliament as an MP,8 Childers sat the competitive entry examination to become a parliamentary clerk. He was successful and early in 1895 he became a junior committee clerk, with the responsibility of preparing formal and legally sound bills from the proposals of the government of the day.

Sailing

With many sporting ventures now closed to him because of his persisting sciatic injury, Childers was encouraged by Walter Runciman, a friend from schooldays, to take up sailing. After picking up the fundamentals of seamanship as a deckhand on Runciman's yacht, in 1893 he bought his own vessel, the "scrubby little yacht" Sheila, which he learned to sail alone on the Thames estuary.910 Bigger and better boats followed: by 1895 he was taking the half-deck Marguerite across the Channel and in 1897 there was a long cruise, with his brother Henry, in the thirty-foot cutter Vixen to the Frisian Islands, Norderney and the Baltic: a voyage he repeated in the following spring. These were the adventures he was to fictionalise in 1903 as The Riddle of the Sands, his most famous book.11 In 1903 Childers, now accompanied by his new wife Molly, was again cruising in the Frisian Islands, in Sunbeam, a boat he shared with William le Fanu and other friends from his university days. However his father-in-law, Dr Hamilton Osgood, had arranged for a fine 28-ton yacht, Asgard, to be built for the couple as a wedding gift and Sunbeam was only a temporary measure while Asgard was being fitted out.12 This was Childers's last, and most famous, yacht: in June 1914 he used it to smuggle a cargo of 900 Mauser rifles and 29,000 rounds of ammunition to the Irish Volunteers movement at the fishing village of Howth, Co Dublin. It was acquired by the Irish government as a sail training vessel in 1961, stored on dry land in the yard of Kilmainham Gaol in 1979, and finally becoming a static exhibit at The National Museum of Ireland in 1997.1314

War service

Boer War

Driver Childers, Honourable Artillery Company

As with most men of his social background and education, Childers was a steadfast believer in the British Empire. Indeed for an old boy of Haileybury, a school founded to train young men for colonial service in India, this outlook was almost inevitable,15 although he had at least given the matter some critical consideration.16 In 1898, then, as negotiations over the voting rights of British settlers in the Boer territories of Transvaal and Orange Free State failed and the Boer War broke out, he needed little encouragement when in December Basil Williams, a colleague at Westminster and already a member of the volunteer Honourable Artillery Company, suggested that they should enlist together.17 It was, therefore, as an artilleryman that Childers joined the City Imperial Volunteers, something of an ad-hoc force comprising soldiers from different territorial regiments, but funded by City institutions and provided with the most modern equipment. He was classed as a "driver", caring for a pair of horses and riding them in the gun train. The unit set off for South Africa on 2 February 1899 and here Childers's sailing experience was useful: most of the new volunteers, and their officers, were seasick and it largely fell to him to care for the troop's six horses.17

After the three-week voyage it was something of a disappointment that the HAC detachment was, initially, not used. It was not until 26 June, while escorting a supply train of slow ox-wagons, that Childers first experienced enemy fire, in three days of skirmishing in defence of the column. However it was a smartly-executed defence of a beleaguered infantry regiment on 3 July that established their worth and more significant engagements followed.18 On 24 August Childers was evacuated from the front line, not as the result of a wound but from a type of trench foot, to hospital in Pretoria. The seven-day journey happened to be in the company of wounded infantrymen from Cork and Childers noted approvingly how cheerfully loyal to Britain the men were, how resistant to any incitement in support of Irish home rule and how they had been let down only by the incompetence of their officers.19 This is a striking contrast to the attitude he was to note towards the end of the First World War when conscription in Ireland was under consideration: "...young men hopelessly estranged from Britain and...anxious to die in Ireland for Irish liberty."20 After a chance meeting with his brother Henry, also wounded in the foot, he rejoined his unit, only for it to be despatched to England on 7 October 1899.

First World War

Childers's attitude to Britain's establishment and politics was somewhat equivocal at the start of the First World War. He had resigned his membership of the Liberal Party, and with it his hopes of winning a parliamentary seat, over concessions to Unionists and a further postponement of Irish self-rule;5 he had written works critical of British policy in Ireland and in its South African possessions; above all, in July 1914, he had smuggled a shipment of arms bought in Germany to supply rebels in Ireland.5 This knowledge was not in wide circulation, but neither was it a great secret and the official telegram calling Childers to naval service was sent to the Dublin headquarters of the Irish Volunteers, the group to which he had made the delivery.21 Although in 1914 it could be argued that, in the case of war, the Irish Volunteers might fight on the side of Britain as a means of securing bargaining power in home rule negotiations, these weapons were used against British soldiers, diverted from fighting the enemy, in The Easter Rising of 1916.2223 Then again, Childers believed that smaller nations such as Belgium and Serbia would benefit from Britain's defeat of Germany and, as a prospectively independent nation, Ireland too would gain.5

If Childers's support for England in the fight against Germany may have been in some doubt, when in mid-August 1914 he did once again volunteer, the grant of a reserve commission in the intelligence arm of the Royal Navy was entirely to be expected: Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty, although hostile to spending money on armaments at the time The Riddle of the Sands was published, later gave the book the credit for persuading public opinion to fund vital measures against the German naval threat and was instrumental in securing Childers's recall.2425 His first task was a neat reversal of his plot for The Riddle of the Sands: to draw up a plan for the invasion of Germany by way of the Frisian Islands.26 Only a few days later he found himself allocated to HMS Engadine, a seaplane support vessel, as an instructor in coastal navigation to newly trained pilots. He managed to extend his duties to include flying as a navigator and observer, including a sortie navigating over a familiar coastline in the Cuxhaven Raid, an inconclusive bombing attack on the Cuxhaven airship base on Christmas day 1914.27 In 1915 he was transferred in a similar role to HMS Ben-my-Chree, in which he served in the Gallipoli Campaign and the eastern Mediterranean, earning himself a Distinguished Service Cross.28 He was sent back to London in April 1916 to receive his decoration from the king and for service in the Admiralty. This period in his life is relatively undocumented and his Irish detractors were to allege that he was once again engaged in intelligence work. In reality he was engaged in the mundane task of allocating seaplanes to their intended ships.29 It took Childers until Autumn of that year to extricate himself and train for service with a new coastal motor-boat squadron operating in the English Channel.

A respite from Childers's military career was offered on 27 July 1917, when Sir Horace Plunkett asked that he be assigned to the secretariat of Prime Minister Lloyd George's Home Rule Convention initiative in Dublin Castle.30 The enterprise failed and, on his return to London in April 1918, Childers found that, as a naval flyer, he had been transferred into the newly created Royal Air Force. No job was found for him until Hugh Trenchard formed his Independent Bomber Command and he was attached as a group intelligence officer to prepare navigational briefings for attacks on Berlin. The raids were forestalled by the Armistice and Childers's last assignment was to provide an intelligence assessment of the effects of bombing raids in Belgium.31

Marriage

Mary "Molly" Alden Childers

In Autumn 1903 Childers travelled to the United States as part of a reciprocal visit between the Honourable Artillery Company of London and the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts of Boston.32 At the end of the official visit he elected to remain and explore New England on a hired motor cycle. One day by chance the machine broke down outside the Beacon Hill home of Dr Hamilton Osgood, a prominent physician in the city. Childers diffidently knocked to borrow a spanner but, as a visitor with the celebrated HAC, he was invited in for dinner and introduced to Dr Osgood's daughter, Mary Alden ("Molly") Osgood. The liberal English author and the well read republican heiress found each other congenial company.33 The hospitable Dr Osgood organised the rest of Childers's stay, with much time shared with Mary, and the pair were married at Boston's Trinity Church on 5 January 1904.

Childers returned to London with his new wife and resumed his position in the House of Commons. His reputation as an influential author gave the couple access to the political establishment, which Molly relished, but at the same time she set to work to rid Childers of his already faltering imperialism.34 In her turn Molly developed a strong admiration for Britain, its institutions and, as she then saw it, its willingness to go to war in the interests of smaller nations against the great.35 Over the next seven years they lived comfortably in their rented flat in Chelsea, supported by Childers's salary—he had received promotion to the position of parliamentary Clerk of Petitions in 1903—his continuing writings and, not least, generous benefactions from Dr Osgood.36 Molly, despite a severe weakness in the legs following a childhood injury,37 took enthusiastically to sailing, first in the Seagull and later in many voyages in her father's gift, the Asgard. Throughout their marriage Childers wrote frequently to his wife and his letters show that the couple lived in great contentment during this time.385 Three sons were born: Erskine in 1904, Hugh, who died before his first birthday, in 1909, and Robert Alden in 1911.

Writing

Childers's first published work seems to have been some light detective stories he contributed to the Cambridge Review while he was editor.39 His first book was In the Ranks of the C. I. V., an account of his experiences in the Boer War, but he wrote it without any thought of publication: while serving with the Honourable Artillery Company in southern Africa he composed many long, descriptive letters about his experiences to his two sisters, Dulcibella and Constance. They, together with Elizabeth Thompson, daughter of George Smith of the publishing house Smith, Elder and a friend of the family, edited the letters into book form.4041 The print proofs were waiting for Childers to approve on his return from the war in October 1899 and Smith, Elder published the work in November of the following year.42 It was well-timed to catch the public's interest in the war, which continued until May 1902, and it sold in substantial numbers.

On his return he started the novel The Riddle of the Sands, which was published in 1903. Based on his own sailing trips along the German coast, it predicted war with Germany and called for British preparedness. Widely popular, the book has never gone out of print and in 2003, a handful of centenary editions were published.43 The Observer has listed the book as #37 on its list of "The 100 Greatest Novels of All Time".44 It has been called the first spy novel45 (a claim challenged by advocates of Rudyard Kipling's Kim, published two years earlier), and enjoyed immense popularity in the years before World War I. It was an extremely influential book: Winston Churchill later credited it as a major reason that the Admiralty decided to establish naval bases at Invergordon, Rosyth on the Firth of Forth and Scapa Flow in Orkney.25 It was also a notable influence on John Buchan.46 Childers wrote Volume V of the Times' History of the War in South Africa (1907), which drew attention to British errors in that war and praised the tactics of the Boer guerrillas. He also wrote two books on cavalry warfare based on his experiences, War and the Armé Blanche (1910) and the German Influence on British Cavalry (1911). Both books were strongly critical of the British Army.

Home Rule

Around this time Childers became increasingly attracted to Irish Nationalism and became an advocate of Home Rule. He resigned his post at the House of Commons in 1910 in order to campaign for this cause, writing "The Framework of Home Rule" in 191147 and The Form and Purpose of Home Rule in 1912.

The main opponents of Home Rule formed the Ulster Volunteers in 1912 and shipped rifles into Larne in April 1914. In the rest of Ireland the Irish Volunteers had been formed in response, and in July 1914 Childers and his wife smuggled German arms to Howth, County Dublin, in their yacht Asgard, days before the outbreak of World War I. These weapons would later arm some of the Irish Volunteers during the Easter Rising of 1916. The remainder of the consignment of guns purchased in Germany for the Irish Volunteers was landed a week later at Kilcoole, county Wicklow by Sir Thomas Myles from his own yacht, the Chotah.

With the start of war, Childers joined the Royal Navy as an Intelligence Officer and flew seaplanes for aerial reconnaissance off the HMS Engadine in the North Sea, and then later on the HMS Ben-my-Chree in the Dardanelles He was also made Honorary Secretary of the Maritime branch of the Legion of Frontiersmen in London.48 The violent suppression of the Easter Rising had angered Childers, and after the war he moved to Dublin to become fully involved in the struggle against British rule. He joined Sinn Féin, forming a close association with Éamon de Valera and Michael Collins.

In 1919 he was made Director of Publicity for the First Irish Parliament and attempted to represent the Irish Republic at the Versailles conference in Paris. In 1920 Childers published Military Rule in Ireland, a strong attack on British policy. In 1921 he was elected (unopposed) to the Second Dáil as Sinn Féin member for Wicklow and published the pamphlet Is Ireland a Danger to England?, which attacked the British prime minister, David Lloyd George. He became editor of the Irish Bulletin after the arrest of Desmond FitzGerald.

Civil War and death

Childers towards the end of his life

Childers was secretary-general of the Irish delegation that negotiated the Anglo-Irish Treaty with the British government. He stayed at the delegation headquarters in Hans Place throughout the period of the negotiations, 11 October – 6 December 1921. Childers became vehemently opposed to the final draft of the agreement, particularly the clauses that required Irish leaders to take an Oath of Allegiance to the British king. The Treaty was approved by a Dáil vote of 64–57 in January 1922 but it bitterly divided Sinn Féin and the IRA, and Ireland descended into civil war in June 1922.

Said to be the inspiration behind the irregulars' propaganda, Childers was hunted by National Army soldiers and had to travel secretly. The ambush death of Michael Collins intensified the desire of Free State authorities to exact retribution, and in September 1922 the Irish Dáil introduced the Emergency Powers legislation, establishing martial law powers and new capital offences for the carrying of firearms without licence.49 The author Frank O'Connor was involved with Childers during the later part of the Civil war and gave a colourful picture of Childers's activities. Seemingly he was ostracised from the predominantly Catholic anti-treaty forces and referred to as "That bloody Englishman" due to his foreign birth.50 As the hunt for Childers became more urgent after the death of Collins the high command of the anti-treaty forces distanced Childers on the grounds that he was too infamous to be of any practical use, despite his considerable military experience and at one stage he was put to work addressing letters in the staff office in Macroom, Cork.

In November, Childers was arrested by Free State forces at his home in Glendalough, County Wicklow, while travelling to meet De Valera. He was tried by a military court on the charge of possessing a Spanish-made "Destroyer" .32 calibre automatic pistol on his person in violation of the Emergency Powers Resolution.515253 Ironically, the pistol was alleged to be a gift from Michael Collins before the latter swore allegiance to the Free State.52 Childers was convicted by the military court and sentenced to death. While his appeal of the sentence was still pending, Childers was executed by firing squad at the Beggar's Bush Barracks in Dublin. He is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.

Before his execution, in a spirit of reconciliation, Childers obtained a promise from his then 16-year-old son, the future President Erskine Hamilton Childers, to seek out and shake the hand of every man who had signed his father's death warrant.54 Childers himself shook hands with each member of the firing squad that was about to execute him. His last words, spoken to them, were (characteristically) in the nature of a joke: "Take a step or two forward, lads. It will be easier that way."55

Winston Churchill, who had actively pressured Michael Collins and the Free State government to crush the rebellion by armed force, expressed the British view of Childers at the time: "No man has done more harm or done more genuine malice or endeavoured to bring a greater curse upon the common people of Ireland than this strange being, actuated by a deadly and malignant hatred for the land of his birth."56 In Ireland, however, many saw Childers's execution as politically-motivated revenge, an expedient method of halting the continuing flow of anti-British political texts for which Childers was widely credited.

It was the express wish of Mary Childers, upon her death in 1964, that any writings based upon the extensive and meticulous collection of papers and documents from her husband's in depth involvement with the Irish struggles of the 1920s, be locked away from anyone's eyes until 50 years after his death.57 Thus, in 1972 Erskine Hamilton Childers started the process of finding an official biographer. In 1974, Andrew Boyle (previous biographer of Brendan Bracken, Lord Reith amongst others) was given the task of exploring the vast Childers archive, and his "official" biography of Robert Erskine Childers was finally published in 1977.58

References

  • Childers, Erskine. In the Ranks of the C.I.V., London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1901. ISBN 978-1426468766.
  • Coogan, Tim Pat. The IRA: A History, Niwot, Colorado: Roberts Rinehart Publishers, 1993. ISBN 978-1879373990.
  • Costello, Peter, The Heart Grown Brutal: The Irish Revolution in Literature from Parnell to the Death of Yeats, 1891–1939, Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1977. ISBN 978-0847660070.
  • Wilkinson, Burke, The Zeal of the Convert: The Life of Erskine Childers, Sag Harbor, New York: Second Chance Press, 1985T ISBN 978-0883310861.

Notes

  1. ^ Boyle, Andrew (1977). The Riddle of Erskine Childers. London: Hutchinson. pp. 256. ISBN 0-09-128490-2. "An aura of legend still enveloped the name of Erskine Childers in Dublin because of his valorous role in running those guns to Howth" 
  2. ^ His last letter, written from the condemned cell to his wife, was signed "Erskine". (Boyle 1977: 25).
  3. ^ His publications are all in that name. (O'Hegarty, Patrick Sarsfield (1948). "Bibliographies of 1916 and the Irish Revolution, 16 : Erskine Childers". The Dublin Magazine (Dublin) 23 (2): 40–43. http://www.rhs.ac.uk/bibl/xSearch.asp?DATABASE=dcatalo&rf=000189632. )
  4. ^ Staff. "Erskine Hamilton Childers". Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Retrieved on 2008-12-23.
  5. ^ a b c d e f Ring, Jim (September 2004). "Childers, (Robert) Erskine (1870–1922)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. 
  6. ^ Boyle (1977:38)
  7. ^ Boyle (1977:49-61)
  8. ^ Boyle (1977:64)
  9. ^ Williams, Basil (1926). Erskine Childers, 1870-1922: A Sketch. London: Privately published. 
  10. ^ Boyle (1977:69;73)
  11. ^ Fowler, Carol (December 2003). "Erskine Childers' log books". Sailing Today. National Maritime Museum. Retrieved on 23 December 2008.
  12. ^ Boyle (1977:125)
  13. ^ Siggins, Lorna (3 April 1997). "Move to get an old gun-runner out of jail and into the water". Irish Times. 
  14. ^ Connolly, John (8 October 1997), "'Asgard' to be sent to museum", Irish Times: p. 3 
  15. ^ Buettner, Elizabeth (2005). Empire Families. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. p. 167. ISBN 0199287651. 
  16. ^ Boyle (1977:43; 71)
  17. ^ a b Piper, Leonard (2006). The Tragedy of Erskine Childers. London: Hambledon Continuum. pp. 39–42. ISBN 1-84725-020-3. 
  18. ^ Piper (2006:48)
  19. ^ Piper (2006:55)
  20. ^ Boyle (1977:239)
  21. ^ In later years Childers's enemies in the new Irish parliament would cite this telegram as evidence that he had always been a British agent. Boyle (1977: 196; 256; 308)
  22. ^ FitzPatrick, David (1997). Thomas Bartlett, Keith Jeffery. ed.. A Military History of Ireland. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. p. 386. ISBN 0-521-62989-6. 
  23. ^ Piper (2006:173)
  24. ^ Piper (2006:77)
  25. ^ a b Knightley, Phillip. The Second Oldest Profession: Spies and Spying in the Twentieth Century. London: Pimlico. pp. 17. ISBN 1844130916. 
  26. ^ Boyle (1977:197)
  27. ^ "Cuxhaven Raid", The Times: p. 6, 19 February 1915 
  28. ^ "Naval Honours. Awards for Patrol and Air Services.", The Times: p. 4, 23 April 1917 
  29. ^ Piper (2006:173)
  30. ^ Boyle (1977:231)
  31. ^ Boyle (1977:242–243)
  32. ^ Correspondent (4 October 1903), "The Londoners in Boston", New York Times: p. 1 
  33. ^ McCoole, Sinéad (2003). No Ordinary Women: Irish Female Activists in the Revolutionary Years 1900-1923. Madison WI: University of Wisconsin Press. p. 147. ISBN 0862788137.  Mary's older sister, Gretchen, was married to philanthropist Fiske Warren and wealthy in her own right.
  34. ^ Boyle (1977: 124–126)
  35. ^ Boyle (1977: 238)
  36. ^ Boyle (1977: 138).
  37. ^ McCoole (2003: 30)
  38. ^ Collections at Trinity College, Dublin and Trinity College, Cambridge.
  39. ^ Piper (2006:70)
  40. ^ Bell, Alan (May 2006). "Thompson, Henry Yates". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. 
  41. ^ Piper (2006:61)
  42. ^ "New and recent books", London Daily News: p. 6, 21 November 1900 
  43. ^ "The 100 greatest novels of all time: The list". Guardian.
  44. ^ Drummond, Maldwin (1992), "Introduction", in Childers, Erskine, The Riddle of the Sands (1st ed.), London: The Folio Society 
  45. ^ Polmar; Allen. Spy Book (2nd ed. ed.). Random House. ISBN 978-0375720253. http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780375720253. 
  46. ^ Clark, Ignatius (1992). Voices prophesying war, 1763–1984. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. pp. 142–3. ISBN 0192123025. 
  47. ^ Childers, Erskine (1911). The Framework of Home Rule. London: Edward Arnold. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15086/15086-h/15086-h.htm. 
  48. ^ "Frontiersmen Recruiting Poster" (JPEG). Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
  49. ^ "Cumann na nGaedhael" (in cy). General Michael COLLINS.
  50. ^ O'Connor, Frank (1960). An only son: an autobiography. 
  51. ^ Coogan, Tim Pat, The IRA: A History, Niwot, Colorado: Roberts Rinehart Publishers, 1993.
  52. ^ a b Wilkinson, Burke, The Zeal of the Convert: The Life of Erskine Childers, Sag Harbor, New York: Second Chance Press, 1985.
  53. ^ Siggins, Lorna (18 October 1995), "Pixilated Pistol puts in a timely reappearance", Irish Times: p. 1 
  54. ^ Peter Stanford (1976-11-08), "On Soundings", Time Magazine, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,918512-2,00.html, retrieved on 8 August 2008 
  55. ^ Boyle (1977:25)
  56. ^ Boyle (1977:22) From a speech given by Winston Churchill, 11 November 1922 in Dundee.
  57. ^ Boyle (1977:8–10)
  58. ^ "Papers of Robert Erskine Childers (1870–1922), author and politician". Janus.

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