The Grand Jury.

Going through the names of the individuals who sat on the Grand Jury for the County of Londonderry from the year 1820, (that was the first year that there were two Assizes in each year, Spring and Summer), I noticed that the word, "Colt," was written against the names of certain gentlemen. On purusing this matter further it seems that this term was used to identify persons who were appearing on the Jury for the first time. At the Spring Assizes of 1874 where the Judges were Mr Baron Fitzgerald and Chief Justice Whiteside no fewer than five of the twenty three jurors were, "Colts," namely Professor Richard Smyth MP, Daniel Taylor Esq MP, and Messrs. William McCarter, John Haslett and James Clark.

Grand Juries were done away with by virtue of the Grand Jury (Abolition) Act (Northern Ireland) 1969. Their administrative powers in connection with such things as roads, bridges and asylums had been previously taken away by the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898. This same Act established the cities of Belfast and Londonderry as separate County Boroughs.

The foremen of the Grand Jury for County Londonderry from 1820 until the end of the nineteenth century and the dates of their appointment were as follows:-

Alexander Robert Stewart MP 1820

Henry Barre Beresford 1821

Rt. Hon. Sir George Fitzgerald Hill 1821

Andrew Knox 1822

Sir James Bruce 1823

Geo. Robert Dawson MP

Marcus McCausland 1827

Sir Robert Bateson MP 1834

Connolly Gage 1842

Henry Richardson 1845

Thomas Bateson 1846

Sir H Harvey Bruce 1849

Thomas Scott 1851

Theobald James MP 1852

James Johnston Clark MP 1858

Robert Peel Dawson MP 1860

Acheson Lyle 1862

Sir Frederick Wm. Heygate 1867

John B Beresford 1869

R. A. Ogilby DL 1889

The Right Hon. Sir George Fitzgerald Hill, Bt. PC.

Born on 1st June 1763 the eldest son of Sir Hugh Hill and his second wife Hannah, (dau of John McClintock of Dunmore, Co Donegal), George Fitzgerald Hill was a pupil of the Diocesan School, later to become known as Foyle College. He entered Trinity College Dublin on 22nd June 1780 and graduated with a BA in 1783. During his time at Trinity he befriended Theobald Tone, an individual more usually known by his middle name of Wolfe. The erstwhile friends were to meet again briefly on 8th November 1898. Hill's militia regiment was sent to Buncrana to escort the prisoners from the French vessel, "La Hoche," to Londonderry's gaol.

 

He succeeded to the Baronetcy in 1779 upon the death of his father. On 10th September 1788 he married Jane Beresford daughter of Rt Hon John de la Poer Beresford and Anne Constantia de Ligondes. It seems probable that it was in or about that time that Sir George bought the Brook Hall Estate on the outskirts of Londonderry.

 

Sir George held various public appointments and offices. He was MP for Coleraine, (1791-95) and was appointed Recorder of Londonderry in 1791. He was MP for Londonderry City (1795-1801 and 1802-1830) and MP for County Londonderry (1801-02). From 1796 he was Captain-Commandant of the Londonderry Yeoman Legion and from 1797 until 1823 he was an officer in the County Londonderry Militia, ultimately becoming its Colonel for a brief period.

 

In 1798 he was appointed Clerk of the Irish Parliament and when this was abolished he received an annual pension of £2265 in compensation for his loss of office. Between 1817 and 1830 he was Vice Treasurer for Ireland having previously held a Lordship of the Irish Treasury (1807-17).

 

By 1830 it seems that Sir George was being pursued by creditors and using family influence he was appointed Governor of St Vincent in November of that year. On 14th April 1833 he succeeded Sir Lewis Grant as Governor of the island of Trinidad where he was to die on 8th March 1839. His wife had predeceased him having died on 2nd November 1836.

 

Sources: PRONI; Londonderry Sentinel 4/7/1940; "Romantic Inishowen",H P Swann; The Londonderry Standard 15/7/1839

Sir John Ross, PC. QC.

Born on 11th December 1853 John Ross was the eldest son of Rev. Robert Ross and his wife Margaret Christie. Rev. Ross had been installed as minister of Fourth Londonderry Presbyterian Church, (Carlisle Road) on 29th March 1850 and was to remain in this position until his death on 1st July 1894.

 

The young Ross's elementary education included a period at the Model School, Londonderry, (it had opened in 1862), before proceeding to Foyle College where his contempories included Percy French. He subsequently entered Trinity College Dublin where he graduated with a BA in 1877 and LLB in 1879. A member of Grays Inn, (1878), he was called to the Irish Bar in 1879 and practiced on the North West Circuit. He took silk in 1891 and was elected a Bencher in 1893.

 

Like many of the legal profession he entered politics and served as the Conservative Member of Parliament for the City of Londonderry from 1892 until 1895 when he was defeated. The following year at the age of forty three he was to become the youngest judge in the United Kingdom when he was elevated to the Bench as the Land Judge in the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice in Ireland. He holds the honour of being the first Presbyterian Irish High Court Judge. In 1902 he was sworn into the Irish Privy Council and in 1902 he was created a Baronet. In 1921 he reached the apogee of his legal career when he was appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland. He was to be the last individual to hold this appointment, it being abolished in December 1922 at which time Sir John retired to London, but ultimately returned to Northern Ireland to live at Dunmoyle Lodge outside Sixmilecross where he was to die on 17th August 1935. He was succeeded to the baronetcy by his only son Sir Ronald Deane Ross KC, MC , MP who for a time was Recorder of Sunderland.

 

Sir John's wife whom he married in 1882 was Katherine Mary Jeffcock Mann, the only daughter of Lieut. Col. Deane Mann of Dunmoyle. The match was not approved of by the Manns. The young Ross had two great failings so far as the Manns were concerned, -that he was not from a landed family and his Presbyterianism. Whilst the couple did not exactly elope, Miss Mann is reputed to have walked from her father's seat to Sixmilecross where she took an early morning train to Dublin and then married Ross at St. Michan's Church, (Parish Church to the Law Courts of Ireland), with her parents being absent. The honeymoon was apparently spent riding a tandem from Dublin to Donegal.

 

Despite the initial antipathy if not hostility between the young couple and the Manns it is clear that relationships must have improved as Dunmoyle would ultimately belong to the Ross's. The house and its large conservatory were demolished in the mid 1960's.

 

A brother of Sir John Ross, Stuart C. Ross was for many years a solicitor in Londonderry. His firm was ultimately taken over by a nephew (?) Frederick Bond who continued trading under the style of "Stuart C Ross & Co," until his death, when the business was subsumed into a larger practice and the name disappeared.

 

Miliband Bribes Voters with £7.45 per hour?

Man of the people Ed Miliband has come up with a new rouse to woo potential voters to vote himself and his acolytes into power at the next general election. He has decided that it would be a good wheeze to replace the concept of the,"minimum wage," with that of, "the living wage." At present the national minimum wage for someone over 21 years of age is £6.19 per hour. The present living wage for an individual is apparently calculated at £7.45 per hour outside London and £8.55 per hour in the capital.

Undoubtedly this will be seen as a dashed good idea by many thousands of people, particularly school leavers or those about to leave school shortly. It is noteworthy that he does not appear to consider that age should have any impact on the , "living wage," as it does with the, "minimum wage rate." It seems that he is proposing a flat rate or if not then he hasn't seen fit to enlarge on his proposals at this stage. Maybe however the detail will come out after the event if this rather unprepossessing (as many would describe him), individual should ever gain office.

I wonder how Mr Miliband thinks that small employers will be able to afford a pay increase of up to twenty percent for some employees and then of course deal with the demands of other employees to maintain pay differentials? I feel sure that the Trade Unions would not want pay differentials eroded. Of course it would be nice if we could all vote ourselves a pay rise courtesy of Mr Miliband, but the country and employers have to be able to afford it and we as individuals have to merit it. 

Is a concept which includes a weekly allowance for alcohol and for social and cultural activities truly a "living wage,"which everyone should have of right?

Lest We Forget

Aristocrats Go to War by Jerry Murland   - Pen & Sword Books Ltd

For today's school children the First World War, or the Great War as I prefer to call it, is very definitely the stuff of history books. But for people of my generation it is the war of our grandfathers and granduncles and therefore not quite history, but rather something talked about in hesitant, staccato bursts by those members of the family who had survived its gore.

Whilst the system of  purchasing  commissions in the army had disappeared in 1871 the officer corp of the 1914 British Expeditionary Force was still an educationally and socially exclusive club with a high representation from the aristocracy and landed gentry. Jerry Murland states in the introduction to his book that its focus will be the lives of the eighteen men who are commemorated in a small church cemetery at Zillebeke. This cemetery is often referred to as the, "Aristocrats Cemetery," in guide books.

Although his name does not appear in the Zillebeke cemetery register Murland states that it is highly likely that  the body of Captain  the Hon Arthur Edward Bruce O'Neill is buried there. He was the Unionist MP for Mid-Antrim and was the first  MP to be killed in the first world war. One of his children was Terence O'Neill who would become Prime Minister of Northern Ireland in the old Stormont in 1963.

Having read the introduction I was hopeful that this would be a book that would give me an insight into the lives and deaths of the soldiers who are commemorated in this small cemetery. Men such as Lieut. William Reginald Wyndham; Lieut. Carleton Wyndham Tufnell and Major Bernard Charles Gordon Lennox.We are given some personal details about these men, but we are also given many pages of what I found to be rather boring details of troop movements. If Jerry Murland had concentrated on the lives of, "the eighteen," and foregone his rather dry and ponderous descriptions of military engagements then I for one would have found this a much more enjoyable read.

Londonderry's Black Man

As late as the nineteen seventies Londonderry mothers could be heard admonishing their recalcitrant children with threats that , "the Black Man," would come and get them if they did not behave . This was not some politically incorrect term gleaned from listening to the lofty Don Estelle but rather was a reference to the statue of Sir Robert A. Ferguson which has stood at the entrance to the city's Brook Park for over eighty years. Even on a bright summer's day there is something rather intimidating about this statue. Sir Robert glowering down from his pedestal at those entering the Park and scuttling past him. Maybe it was the fear that he instilled in the youth of the City that saved him from elevation and destruction from a few pounds of home made explosive during the, "Troubles." 

This statue was not always in Brook Park. It was originally erected in the Diamond at the top of Shipquay Street. It was removed from there and re-erected in its present location in the late twenties to facilitate the erection of the War Memorial.

Statue of Sir Robert Ferguson, Brook Park

Who was this baronet? Born on the 26th December 1796 he was the eldest son of Sir Andrew Ferguson and his wife Elizabeth (daughter of Robert Alexander of Boom Hall.). It is suggested that the baronetcy was created as compensation for Andrew Ferguson when he lost his seat with the Act of Union. Prior to the Act  the Borough of Londonderry returned two members to the Irish House of Commons but only one was permitted to join the House of Commons of Great Britain and Ireland on 1st January 1801. The continuing member was Henry Alexander. Andrew Ferguson resigned and accordingly there was not the necessity of drawing lots. That was the selection process for fifteen boroughs.

Robert succeeded to the baronetcy on 17th July 1808 consequent upon his father's death in a carriage accident at a bridge near Moville.

At the general election held on 17th August 1830 Sir Robert was returned for the borough of Londonderry. There were at that time apparently no more than 450 voters. There were 258 votes in his favour and 87 for his closest opponent John R J Hart . His election was ultimately declared to be void. It appears that he was technically still the returning officer at the time of the vote and therefore ineligible to stand. A bye-election was then held and he again defeated Hart, this time by 202 votes to 62. Sir Robert continued to represent the City until his death on the 13th March 1860 when the baronetcy became extinct. Both Sir Robert and his father are buried in St Augustine's graveyard, Londonderry.

Sir Robert's seat was at The Farm, Culmore Road Londonderry. That property eventually came into the hands of the McFarland family and was ultimately developed for housing. My recollection is that building works started in the late 1960's or early 1970's. Prior to that certain of the lands were used by Aberfoyle Nurseries for growing cut flowers.
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