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CHAPTER SEVEN: The Great War

 John Griffiths, a native of Chester, graduated B. Sc. from the University of Wales, and came to teach mathematics and science in Larne Grammar School in 1908. He soon became unusually popular, for an assistant teacher. This is illustrated by an incident in 1911. In that year he applied for the position of part-time teacher of science, in the evenings, in Larne Technical School — a position he had already held — but the committee appointed Mr. R.V. Manning ARC Sc 1 of R.B.A.I. (Mr. Manning was to have a long and distinguished career at Inst., and was Vice Principal when he retired in 1951). Letters appeared in the Larne Times: “. . . the recent appointment to the Technical School has raised the indignation of the town . . . was there a motive or was it simply a stupid blunder ...?: “The Technical Committee in advertising for teachers in future ought to add ‘No Grammar School teachers need apply’ . . . Had religion anything to do with it, or did the late (sic) teacher not touch his hat to some member of the Committee?” The demands to “rescind the pernicious decision’ went unheeded, but Mr. Griffith’s reputation was undimmed. The Rev. David Hanson said that he was “phenomenal as a teacher, a sportsman, and a right good fellow.” James MacQuillan spoke highly of him, and said that he had been “the life and soul of the sports at the Grammar School since he came to Larne.” He joked that his assistant “although an Englishman, possesses the enthusiasm of an Irishman.”

In December 1914 Mr. Griffiths, a former Territorial, applied for admission to the 12th Battalion Royal Irish Rifles, Ulster Division, was commissioned, became a first instructor in musketry, and was speedily promoted to the rank of captain. He returned to Larne with about a hundred and seventy men of the 12th Battalion for a long weekend’s leave in June 1915 prior to their removal to England, and, in the Victoria Hall, called for three cheers for the ladies of Larne who had put on an entertainment for them there. He came to Larne again in June 1916, on leave, slightly wounded, but looking very fit. He was then thirty five years old.

William McCluggage, of Ballyboley, was twelve years younger, and he knew John Griffiths well. They had been in the same classroom together, as pupil and teacher, and when McCluggage won a science scholarship to Queen’s in 1911 Griffiths had been greatly gratified. They had played rugby together, at first as learner and coach and in due course the learner became as good as his coach. “McCluggage dropped a magnificent goal for Larne from near the halfway line” in a match with Methody (Larne Times, October 22nd, 1910); he played for Queen’s and for the successful Larne Town XV; and he became a junior inter-pro. He was an officer in the Ulster Volunteer Force, got his B.Sc. in engineering in 1914, joined the Twelfth Battalion of the Royal Irish Rifles, was commissioned, and had John Griffiths as his brother officer.

On July 1st 1916 nine thousand men from the Ulster Division went into general action for the first time, at Thiepval on the Somme. Two days later fewer than two thousand five hundred answered the roll call. Among those who did not answer were Captain Griffiths, killed, and Lt. McCluggage, missing.

The living grieved for the dead and missing. Of Capt. Griffiths, the Larne Times wrote that “his many excellent qualities gained for him the esteem of all who came in contact with him in school or private life … as ‘coach’ of the Grammar School and captain of the Larne Club he did fine work, his absolutely clean sportsmanship and high moral principles making for the good of everything in which he took part.” James MacQuillan said “I almost regarded him as one of the family.” Seven years later, a Larne lady, who did not wish her name to be mentioned, donated a valuable silver cup, the Griffiths Memorial Cup for Athletics, in his memory.

On the Twelfth Day in 1916, there were no festivities and no processions in Larne, but the Orangemen assembled in First Larne to hear John Lyle Donaghy. He had been compelled, he said, to put aside what he had originally prepared. He spoke of the heavy casualties, and went on “As to our own Lt. McCluggage, what am I to say? The official intimation is that he is missing and believed killed. Of course it is possible that he has been taken prisoner, but I fear we cannot build much upon this hope. As I now speak I can see his kindly handsome face and big manly form in his father’s pew the last Sabbath he worshipped with us. He was a good son, an excellent soldier, and a splendid officer. His men revered him … .

The names of fifteen teachers and old boys who fell in the Great War are inscribed on a plaque in the School Assembly Hall. They are:
P. Bodelle A. A. Gault  T. Moore  H. W. Carson  J. Griffiths  A. McClellan  J.A. Carson  C. Kidd      W. McCluggage  H. H. Dunwoody H. T. F. Magill  R. J. Pullin  J. Foster  A. S. Mitchell  J. Walker

A fair amount of information, necessarily fragmentary and incomplete, about the old boys of the Grammar School in wartime can be found in the columns of the Larne Times. It records, for example, that three Barton brothers, sons of Mr. George Barton, J.P., joined the forces. Charles, who had gained an entrance scholarship to Queen’s in 1911, became a Captain in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, served in the Near East, and graduated M.B. from Queen’s with first class honours after the war. George was a driver in the Canadian Army Service Corps, and was awarded the Military Order of St. George, for gallantry in action, by Czar Nicholas II; Samuel was commissioned in the 14th Battalion Cheshire Regiment, and was wounded in July 1916.

Even more remarkable was the record of the Carson brothers. Mr. Thomas Carson, a successful Pound Street grocer who looked like Abraham Lincoln, had six sons, all of whom attended the Grammar School. The eldest. J. McFaul Carson, became a magistrate in Capetown. The youngest, Austin, eventually took over his father’s business. The other four served in the Great War, all in a medical capacity. Herbert William, (Bertie), Frederick, and Holden were doctors, all Queen’s graduates, and the youngest of the four, James, joined up a week after graduating in dentistry in London 1915. James was a well known athlete and Rugby footballer, and before enlisting played for Cardiff and Blackheath, and also got his interprovincial cap for Ulster.

Lt. Colonel Bertie got the D.S.O., Capt. Fred the MC. and two mentions in despatches, and Capt. Holden the D.S.O. and also two ‘mentions’. But the family suffered cruelly in 1918, for within a few months Jim was killed in Egypt; Bertie, previously wounded, died of pneumonia while serving in Palestine with General Allenby; and their sister May, who had “more than a local reputation on the tennis courts and hockey field” died of the virulent influenza which raged in the latter part of the year. In March 1919 Mr. MacQuillan reported to the Board of Governors that Mr. Thomas Carson wished to donate two scholarships to the school in memory of his dead sons. They were to be the Bertie Carson Memorial Scholarship of £15 yearly, for the girl who got the highest position in the Senior Grade Examination, and the Jim Carson Memorial Scholarship of £10 annually for the girl who did best in the Middle grade Examination. The Board gratefully accepted Mr. Carson’s offer.

More than sixty teachers and old boys served in the Forces in the war. In June 1915 James MacQuillan wrote to the Larne Times. “Sir, I enclose a list of Larne Grammar School boys who are at present serving with the colours. We are preparing a roll of honour . . .There are many of your readers who know much more about the old boys of the school than I can claim to know, and if they kindly inform me of any names omitted I shall be very grateful …” . There followed a list of four staff and forty pupils. “Former Members of School Staff — H.V. McNeill, B.A.; J. Griffiths, B.Sc.; E. Steeksma; A. J. McClellan.

Old Boys — Thomas Morgan; Hugh G. Wilson; Herbert W. Carson; Holden Carson; Charles E. H. Browne; James Beggs; Henry Cooke Lowry; Roland Morgan; Robert S. Taggart; Frederick V. Carson; Joseph A. Lawther Wilson; George Barton; Ivan W. Magill; Robert S. Hanson; Andrew Ferris; Alfred Charles Taggart; Malcolm D. McNeill; James L. Muir; John F. Hunter; Alfred E. Goodbody; Charles Barton: William McCluggage; Frederick B. McCarter; William H. R. McCarter; James Ferris; Huston M. Lancashire; Allan J. McClellan; James McRoberts; John Dinsmore Torrens; Francis Johnston; Noel Pierce Clark; Eustace C. Esdale; Thomas L. Taggart; Thomas R. Lees; William Hodge; Samuel G. McNincn; Frederick J. Hunter; Trevor Phenix; Gerald Beere; Chester Bishop Kydd.

This list was indeed incomplete, and additional names were mentioned in the Larne Times as the war continued. They included Edward Armstrong; Samuel Barton; J. H. Bennett; Louis Douglas Berry; Pierre Bodelle; James Carson; Samuel John Watt Donald; Horace Edgar Dummer; Henderson Dunwoody; J. Foster; Arthur A. Gault; J. McC. Greenlees; John Omelvena Henderson; George Jackson; J L. N. Johnston; George Lawson; Hubert Lawson; Norman Lennon; Robert Mackell; H.T.F. Magill; A. S. Mitchell; T. Moore; James McFetridge; John Lyle McIntyre; John McKeown; Robert Ritchie McMullan; R. J. Pullin; John Ross; J. Walker. There may, of course, be more.

A Roll of Honour, consisting of a list of names of former masters and pupils of the school, was compiled. This ‘very handsome and artistic piece of illumination’ was presented to the school by Mr. C. Mackean, J.P., one of the oldest of the old boys, and was displayed in October 1917 in Messrs Magill and Nelson’s window in Cross Street. Unfortunately, the Roll of Honour has disappeared. The Grammar School would welcome any information on what happened to it after it was removed from the shop window.

A high proportion of Grammarians were officers, and as early as December 1915 Mr. MacQuillan claimed, at the Prize Distribution, that at least thirty seven commissions were then held by former masters or boys. Of the teachers who enlisted, three, Griffiths, McClellan and Dunwoody were killed in July 1916. Capt. Griffiths was mentioned, posthumously, in despatches for “gallant and distinguished service in the field.” Others who won special honours, as well as George Barton and the Carson brothers, included Captain George Jackson, Captain Robert Simpson Hanson and Lieutenant James Lennox Muir, who were each awarded the Military Cross, and Private John Ross who got the Military Medal. Captain Jackson, R.A.M.C. served in East Africa and on the Western Front, and in the army of occupation in Germany after the war. A bout of typhoid undermined his fine physique, and he died, untimely, at the age of forty six in 1933, in Leicester, where he had made his home. Captain Hanson, transport officer in the 12th Battalion R.I.R “ never failed in getting the rations and small arms ammunition up to the battalions in spite of heavy artillery and machine gun fire. On one occasion, when a horse in the small arms ammunition limber had been hit by a shell and its leg broken, he himself dismounted under heavy shell fire, ordering the remainder of the convoy to gallop on, and having destroyed the wounded horse, he hooked up his own horse into the limber and brought the ammunition to the line.” His father, the Rev. David Hanson, of Gardenmore, also served for a time, as chaplain, in France and reached the rank of Lt. Colonel. The M.C. won by Second Lt. Muir, the son of the vet, at Larne Harbour who had extolled the “Imperialistic spirit’ at the 1906 Prize Distribution, was awarded in 1916 “for conspicuous gallantry when leading a raid on the enemy’s trenches. At the moment of assault the enemy opened rapid fire, but Second Lt. Muir killed two of the gunners and then threw his bombs”. Five years later, in 1921, Lt. Muir was awarded a bar to his M.C. for gallantry in the field in Mesopotamia.

John Ross won his Military Medal in France. He had joined the Motor Transport Service in 1916, and when he left Larne in October of that year the employees of the Sun Laundry gave “young Mr. John” a big send-off and a presentation. In the army, he became very friendly with Private Richard Rourke, of Ringawoody, Co. Down. But Richard’s mother received a letter, dated 13th July, 1917, from a Lieutenant J. Webster. “My dear Mrs. Rourke, I am deeply grieved to be the bearer of very sad news. Your son was killed whilst on duty last night by a German shell . . . He lived about five minutes after he was hit; his greatest friend Ross carrying him to a place of safety under heavy shell fire, and was with him to the last. Ross will no doubt write to you later, as he is at present lying in hospital suffering from the effects of gas . . .“ There is an interesting and happy sequel. John Ross recovered from the effects of the poison gas, and visited Ringawoody. There he met, wooed, and won Richard Rourke’s sister Eileen, and John and Eileen Ross spent the next sixty years or so as two of Larne’s most popular and respected citizens.

Of the old boys who served in the forces, a relatively high proportion were doctors — nine at least; the three Carson brothers; George Jackson; J. A. Lawther Wilson and Samuel J.W. Donald who both finished the war with the rank of Major; R. S. Taggart, who was permanently attached to the 12th Battalion RIR. as medical officer in charge; Hugh G. Wilson of Ard Lodge, Larne Harbour; and Ivan Magill of Barnhill. The name of Hugh G. Wilson was already well known before the war. He is claimed as an old boy by James MacQuillan in the list in the Larne Times in June 1915: if he was, and if there was only one Hugh G. Wilson, then the Grammar School’s first international Rugby player arrived a lot sooner than is generally realised, for Hugh G. Wilson of Ard Lodge played some twenty times for Ireland in the years after 1905. The last of the doctors mentioned, Capt. Ivan Magill, still had a long illustrious career to come. His younger brother Herbert, also a Grammarian, worked briefly in the Ulster Bank, and then emigrated to Canada, where he was a member of the North West Mounted Police. When war came he served with Lord Strathcona’s Light Horse, and died of wounds in 1918. He was, said the Larne Times, a “stalwart manly youth.”

Other old boys in far-off parts of the Empire answered the mother country’s call for help. Major J. Hyde Bennett, son of a former Customs Officer in Larne, served with the 201st Canadian Battalion and was gassed in France in 1916; Private A. J. Pullin of the New Zealand Rifle Brigade, brother of Mr. T. H. Pullin principal of Larne No.1 National School, died in action in 1918; Louie Berry, after a decade in Australia, returned to Larne for a while in 1917, on leave from the Australian artillery. Another Australian old boy, Archie Mckinstry, who had earlier been in charge of the electrification of the Belfast city tramways and who was general manager in Australia of the British Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company, gave a somewhat different kind of service, as a member of the Australian Directorate of Munitions.

More than six million men served in the British Armed Forces in the Great War, and nearly one million of these — three quarters of a million from the United Kingdom — lost their lives. Set beside these numbers, the contribution by the old boys of Larne Grammar School was tiny. Set beside the total population of the school, which had scarcely reached an enrolment of sixty at its greatest, the old boys’ payment in pain and blood was enormous. “It is lovely and honourable to die for one’s country”, the young men were told, and in 1919 Lyle Donaghy, sixteen years of age, poet, and still a pupil at the Grammar School, wrote: 

“We cannot add one lustrous spark

To deeds and days that now are past,

The wooden crosses testify

How Ulster’s sons could live and die”, 

Honourable, indeed, and the chronicler can only be humble in the presence of such courage and self sacrifice. But muddy trenches, shellfire, bullets, barbed wire and poison gas made life, and death, anything but lovely.

While the war was going on, the school went quietly about its business. Rugby and cricket continued, though to some extent their place was taken over by drilling and shooting. Patriotism and sport combined sometimes, as in the rugby match between the school and the 12th Battalion R.I.R. in November 1914, which raised £10. 10. 0. for the war effort.