Sheila Clarke

ASHFORD – Sheila Clarke

‘A sense of duty’: Margaret Somerville, the Great War and the War of Independence

Margaret Hall Clinch Somerville was born in Oxfordshire, the daughter of a Witney brewery and banking family. Her husband, Bellingham Arthur Somerville, was an RIC District Inspector who had served in Armagh, Down and Cork. The couple had seven surviving children. After transferring to Wicklow Town, Bellingham Arthur served there for three years prior to his early retirement, for health reasons, in 1891. In 1893, it was Margaret’s wealth which enabled the couple to purchase for £1,800 the then dilapidated Clermont House, situated on 70 acres, and to fund the renovations and extension. Prior to Clermont, the family lived in rented houses at Seaview and Friars Hill in Wicklow Town and at Ballyhenry House, Ashford. Bellingham Arthur was a keen amateur photographer, a hobby which his children continued. He began the first of his collections of photographs at Clermont during the building renovations in 1894. The negatives were printed onto glass plate in the darkroom situated in a wing of the house.

Margaret Somerville. Photo: Courtesy of Bill Somerville

The Great War

The Somerville children were taught at home by tutors and governesses and their social activities consisted of games of hockey and tennis with children of other families in the area such as the Croftons, the Tighes and the Truells. William (otherwise known as Bunt), James (Jim), Gualter (otherwise known as Pat) and Regi decided to make careers for themselves in the British Army, following the tradition of many landed or Church of Ireland families.

William Somerville Photo: Courtesy of Bill Somerville

James Somerville Photo: Courtesy of Bill Somerville

Regi Somerville Photo: Courtesy of Bill Somerville William, Lt. Col, was in the King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regiment, and he served in France. In 1919, he commanded the 8th Battalion Machine Gun Corps, as part of the international force assigned to protect Allied interests in northern Russia during the Bolshevik revolution. He was awarded the DSO + Bar.

James, Lt. Col, was in the Royal Artillery, serving in Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq), Egypt and Palestine. He was awarded a DSO.

Regi was born in Clermont in 1897, three years after the family had taken up residence. In 1916, when Regi was 18 years of age, he followed his brothers into the army, feeling a ‘sense of duty’. He joined the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and served in France at Vimy Ridge, in Belgium at Passchendaele and with the Machine Gun Corps in Italy.

Pat, Captain, was born in Ballyhenry House, Ashford, in 1894, where the family resided while Clermont was being restored. He served in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment with the British Expeditionary Force and was captured following the Battle of Mons, at Zonnebeke, near Ypres, in October 1914. Pat made numerous failed attempts to escape from his POW camp in Krefeld, situated northwest of Düsseldorf, Germany. He succeeded in his attempt to escape from Strohen POW camp in 1917. He safely crossed into Holland, having walked more than 100 miles over three days and nights and having forded several rivers, before crossing safely to the War Office in London. For his exploits, he was awarded the Military Cross.

The following is an extract taken from his debriefing report to the War Office:

On 21st October 1914, during the Battle of Mons, near Ypres, our trench was heavily bombarded by German troops and 16 of us were captured

Having been disarmed, we were then ordered to run towards the German trenches some distance away and, as we did so, the German soldiers opened fire on us, killing three of our men before we could reach the trenches The remainder of us were then transported by cattle trucks and taken by rail,

arriving at Liege station three days later and thence to Crefeld [sic: Krefeld] POW camp in Belgium

At Crefeld the Commandant of the prison was very popular with the prisoners and we found him to be pleasant and polite However, the conditions later became harsh, the rules and discipline were severe and many cruelties by individual Germans were experienced by us Once, I was permitted to go to the town where the dentist undertook to supply three crowned teeth. Having sawed off three decayed teeth in my upper jaw and before the new crowns could be fitted, new regulations were issued, and we were forbidden to go into town. I suffered a great deal of pain and inconvenience as a result Another time, after maps and a compass were found in my possession the court martial sentenced me to 14 days in solitary confinement in a dark cell measuring 10x6 with just one spot on the floor where it was possible to read. In March 1917 after a failed attempt to escape, the court martial sentenced me to five months solitary confinement. In May 1917, we were transferred from Crefeld to Strohen, where the conditions were very poor We were often dreadfully hungry, the food was quite inedible, the smell from the pits was abominable, the dust and flies made life unbearable and diarrhoea was prevalent all the time The rules and discipline seemed to have been drawn up to irritate and drive the men almost to mutiny

Pat Somerville, pictured on the right, managed to smuggle his camera in his breeches on the long journey to Krefeld POW camp. Pat with a Russian officer. Photo: Courtesy of Bill Somerville

Three months later, we were transferred to the Wesel camp north of Cologne where the food was good, we had acorn coffee for breakfast, fish, rissoles or boiled beef for dinner The prisoners

were a mix of British, French and Belgians and parcels from home were delivered regularly

In August 1917 we were returned to Strohen where conditions were harsh, food parcels were damaged unless the food came in tins After two months I escaped in company of Lieutenant Wingfield and two other officers but we were recaptured three days later. Sentenced to 14 days solitary, I was placed in a 6x7 bitterly cold cell with one hour a day exercise

On the evening of 6th November 1917, I finally escaped Strohen POW camp, crossing into Holland three days later after a walk of over 100 miles and fording a number of rivers

Then, I made my way to the War Office in London.

The War of Independence

At the start of the Great War, Margaret Somerville had provided help in one form or another to a very depressed Rathnew village. It is said that she paid the wages of every man from the village who had recently enlisted in the army until such time as their first payment came through from the War Office. When the war ended, she and her youngest daughter, Edeline, together with Aileen Crofton who then lived at her family home in Marlton House, Wicklow Town, assisted with the written applications to the War Office for the pensions of the returned local ex-soldiers in 1919.

Although her husband had died at home in Clermont in 1916, when his sons were at war, Margaret Somerville had reason to grateful when the armistice was signed

on 11 November 1918. Her four sons had survived. Almost every other family in Rathnew had suffered great losses. Early in 1919, Margaret was anxiously awaiting their return. The deadly Spanish flu was raging at that time throughout the continent, and her sons were among the many thousands of exsoldiers making their way home, sometimes after a long wait for a place on a homeward bound ship.

However, she now had a new cause of concern for her sons’ safety. The War of Independence had begun in January 1919 and the local republican Volunteers were busy carrying out the national plan of civil disobedience and disruption. Her family had been targeted before. Her youngest son, Regi, had been ambushed whilst driving his motor bike at the top of Ballinabarney hill in 1915, before he had left for training camp in England, in the mistaken belief that he was Pat, his older officer brother. So, when the Somerville family car along with its chauffeur was hijacked by the local brigade of the IRA, Mrs Somerville was livid.

The Somervilles’ chauffeur was Isaac Langrel. He had been the coachman at Clermont before the purchase of the family car. He and his wife

This photograph was taken on the Avenue in Clermont by one of the family in 1919. Mrs Somerville had given a party for the children of Rathnew in celebration of the safe return home of her four sons. Most, if not all, of the children pictured had suffered the death of a father, brother, uncle, grandfather, cousin. Unfortunately, the names of the children were not noted at the time. Photo: Courtesy of Bill Somerville

Chauffeur and car outside Clermont House, 1920. Photo: Courtesy of Bill Somerville

Margaret had two sons, Isaac and Harry. Both had served on the front and they too were making their way home. Isaac was for a time reported as ‘missing in action’ until he had been discovered in a POW camp in 1915.

After the car was returned the next day, Mrs Somerville instructed her chauffeur to summon the local Volunteers and to bring them immediately to Clermont. Remarkably, Langrel succeeded in getting them to appear. Perhaps it was curiosity on their part that led them to agree. Mrs Somerville was known to be quite a formidable woman.

On arrival, the Volunteers were lined up in the drawing room. Mrs Somerville sternly declared. ‘I am English, the Union flag flies on the roof of this house and I have four sons who have been at the front and are trying to make their way home.’ Through the force of her personality, and because the local Volunteers were keenly aware that many men and women from Rathnew village were employed both inside and outside of Clermont, Mrs Somerville was able to secure an undertaking that her four sons would not be targeted on arrival home, even though they were officers in the British Army.

Clermont House, July 1908. Photo: Courtesy of Bill Somerville