The grim fate of the Dublin Fusiliers who landed into the violent madness of Suvla Bay on the Gallpolli peninsula in 1915, before attempting to storm the Kiritch Tepe Sirt ridge and Chocolate Hill. Amongst them were the Dublin Pals, the cream of society, including numerous rugby players, a Trinity College professor and Fred Ball, one of principal botanists at the Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin. Some 70% of them were either killed or wounded within three weeks of their arrival.

 

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See here for more stories of Gallipoli extracted from Turtle’s best-selling book,
‘The Glorious Madness – Tales of the Irish in the First World War.’

 

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THE BIRTH OF ‘D’ COMPANY

 

Kiretch Tepe, Gallipoli, 16 August 1915. It was madness, of course, to charge up the slope like that with bayonets, knowing that the enemy were waiting up there with artillery and machine guns. But madness and war so often go hand in hand. And charging the Turkish lines had to be a better bet than staying put in that hell-hole where the Dublin Pals, increasingly bereft of ammunition, had so few options left that they were trying to catch the incoming hand grenades and hurl them back before they exploded. Cricket, this was not.

Almost exactly one year earlier, many of those who charged at Kiretch Tepe that day had assembled on the rugby pitch at Lansdowne Road, Dublin, to participate in a two-hour long military drill. Just days after the declaration of war on Germany on 4 August 1914, the Irish Rugby Football Union had invited the sportsmen of Ireland to form a Volunteer Corps ‘to defend their country, if the necessity should arise.’ [1]

Over one hundred amateur rugby players showed up for that first drill on 24 August, marching under the austere gaze of the Kilkenny-born Sergeant-Major Michael Stacey of the Dublin University Officers Training Corps. [2] It was a remarkable assemblage of barristers, doctors, solicitors, clerks, engineers, stockbrokers, bankers, civil servants and other professionals, representing the cream of Dublin society.

The men returned to Lansdowne Road the following evening, in greater number, and did it all again. And the next night and the next so that by the time General Sir Bryan Mahon, commander of the new 10th (Irish) Division, called in for an inspection on 31 August, there were already 250 men in the corps. The General was impressed by the speed at which they learned. As one commentator put it, ‘they executed their movements with precision notable for men who had been only a week under training.’ [3]

In early September, the IRFU’s Volunteer Corps gathered in Lansdowne Road for an address by Frank ‘Chicken’ Browning, a former Irish international player and President of the Irish Rugby Football Union. [4] Standing alongside him was Geoffrey Downing, a former captain of the Monkstown 1st XV, who was to command the newly formed 7th (Service) Battalion in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers.

Lieutenant Colonel Downing informed the players that the 7th was to be a ‘Pals’ Battalion so that, as The Irish Times put it, ‘friends who wish to serve together may enlist by Sections, Platoons, or Companies, and so far as possible, they will be kept together’. [5]

Furthermore, ‘D’ Company within the 7th Battalion was to be exclusively reserved for the IRFU volunteers. By the close of the meeting, every man present had signed up to serve in ‘D’ Company ‘with payment and allowance at army rates’. Most refused the option of an officer’s commission, insisting they wanted to remain on an equal rank with their peers.

Many were intimately connected with Trinity College Dublin. The Offaly-born barrister Ernest Julian was not only the university’s Reid Professor of Criminal Law but also coached the University of Dublin Boat Club. [6] Gerald ‘Billie’ Bradstreet, the only son and heir of Sir Edward Bradstreet of Clontarf, had captained Trinity’s 1st XV during a season in which they were unbeaten. [7] Poole Hickman, a barrister from Kilmore House, near Knock, County Clare, had captained the Wanderers in 1908. [8]

Ernest Hamilton, whose father founded the acclaimed White House department store in Portrush, County Antrim, had proven himself a zippy three quarter and goal kicker while he studied medicine at the college.  Another Trinity medical student was Alex Crichton from Beltra, County Sligo, a kinsman of the whiskey distilling Jamesons. He could boast to his classmates of a medical tradition that went back to his great-grandfather Sir Alexander Crichton, a pioneer in psychiatry who served as personal physician to Tsar Alexander I of Russia in the early 1800s. [9] Also present were two of the Findlater brothers, scions of the Dublin wine merchant firm, namely Charlie, a 44-year-old engineer, and Herbert, a 42-year-old solicitor. [10]

Not everyone who joined ‘D’ Company was a Trinity graduate. Albert Wilkin was the 31-year-old manager of a Boot and Shoe Shop in Clontarf where he played rugby. [11] His father grew up on a farm in Cavan while his mother’s family manufactured corduroy and other textiles in Dublin’s Liberties.

Jack Boyd, who also played rugby for Clontarf, had similarly come south from Cavan and worked as a clerk in the Department of Agriculture. Walter Appleyard was a clerk with the Irish Land Commission based in what is now the Merrion Hotel in central Dublin. He was one of at least fifteen members of the Land Commission to enlist in the 7th Battalion.

Joe Brady from Naas, County Kildare, ran the billiard rooms at Parkgate Street in Dublin, for which he pocketed a tidy annual salary of £500. [12] Jasper Brett, a solicitor from Dun Laoghaire, had earned his first international cap for Ireland earlier in the year.

No sooner had the ‘Dublin Pals’ Battalion been formed than it was sent to the Curragh Camp to begin intensive training.  On the morning of 16 September 1914, accompanied by the band of the Royal Irish Constabulary, the 7th Battalion marched along Nassau Street, through College Green and down Dame Street all the way to the Curragh-bound trains at Kingsbridge (Heuston) Station. Large crowds cheered them every step of the way, waving handkerchiefs, fluttering makeshifts Union Jacks from the windows and belting out verse and chorus of ‘It’s a Long, Long Way to Tipperary’. [13]

With so many well-known rugby players and society dons in its ranks, ‘D’ Company instantly became the talk of the crowd. Initially known as ‘The Footballers’, some wag thought of a pun on the 2nd Battalion’s nickname ‘Old Toughs’ and ‘D’ Company was rechristened the ‘Toffs’. [14]

Over the coming weeks, hundreds of new recruits joined the 7th Battalion. Among those assigned to ‘D’ Company was nineteen-year-old Douglas Gunning was working in a bank in Sligo when he decided to cycle fifty miles to his home in Enniskillen in order to join up alongside his older brother Cecil. The brothers were accomplished swimmers, oarsmen and rugby players.

Hugh Crawford Pollock from Clonskeagh, who had played for Wanderers alongside Poole Hickman, came all the way back from Sumatra where he was an assistant manager with Messrs. Harrison & Crossfield’s Tea Company in. [15]

One of ‘D’ Company’s more unlikely latter day recruits was Charles Frederick Ball, or C. F. Ball, known as Fred to his friends, who was born in Loughborough, Leicestershire in 1879. The son of an English chemist, he turned his mind to botany and by 1906 he was a sub-foreman of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London. That autumn, Sir Frederick Moore, Head Keeper of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Glasnevin, informed the curator at Kew that he was looking for an outdoor foreman. The latter recommended Fred Ball as ‘an excellent fellow in every way, gentlemanly, quiet, good-looking’; he offered to send him over ‘if you’d like to sample him.’ [16]

Sir Frederick duly recruited the chemists’ son and within just seven months Fred had been promoted to principal assistant at Glasnevin. Amongst those working alongside him were the artist Rose Barton and Mary Helen Graves, a half-sister of Robert Graves, the soon-to-be war poet. [17] During his annual leave, Fred Ball invariably went to the Alps in Switzerland and northern Italy to study Alpine gems. In 1911, he and fellow Alpine plant enthusiast Herbert Cowley went on a mission to Bulgaria. Sponsored by Pierce O’Mahony, one of Parnell’s most loyal supporters, the two men were personal guests of King Ferdinand, later to become one of the Kaiser’s allies. As well as looking after the gardens in Glasnevin, Ball was editor of Irish Gardening magazine. [18]

From 1911, Fred’s girlfriend was Alice Agnes Ball, the youngest daughter of Thomas J. Lane, and a granddaughter of Andrew Foullis McMath (1812–1875), JP, who had been manager of the Belfast Bank in Castleblayney, County Monaghan.  A fine cricketer, golfer and all-round sportsman, Fred Ball’s friends generally considered him fearless. However, somebody else thought otherwise. According to Sir Frederick Moore’s son, Ball was the recipient of a white feather which was sent to him care of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Glasnevin. He took it seriously although when he enlisted in late November even The Irish Times acknowledged that ‘it came as rather a surprise to hear that Mr. C. F. Ball is on the warpath.’

On 16 December 1914, Fred and Alice Ball were married in Rathmines. She was living at 15 Percy Place, Dublin, at the time of the wedding. Shortly afterwards, Fred made his way to the Curragh Camp to commence training with ‘D’ Company. [19]

At the Curragh, the men engaged in endless musketry training, trench digging and route marching. In the middle of October, a correspondent for the Dublin Evening Mail called down to see how the ‘Toffs’ were getting on. ‘It was difficult to believe,’ he wrote, ‘that the majority of the men were civilians like the rest of us only a month ago. They marched and countermarched, and formed fours; and wheeled and counterwheeled, and deployed and performed all the other evolutions of the parade ground with, so far as I could judge, the smartness and certainty of veterans … No cursing, swearing, jack-booted, bullying Prussian non-commissioned officer could have his men in better shape or fit.’ [20]

The men did get the occasional break so that they could concentrate on the more important things in life, namely scrumming down and charging at try lines. On October 17th, Frank Browning refereed a match between ‘D’ Company and other members of the Volunteer Corps at Lansdowne Road. The crowd who showed up was so big it felt like an international.  Ernest Hamilton and Jasper Brett were among those who lined out for ‘D’ Company and Hamilton kicked a penalty home in what was ultimately a drawn match at 8 points all. [21] Brett transferred to the Machine Gun Section of the 7th Battalion’s ‘B’ Company in December 1914.

Another time they marched to Woodbrook, near Bray, the home of Sir Stanley Cochrane, heir to the Cantrell and Cochrane soft-drink fortune. Woodbrook had long been a Mecca for sportsmen and artists; Jasper Brett was among those who played on Sir Stanley’s highly regarded cricket team. The battalion camped at Woodbrook overnight and then marched back to the Curragh in full battle gear next day. [22]

In early 1915, the Dublin Pals returned to the capital city where they were stationed at the Royal Barracks (now Collins Barracks). It was not yet clear where they would be sent but the glum news of the massive fatalities suffered by the Irish regiments in Gallipoli that April must have inclined some to wager that a trip to the Mediterranean was on the cards.

 

DESTINATION GALLIPOLI

 

On the last day of April 1915, the 7th Battalion marched down the quays to the North Wall – once again ‘lustily cheered’ all the way – and boarded a troopship bound for Holyhead. From Wales, they made their way to Basingstoke in southern England where the bulk of the 10th (Irish) Division was by then concentrated. They would remain in Basingstoke for the next ten weeks, engaging in still more training exercises.

On July 10th, the 7th steamed out of Devonport on the transport ship Alaunia and headed south. Captain Arthur Rostron, Alaunia’s skipper, had won widespread praise three years earlier when, as master of the ocean liner Carpathia, he led the rescue effort for the survivors of the Titanic disaster.

During the two-week voyage, as Douglas Gunning later recalled, the battalion was ‘stuck at the bottom of the boat, but good food, salt water baths and sea air had already combined to make us feel fit.’ For Gunning, the highlights included swimming races, majestic sunsets, ice-cold oranges from a refrigerator and porpoises gliding in the moonlight. At Alexandria, they stopped for long enough to march around the old harbour and entertain the Egyptians with a loud rendition of ‘Tipperary’.  Five days later, on 25 July, they disembarked onto the Greek island of Lemnos where thousands of Allied soldiers were now gathering in advance of a major new offensive on Gallipoli.

Three months had passed since the costly battle of Seddlebahr had left over a thousand Irishmen dead or wounded. Cape Helles may have been captured but the campaign was not going well and the Allies were pinned down at both Helles and Anzac Cove. As General Godley, commander of the New Zealand and Australian Division, put it in a letter to his cousin in County Leitrim, ‘I do not suppose in history, that anything so utterly mismanaged by the British Government will ever be recorded.’ [23] Put simply, the Allies had completely underestimated the terrain and climate of the Gallipoli peninsula, as well as the tenacity of the Turkish soldiers that defended it.

The Dublin Pals were to take part in one last push, known as the August Offensive. Under the command of General Sir Frederick Stopford, three divisions of British soldiers – including the 10th (Irish)– were to land at Suvla Bay on the west coast of Gallipoli. The game plan was to capture the Sari Bair ridge, the high ground that dominated the centre of the peninsula, and so break the deadlock. If that could be achieved, as the British War Office blindly hoped, then the Turks could at last be ousted from Gallipoli, enabling the Royal Navy to sail up the Dardanelles, lay siege to Constantinople and knock the Ottoman Empire out of the contest.

 

Advance to Suvla Bay

 

On Friday 6 August 1915, the 6th and 7th Battalions of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers boarded a fleet of four steamers and set off for Suvla Bay. Elsewhere, eight battalions of Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, Royal Munster Fusiliers, Royal Irish Fusiliers and the Royal Irish Regiment were amongst those boarding other Gallipoli-bound ships.

Shortly after midnight on Saturday 7 August, the five officers and three hundred men who constituted ‘D’ Company got their first view of Gallipoli. [24] Through the darkness, Captain Poole Hickman, their company commander, watched the flashes of the big guns and listened to the rattle of distant musketry. It was, he wrote, ‘the first indication to us that we were within the war zone’.

At 5:30am, two companies – ‘A’ and ‘C’ – began landing men on shore at Suvla Bay. The newcomers were greeted by a barrage of shrapnel from the Turkish guns mounted on the towering heights above, killing one – their first casualty – and wounding eleven more. The 7th Battalion would lose one officer and seventeen men before they even reached the shore.

With deadly fire raining out from the scrubland and olive groves, Captain Hickman landed the ‘D’ Company lighters soon afterwards. Douglas Gunning described the scene.

‘We could hear the boom boom and see the flash from Turkish guns coming from the big ridge of mountains, shells bursting, our men landing from the lighters and stretcher bearers bringing down and collecting wounded on the beach. The whole bay was quivering with the vibration … Somehow, we got on to the beach safely. It was remarkable how quickly you got used to it and soon we never bothered ducking unless the shell was quite close. I must say the discipline stood to us marvellously… for we were more or less stupefied.’ [25]

Most of the Turkish gunfire was coming from two adjoining hills located about 3.5 miles away. These would become known as Chocolate Hill and Green Hill. At 8am, the Dublin Pals were ordered to advance. Their objective was to take control of  Chocolate Hill, while other Allied troops were assigned to capture Green Hill. (I feel it must have added to the confusion that one of the senior commanders during this campaign was General Hill.)

‘We had not advanced 100 yards,’ wrote Poole Hickman, ‘when we were greeted with a perfect hail of shrapnel. And shrapnel is not a pleasant thing. You hear a whistle through the air, then a burst, and everything within a space of 200 yards by 100 yards from where the shrapnel burst is liable to be hit. The wounds inflicted are dreadful – deep, big, irregular gashes, faces battered out of recognition, limbs torn away.’ [26]

Having initially taken cover, Hickman realised he had little option but to urge his company on. In intense heat, and under constant attack from snipers, machine guns and enfillade artillery fire, the Irishmen gradually worked their way eastwards through a landscape of soft mud and thorny scrub. There were also high explosive shells and random shrapnel flying hither and yon, as well as the searing Mediterranean heat. As if that was not enough to contend with, they had to cross the Salt Lake (Tuz Gölü). The lake had all but dried out in the August sun so the men had to trudge through sticky white mud, the glare from which was almost blinding. The men’s load was lighter than it should have been. In one of those bureaucratic botch-ups that was to be a hallmark of the Dardanelles campaign, the bulk of their artillery pieces had been sent to France instead of Gallipoli.

Major Richard Harrison, an aspiring pilot, led the way, waving a green flag tied to a stick. [27] By the time they reached the Turkish trenches at the bottom of Chocolate Hill, Major Harrison’s line comprised of ‘A’ and ‘D’ Companies, along with some of the Inniskillings. The hill was strongly defended and lined with numerous trenches but, after the Allied ships unleashed a heavy bombardment from Suvla Bay, the Turks assigned to defend it had retreated to the summit.  The Dublin Pals now fixed bayonets and, roaring at full volume, charged upwards. The surviving Turks skedaddled and the hill was taken.

Poole Hickman described it as ‘a magnificent performance’ and Colonel Downing, commander of the 7th Battalion, likewise declared to his wife, ‘they did splendidly, and I am so proud of them.’ [28] Kudos to Colonel Downing himself. Described by Bryan Cooper as ‘a man of unusual height and girth,’ he had inspired his men by twirling his stick as he led the assault.

Initially christened ‘Fort Dublin’, the newly conquered mount of dark, rich brown earth was later named Chocolate Hill. It was a hell of an achievement to capture it on that first day, and indeed Green Hill was also taken.

The Pals had achieved their objective, but such elation was much tempered by the human cost. The 7th Battalion suffered over one hundred casualties on the first day, including 22 from ‘D’ Company. Lieutenant Ernest Julian, the 36-year-old Trinity professor, was shot in the back during the final assault and died of his injuries the following day on the hospital ship Valdivia. Buried at sea, he was one of twenty-five Irish barristers killed in the Great War.

 

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On the summit of Chocolate Hill, the Pals awaited the arrival of much needed water to quench their fierce thirst. Each man carried two days rations, consisting of a tin of bully beef, tea, sugar, biscuits and a few Oxo tablets. When Poole Hickman tucked into a biscuit at 1:30am on the Sunday morning, it occurred to him that it was the first thing he’d eaten since their arrival on Gallipoli twenty hours earlier. [29] As they awaited the dawn, Private Walter Appleyard was counting his lucky stars that he had not been hit when a bullet passed through the leg of his trousers. As it happened, he didn’t have many lucky stars left to count.

Turkish high command was by now completely aware of the Allied invasion and dispatched two divisions to forestall any further British advance. The Turks were not in great shape – three months of incessant fighting had taken its toll and, like the Allies, their rank and file were plagued with disease – but, in their vast favour, it transpired that the British invaders had almost no understanding of the landscape in which they now found themselves. Inaccurate maps served to break up any form of organization so that by dawn on Sunday 8th, the exhausted soldiers were scattered in isolated pockets, separated from one another by a maze of tangled gullies and gorse-covered foothills.

The grand advance fizzled out. And then the Turks launched their counter-attack. Unable to provide a cohesive defence, the Allies were slowly but assuredly pushed backwards.

Also killed on 7 August was Lieutenant William Stewart Collen, 6th Battalion, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, a great-uncle of Eleanor Gough, and a great-great-uncle of Antony and Shane Jackson. William was a son of the well-known builder Joseph Collen (1856-1941) of Collen Brothers and his wife Hannah Moira, of Homestead, Dundrum, County Dublin. Educated at Aravon, the Leys School, Cambridge, and Trinity College Dublin, he was a well known golfer in Ireland before the war. Indeed, he contested the Irish Close Championship just before the war began. William was 25 years old when he landed at Suvla Bay, just south of Lala Baba, on the morning of 7 August. Having made his way across the sticky mud of Salt Lake, he was killed that same evening during the assault on Chocolate Hill. His two surviving brothers would carry on the firm of Collen Brothers, namely JB Collen (grandfather of Eleanor) and Harcourt, known as Hanky, father to Lyle and Standish Collen.

Chocolate Hill may have been captured but it was by no means secure. On Monday 9 August, less than forty-eight hours after the hill was captured, Lieutenant-Colonel F. A R. Greer, commander of the 6th Royal Irish Fusiliers, was standing near the summit talking with his 35-year-old adjutant, Captain James Cecil Johnston. Captain Johnston lived at Magheramenagh Castle, near Belleek, County Cavan, and was a close confidante of the Earl of Aberdeen, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. As the two men spoke, a Turkish shell screamed in upon them, smashing the Colonel’s arm to pulp before landing on Captain Johnston who was, as one witness put it, blown ‘literally to pieces’. [30] By 12 August, the Turks had swept back onto Chocolate Hill.

Among the others now dead was Lieutenant Colonel Horace James Johnston, D.S.O., Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding) Regiment. A decorated hero of the Anglo-Boer War, Horace was the husband of Florence Browne-Clayton; their wedding has been one of the society events of 1904 in County Carlow. He came out of retirement in January 1915 to command the 8th Battalion. He landed with them near Lala Baba at Suvla Bay, only to be killed on 11 August. He is buried at Hill 10 Cemetery.

Fred Ball was still very much in the fight. On the voyage to Gallipoli, he had made friends with an Australian private name Frank Laird, who later recalled:

‘I spent the day with Ball, my friend, according to our agreement on the trawler as we steamed over, to stick together, and with a few other chaps of our section.  For most of the time we knew and saw little outside our small fellowship.  We dived into our ditch together when the section leader gave the order, and rose and rushed on when he gave it again.  We tried to recollect our home training, and to resist the impulse to crowd together in the safer looking spots, or to make for the false security of trees or outstanding bushes.  Occasionally one of us tripped and fell on the sun-baked earth, but immediately relieved the feelings of his friends by jumping up and running on.  At one spot a shrapnel shell burst low over our line, and one of us was missing at the next stop.’

 

 

The Charge at Kiretch Tepe

 

The Allies now switched their focus to the Kiretch Tepe Ridge that dominated the north of Suvla Bay. [31] Under the overall command of Sir Bryan Mahon, five battalions from the 10th (Irish) Division attacked the high ridge at 7:30am on August 9th. The 7th and 8th Battalions of the Royal Munster Fusiliers had also advanced along the ridge the previous day and were already entrenched. The Dubs now pushed as far as they could before a combination of thirst and fatigue brought them to a standstill. The initial high was rapidly wearing off as the Irishmen combated the blazing hot sun and the hostile alien landscape.

While the Generals pondered the options, the men were ordered to dig in upon the ridge and await further orders. Digging in was no easy feat. Most of Kiretch Tepe was rock and even the earthy parts were characterised by a thick mesh of plant roots, much to the curiosity of the botanist Fred Ball. And yet Turkish snipers were all around, randomly pinging limbs and faces, so some form of defensive wall was urgently required. The Pals began to gather up rocks, breaking up the ground where they could, and constructed stonewalls not dissimilar to those upon the Aran Islands.

‘D’ Company was in the thick of it. Four days had passed since their arrival but, Poole Hickman wrote, ‘all this time we never had even our boots off, a shave, or a wash, as even the dirtiest water was greedily drunk on the hill, where the sun’s rays beat pitilessly down all day long, and where the rotting corpses of the Turks created a damnably offensive smell. That is one of the worst features here – unburied bodies and flies – but the details are more gruesome than my pen could depict.’ [32]

For five long days the men held their ground on Kiretch Tepe and waited. Scorched by the sun, their thirst was worsened by the hot air that drew the salt from the nearby salt lake and blew it into their faces so that every man had white scum around his lips. A human chain attempted to pass buckets of water up and down the slopes but, subject to continuous sniping and shellfire, such supplies were exceedingly limited. In the midst of it all, a mailbag stuffed with memories from home arrived.

On the sixth day – Sunday 15 August – the 7th Battalion was ordered to renew their advance. [33] As they clambered along the ridge, a Turkish sniper fired three shots at Colonel Downing, catching him in the foot with the third. While the Colonel was stretchered off to hospital, Major Harrison assumed command. They took up positions beneath the crest of the ridge and entrenched themselves as best they could.

There was fresh horror come the dawn on Monday when the Turks began a ferocious assault, lobbing hand grenades into their lines. The Dubliners had nothing to retaliate with but the stones around them. Some tried heaving large boulders over the crest to roll upon the Turkish lines. The only other option was to catch the grenades before they exploded and throw them back. Albert Wilkin, the shoe shop manager from Clontarf, caught four grenades as if they were cricket balls and flung them back over the crest. The fifth one exploded as he caught it and blew him to shreds. [34]  Seven days after his miracle on Chocolate Hill, Walter Appleyard was also engaged in that blackest of games when a sniper shot him through the heart. [35] Also gone was Lieutenant Michael Fitzgibbon, whose father John Fitzgibbon (1849–1919) was the Nationalist MP for South Mayo.

In the meanwhile, Major Harrison decided that, in order to win Kiretch Tepe, his men must charge the Turkish bombers on the ridge. Nobody can have fancied their chances but orders were orders. With a guttural roar from the depths of his soul, Captain Hickman, the former Wanderers skipper, led his men forward, with fixed bayonets at the ready.

The chargers had barely covered five yards when a Turkish bomb exploded in the middle of them and blew Poole Hickman apart. [36] Nearly every man with him was either killed or wounded. The Sumatra tea trader Hugh Pollock died alongside his old Wanderers captain. [37] So too did Herbert Findlater, solicitor, yachtsman, actor, sportsman and father of two small boys. Alex Crichton, the doctor’s son from Sligo, also fell; his nephew and namesake would later become managing director of Jameson. Jack Boyd, the rugby player from Cavan, died of his wounds the following day. The by now cap-less Major Harrison was still waving his green flag above his head and urging the men forward when a grenade struck him at close quarters.

Eleven ‘D’ Company officers and 54 men were killed or wounded during the charge, and a further thirteen were missing. Only four men managed to crawl back unhurt. ‘It was a mad-man’s charge, but on the other side a very brave one,’ remarked one of those who witnessed it. [38]

To his shock, Ernest Hamilton discovered he was now the only ‘D’ Company officer still alive. The medical student from County Antrim had been badly wounded by a hand grenade during the charge but made it back to the relative safety of the ridge.

As darkness fell, the surviving Irishmen maintained their position beneath the crest of Kiretch Tepe. Their ammunition supply was dangerously low and they were engaged in sporadic but constant bayonet skirmishes with the Turks. As one survivor put it, ‘the only thing to keep our spirits up was an odd song and a smoke from a Woodbine’. [39] When reinforcements arrived, Lieutenant Hamilton was ordered to evacuate his men back to the safety of the Allied dug-outs a mile back. Morale was not helped that evening when two shells landed on the men as they ate their dinner, killing one and taking the leg off another. [40]

On Tuesday morning, Lieutenant Hamilton took a roll call and counted over one hundred members of ‘D’ Company absent. ‘That evening’, recalled Douglas Gunning, ‘we looked at the sun setting in the west and thought of home. Although we couldn’t, I’m sure a ‘blub’ would have made us feel better.’

As he made his way to a hospital ship, Hamilton handed command to Company Sergeant-Major William Kee from Meenagrove, Ballybofey, County Donegal. [41] He later penned a letter home, published in The Irish Times on 16 September, in which he detailed the events leading up to the fateful charge. ‘If you were ever proud of ‘D’ Company, you should have seen them in this action’, he wrote. ‘Every one of them were heroes … Dublin should be proud to own such men.’ [42]

When the news of ‘D’ Company’s virtual extermination reached Dublin, complete shock set in. Nobody had imagined men like Ernest Julian and Poole Hickman could ever die in war. These men were, after all, not professional soldiers. They were rugby players, students, barristers and cyclists. And yet die they did and as the writer Katherine Tynan recalled, ‘blow after blow fell day after day on one’s heart … For the first time came bitterness, for we felt that their lives had been thrown away and that their heroism had gone unrecognised’. By the end of August, the Irish capital seemed to be ‘full of mourning’ with black veiled widows and mothers at every turn.

 

The Battle of Scimitar Hill

 

On the afternoon of Saturday 21 August, five days after the charge at Kiretch Tepe, those members of ‘D’ Company still fit for service were summoned to take part in what would be the last hurrah of the Gallipoli campaign.

Their destination was Scimitar Hill, a prominent rise overlooking Suvla Bay, midway between Chocolate Hill and the Anafarta Ridge. The 6th Battalion of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers had actually captured it on the day they landed two weeks earlier but, as with Chocolate Hill, the Allies subsequently relinquished control to the Turks. [43]

Over 14,000 Allied soldiers were involved in the battle, including most of the 29th Division and the veterans of Seddlebahr. [44] The plan was to capture Scimitar Hill, as well as some other hills, and so forge a direct connection with the Anzac forces to the south.

Another massive bombardment by the Allied fleet and land batteries was unleashed and the Turks appeared to have been quietened as ‘D’ Company advanced nervously across the open plains. And then the Turks opened fire.

‘Good Lord!’, recalled one survivor. ‘They didn’t half plop the shells into us—shrapnel, high-explosive and lyddite shells were bursting in absolute hundreds in front, above, and behind us, and now and then, to add intensity to their fire, numerous land mines blew up, throwing men and rocks into the air and blinding us with sand.’ [45]

Those who survived the onslaught ran through the smoke to the end of the plain and flung themselves onto the ground. Heavy rifle-fire picked off man after man as they ran. Charlie Findlater was shot in the leg but amongst those still in the fight were Fred Ball, Jasper Brett, Douglas Gunning and Billie Bradstreet.

Meanwhile, sensing yet another Gallipoli disaster, the Allied commanders whistled up the five brigades of the 2nd Mounted Division from the safety of their reserve position at Lala Baba on the south of Suvla Bay.  On foot, these 5,000 men were ordered to march in formation some 3km across the dry salt lake into the billowing smoke. The Turkish artillerymen could not believe their eyes and showered them with high explosive shells.  The initial objective for the Mounted Division had been to take Chocolate Hill. However, when it became clear that the battle for Scimitar Hill was not going the Allies way, the five brigadiers were instructed to finish the job.

One of these brigadiers was Thomas Pakenham, 5th Earl of Longford. Born in Dublin in 1864, Lord Longford succeeded to the earldom at the age of 23. During the Anglo-Boer War, he led the ill-fated Imperial Yeomanry, otherwise known as the Dublin Hunt Squadron, whom the Boers managed to trap outside the town of Lindley in 1900. Four hundred of Britain and Ireland’s hunting elite were captured in an instant, including Lords Longford, Ennismore, Donoughmore, Leitrim and the future Lord Craigavon. The whiskey baronet Sir John Power was among twenty-one fatalities in the same action.

Fifteen years later, Lord Longford grimaced at the prospect of another military failure being notched up against him. As Brigadier General of the 2nd South Midland Mounted Brigade, he led his men through the haze, stormed Scimitar Hill and seized control of the hillcrest. However, the Turks had mounted heavy-duty artillery on a nearby hill and rapidly began shelling Lord Longford and his men.

Realising the end was nigh, his lordship apparently turned to one of his officers and said, ‘Don’t keep ducking, Fred. It upsets the men and it doesn’t do any good.’

When one of his ancestors was killed in battle against the Americans in 1812, the Royal Navy preserved his corpse in brandy and shipped his body home to be buried with his Pakenham kinsmen in Ireland. The 5th Earl would not be afforded such a gallant finale. [46]

Also reputedly killed in the attack on Scimitar Hill was Lieutenant William Edward Graham Niven, father of the British screen actor David Niven. He is commemorated near Lord Longford at Green Hill Cemetery. Prior to the war, William Niven appears to have gone into debt, having unwisely invested in Argentinian railroad bonds that went kaput. He then joined the Berkshire Yeomanry, along with his valet, two grooms and a gardener, and was sent to Gallipoli. His date of death is given as 21 August 1915. He seemingly reached the Turkish trenches only to be shot in the head.

The 1st Battalion of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers also made several bold attempts to take Scimitar Hill but in each instance they were driven back. One of these assaults was led by Captain Gerald ‘Micky’ O’Sullivan of Kingstown (Dun Laoghaire), County Dublin, who had just been awarded a Victoria Cross for showing immense courage in an earlier battle. He rallied fifty men behind him for the charge; a solitary sergeant limped home alive. Like Lord Longford, Micky O’Sullivan’s body would not be found. And nor would the Allies ever regain control of Scimitar Hill.

The madness continued elsewhere. As darkness fell, Sir John Milbanke, Colonel of the Sherwood Rangers, dryly informed his junior officers that he had received his orders from brigade headquarters. ‘We are to take a redoubt but I don’t know where it is and don’t think anyone else knows either, but in any case we are to go ahead and attack any Turks we meet’.  Sir John was married to Amelia Crichton, a niece of the Earl of Erne, and spent much of his time at Mullaboden near Naas, County Kildare, from where he regularly hunted with the Kildare and Meath Hounds. He had won a Victoria Cross in the Anglo-Boer War when, under heavy fire, he about turned his horse, scooped a fallen comrade onto his mount and galloped to safety. In the battle of Scimitar Hill, he advanced into the night, as ordered, and died at the head of his men. Lady Milbanke, his widow, would marry Sir Bryan Mahon after the war.

It was not until after midnight that the Allied commanders finally agreed that enough was enough and called off the attack.

 

Epilogue

 

Over five thousand men had been killed or wounded for almost zero territorial gain.[47] Many succumbed to flames as fire, ignited by bursting shells, tore through the dry grassy landscape. Aside from exhausting the Turks, who suffered 2300 casualties, not a single objective had been achieved. It simply underlined the fact that the Gallipoli campaign had been a near total disaster. Over quarter of a million Allied soldiers were dead, wounded or missing, and yet the Allies had never got much further than the beaches upon which they landed.

It spelled the end of Sir Ian Hamilton’s military career. [48] Winston Churchill also lost his job as First Sea Lord and, apparently in penance for his failure, spent six months commanding a battalion on the Western Front. Ever resourceful, he set out with a portable bathtub and a water-boiler. [49]

The only undeniable success of the campaign was the evacuation at its conclusion whereby, with the aid of Admiral de Robeck’s fleet, 90,000 troops and over 200 guns left Gallipoli without a single loss of life.

The 7th Battalion’s campaign concluded shortly after midnight on 30 September when the 10th (Irish) Division left Gallipoli for the Greek island of Lemnos. After seven gruesome weeks, just 79 of the original members of ‘D’ Company were still available for active service. A third of the battalion had been killed outright or died of their injuries. Many more fell victim to the extremes of heat and cold, contracting the deadly diseases that flourished amid the decomposing corpses, insect plagues and putrid waters.

Ernest Hamilton survived his wounded leg and the dysentery that followed but, traumatised by what he had seen, he became a chronic alcoholic. In April 1917, he was court-martialled for unspecified misconduct on the Western Front and dismissed from the army.[50] He was among 55 former members of ‘D’ Company who attended a series of reunion dinners in Jury’s Hotel, Dublin, in the mid-1930s.[51] During the Second World War, he worked with the American Red Cross in Northern Ireland. He died at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast in 1946, aged 51.

Sergeant Major William Kee, the 26-year-old from Donegal who briefly commanded ‘D’ Company, later became a hero on the Western Front, winning a Military Cross shortly before he was killed at the Somme in March 1918. [52]

The Somme also claimed the life of Douglas Gunning. The former banker sailed home from Gallipoli after the debacle of Scimitar Hill, riddled with dysentery. <[53] His father died just weeks after his return to Enniskillen; Douglas helped carry his coffin. In June 1916, he rejoined the army as a sub-lieutenant in the 6th Inniskillings. On 1 July he was leading his platoon forward at the Somme when a shell exploded directly on top of him. His brother Cecil survived the war and became a bank manager in Belfast. The Gunnings are kinsmen of my friend Richard Knatchbull.

Charlie Findlater, engineer and cyclist, was one of over one hundred Royal Dublin Fusiliers killed in the Battle of the Ancre at the end of the Somme campaign. His oldest brother Alex, who served with the Royal Army Medical Corps, earned the DSO at Chocolate Hill on 29 September 1915 when he crossed over two hundred yards of open ground under intense shellfire to help two wounded men. One of them was beyond help but he saved the other man’s life. [54] After the war, the doctor returned to a hero’s welcome at his home in England.

Joe Brady, the renowned billiard player, excelled as a stretcher-bearer during the first part of the campaign but contracted enteric fever and was sent home on 20 August. Promoted to the rank of Sergeant, he transferred to the 11th (Reserve) Battalion in Dublin and was placed in command of the guardroom at Wellington Barracks. In November 1916, a court-martial prisoner under his custody escaped and Sergeant Brady was himself court-martialed for negligence. He was found not guilty but transferred to the 1st Battalion and went to France where he was killed on 1 March 1917. [55]

For reasons unknown, Billie Bradstreet, who had captained the Trinity rugby team during that unbeaten season, stayed on at Gallipoli after his fellow Pals departed. During the August offensive, he earned considerable respect when he rallied the despondent men after the loss of Poole Hickman and the other officers. He was killed at Sulajik Farm in the Suvla Plain on 7 December 1915. Ironically, he was gazetted a captain on the very same day, but that can have been scant consolation to Sir Edward Bradstreet who, having lost his only son and heir, was to be the last of the Bradstreet baronets. [56]

Another to perish towards the end of the campaign was Vincent McNamara of Blackrock, County Cork, who had represented Ireland in rugby union in 1914, playing as a scrum half and earning three international caps. He was paired up with fly half Henry Walter Jack, who was also his half-back partner at UCC and Munster, and the pair became known as “Macky and Jacky.” Vincent had scored a famous try in Ireland’s victory over Scotland in that year’s 1914 Five Nations Championship.

By 1915, Lieutenant McNamara of the Royal Engineer was a highly regarded tunnelling officer. On 29 November 1915, he detonated a charge under a Turkish tunnel at Suvla Bay, where Turkish forces were using tunnels to deploy tear gas against the Allied troops. After the explosion, McNamara went down to investigate the site before the gas had dispersed and was asphyxiated by the resulting tear gas, leading to his death. Jacky was utterly distraught at the news of his death.

Not everyone died a hero. 2nd Lieutenant Jasper Brett, who played rugby for Ireland alongside Vincent MacNamara before the war, went on from Gallipoli to fight the Bulgarians in Serbia. Suffering from severe shellshock and rampant enteritis he was dispatched back to England where he was diagnosed insane and sent to Latchmere Hospital, an institution in Richmond, Surrey, specifically designated for shell-shocked officers. Discharged as ‘medically unfit,’ he returned to Ireland with his father and moved back to the family home in Dun Laoghaire. On 4 February 1917, the young man made his way into the Khyber Pass tunnel just east of Dalkey Station, lay down upon the line and awaited the coming train. [57]

Fred Ball did not survive. Between the bombs and the bayonet charges, he spent much of his first four weeks examining the peninsula’s flora, primarily from his dug out on Chocolate Hill. He sent a number of seeds back to Glasnevin for cultivation, including some acorns from the Gallipoli oaks.  [58] Numerous seedlings continue to grow at Glasnevin from the seeds he gathered in the vicinity of Suvla Bay. On 4 September, he and his fellow survivors were relieved and, a few days later, they moved back to a “rest” camp on the beach at Lala Baba. The beach was subject to ferocious shelling throughout this time. One of those shells would end Fred’s life on 13 September 1915.  A friend saw him just before he died, sheltering behind a rock, digging up weeds with his bayonet. His friend Frank Laird described his final moments:

‘While waiting on the beach with other sick (he was ill with dysentery) a shell fell near him and wounded one of his comrades. True to his nature he waited to help in the wounded man instead of rushing to cover.  A second shell followed the first and he was struck in the back.  In his weak condition he had not the vitality to make a fight for life and died some hours later.  He was buried by the sea.  Thus very soon was fulfilled a presentiment he mentioned to me one day in Basingstoke, that he would not live to be very old, at which I then laughed.  A silent and reserved Englishman, it did not take a long acquaintance to find the kindliness that lay behind his modest bearing, and the strength that made him a man not to be trifled with.  It took longer to discover that he had already made a name for himself, and would have gone far in his calling had he not found a glorious end in Gallipoli.  He was a friend on whom one might count for a lifetime.’

His botanical colleagues would honour him by affixing his name to the Escallonia C. F. Ball, a hybrid that he himself created in Glasnevin in 1912. The a vigorous, bushy evergreen is characterised by dark green leaves, rich red flowers and a propensity to attract bumble bees. [59]

 

 

*****

 

Postscript

 

I spent two wonderful days in Gallipoli in May 2025, observing the terrain in which this hideosity was fought – Achi Baba, Seddelbahr, Chocolate Hill, Plugge’s Plateau, Shrapnel Valley and so on.

As our time drew to an end, my friends and I developed an eagerness to swim in Suvla Bay. We drove our wimpy hire-cars down a well-appointed farm track for a mile or two, but when the track became too potholey, we were obliged to take to our feet. We walked and walked but when we got to the end of the track, it became apparent that the only way to access the sea would involve marching across some farmer’s barley fields, which just didn’t seem appropriate. There was a cemetery nearby, the existence of which I was only dimly aware of when we had set off on this outing.

The cemetery was Lala Baba and it was very beautiful. There’s a photo of it at the top of his piece. I found myself ambling along the rows, reading the names when I came to a sudden halt by the headstone of Private C. F. Ball, Royal Dublin Fusiliers. I’ve always had a soft swap for Fred Ball, perhaps because of the white feather story or the absurdity of a botanist being sent into such a horrible war. When I writing the original version of this story on the Dublin Pals for ‘The Glorious Madness’ book, I stayed up all night in order to get the chapter finished. There was a touch of ‘method writer’ about my tactic. C’mon Bunbury, no sleep for you – these chaps didn’t have a cushy bed to go to … write on, laddie. Anyway, I finished the story, with the remark about bumble bees, and, in the same instance, I  remember I unleashed a primeval sob. I guess I had invested quite a lot of time in following the tales of all these fellows and it was all so very sad.

And now here I was by Fred’s grave. It was a humbling, beautiful, emotional moment and it made my too-short visit to Gallipoli very complete. In hindsight, I now realise I could have simply entered all of my Gallipoli cast into the CWGC website and worked out who lies (or is memorialised) where, rather than waiting for genial ghosts like Fred Ball to summon me to Lala Baba. And yet, there was undoubtedly something very magical about just finding him like that. While the cemetery itself is replete with colourful flowers, I noted that Fred’s headstone was bare of flora. Apparently it was flanked by two Escallonia shrubs some years ago but they were now nowhere to be seen. The verdict is that they were too big for the location.

After her husband’s death, Alice Ball remained at their Dublin home for the next six or seven years. In 1918, she became a driver with the Women’s Royal Air Force, based out of Tallaght aerodrome. Demobilized in 1919, she was married three years later to Major Robert Kinghan, one of three sons born to the Rev. David Paton Kinghan, a globetrotting Church of Ireland minister who ended up in County Mayo. Robert served with the Royal Irish Fusiliers on the Western Front and was wounded. His brother Albert Kinghan, also of 15 Percy Place, was in Canada before the war, where he took a lot of photographs. With the outbreak of war, Albert enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, later transferring to the Royal Irish Fusiliers. Promoted to lieutenant, he was killed at at Leuze Wood (on the Somme) on 6 September 1916, alongside Captain T.G. Fitzpatrick, a close friend and fellow officer. Robert’s other brother Harold Kinghan, also in the  Royal Irish Fusiliers, was wounded but survived. Alice and Robert settled in England. Brian Willan, their grandson, later found a small metal box containing over 100 letters that Fred wrote to Alice between 1911 and 1914 and has penned a book about it all. On the back of our trip to Gallipoli, I made contact with Brian, and we enjoyed a happy communication in the very same week that I embarked on my Sunday road trip to Jerpoint with Max Hastings, and told him the story of Fred Ball, so, really, its all loops within loops.

 

***** 

 

***** 

 

 

 

*****

 

Further Reading

 

Personal Accounts

 

• Cooper, Bryan. The Tenth (Irish) Division in Gallipoli. Introduction by Major-General Sir Bryan Mahon. London: Herbert Jenkins Limited, 1918. First edition, 272 pages, illustrated with eighteen plates and a folding map at the rear.
• Hamilton, Ernest, ‘The 7th Dublins in Gallipoli – Desperate Days Fighting’, letter published in The Irish Times, Thursday, September 16, 1915, p. 4.
• Hickman, Poole, ‘Irish Valour in Gallipoli – The 7th Dublins at Suvla’, letter published in the Irish Times, Tuesday, August 31, 1915, p. 5.
• Hanna, Henry, “The Pals at Suvla Bay: Being the Record of “D” Company of the 7th Royal Dublin Fusiliers on Gallipoli’, with a foreword by Lieut. Gen. Sir Bryan T. Mahon. (Irish Academic Press, 1998). As well as letters and personal memories of those who were there, this book includes a chapter on the work of the chaplains with the wounded. In an appendix there is a list of men of the battalion mentioned in despatches and the complete roll of the company showing five officers and 281 men and a further 23 transferred to “B” Company for the machine gun section.
• Laird, Frank, ‘An Anzac’s Letters from Gallipoli’ (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1916)

 

Related Books

 

• Desmond, Ray – A Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturists (CRC Press, 1994).
• Findlater, Alex, ‘Findlaters
- The Story of a Dublin Merchant Family 1774-2001’, Gallipoli 1915 (A&A Farmar, 2013), Chapter 8.
• 

  Charles Frederick Ball: From Dublin’s Botanic Gardens to the Killing Fields of Gallipoli, by Brian Willan, available from Liffey Press here.

  Hart, Peter. Gallipoli. (Profile Books, 2013)

• Holt, Tonie, and Valmai Holt. ‘Major and Mrs Holt’s Guide to Gallipoli’ (Pen and Sword Military, 2001)
• Kildea, Jeff, Anzacs and Ireland’ (Cork University Press, 2007)
• MacDonagh, Michael, ‘The Irish at the Front’.
• Mumby, Frank A. (series Ed.) & Vizetelly, Ernest & Hannay, David et al. ‘The Great World War – A History’, Volume IV (Gresham Publishing Co, London, 1916).
• Nelson, Charles, ‘The Brightest Jewel: A History of the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, Dublin’, with Eileen McCracken (Boethius, 1987).
• Nelson, Charles, ‘An Irish Florilegium: Wild and Garden Plants of Ireland’, with Wendy Walsh and Ruth Isabel Ross (Thames & Hudson, 1983).
• Prior, Robin, ‘Gallipoli – The End of the Myth’ (Yale, 2009).
• Quinn, Anthony P., ‘Wigs and Guns. Irish Barristers in the Great War’ (Four Courts Press, 2006).
• Willan, Brian. Charles Frederick Ball: From Dublin’s Botanic Gardens to the Killing Fields of Gallipoli’ (The Liffey Press, 2022). Brian Willan is a grandson of Fred Ball’s wife Alice, via her second marriage.
• ‘The Roll of Honour. a Biographical Record of All Members of His Majesty’s Naval and Military Forces Who Have Fallen in the War’, Vol. 1, p. 221.

 

Online Sources

 

• ‘The Royal Dublin Fusiliers – Trinity College and World War I – The Dublin ‘Pals’
• ‘D Company, 7th Battalion RDF’
• ‘The Gunning family’ by Marion Maxwell – Nov ’05, here.
• Lord Belmont’s Blog.

 

Images

An excellent set of 32 photos (I0″ x 8″ cropped B/W) of the 7th Royal Dublin Fusiliers are in circulation. These were reproduced from the album of Portadown-born Sgt. Arthur J. England (No. 14152, ‘D’ Coy. 7th RDF) and were taken on 30 April 1915 in the Royal (now Collins) barracks in Dublin City as the battalion departed for Britain, prior to going to the Dardanelles. Five were published in Henry Hanna’s 1917 book on ‘D’ company but I think the remaining 27 have been published since.

 

****

 

Acknowledgments

 

With thanks to the late, lamented Seamus O’Brien (Curator of Kilmacurragh – National Botanic Gardens), Colette Edwards (The Library, National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin), Elizabeth Brennan (DBN Plant Record Office, National Botanic Garden, Glasnevin), Howard Fox (botanist), Fionola Reid (botanist), Sean Connolly (Royal Dublin Fusiliers Association), Brian Willan, David Grant (www.dublin-fusiliers.com), Alex Findlater, Nick Wilkinson, Patrick Hugh Lynch, Mary Jacobs, Séamus Greene, Catherine Smyth (Charterhouse Archives) and Paul Patrick Markham.

 

****

 

End-Notes

 

[1] The Irish Times, Tuesday, September 1, 1914, p. 6. In the late afternoon of Monday 10th August 1914, six days after Britain declared war on Germany, the Irish Rugby Union Football established a Volunteer Corps for their members, as well as ‘members of other sporting clubs who desire to take part in defending their country, if the necessity should arise’.

[2] The Irish Times – Page 7 Sunday 9 August 1914 ; The Irish Times – Page 3 Monday 24 August 1914. For more on Kilmacow-born Stacey, see here or (I think) his census results at https://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/reels/nai001855410/ and his picture in Weekly Irish Times, Saturday, September 12, 1914, p. 5

[3] The Irish Times, Tuesday, September 1, 1914, p. 6.

[4] Weekly Irish Times, Saturday, September 12, 1914, p. 5. In the Irish Times of 11th September 1914, an advertisement expressed dismay at the slowness of the Irish response to Kitchener’s call, warning that Scotsmen and Englishmen could now be drafted into the Irish Division, which would be ‘a discredit to Ireland’. Clearly not everyone was enthusiastic for war as Ireland’s rugby players.

Frank Browning was mortally wounded in an ambush near the Beggar’s Bush Barracks on Haddington Road during the Easter Rebellion and died two days later. At the time, he was at the head of a group of unarmed veterans, clad in civvies, sporting rifles but no ammunition. Nicknamed the ‘Gorgeous Wrecks’ after the ‘Georgius Rex’ motto on their armbands, the Irish Rugby Union Football Corps were returning to the Barracks from their Easter Monday parade when they were ambushed. Seven members of the corps were shot; four died. He is buried in Deansgrange Cemetery, South Dublin. A headstone was erected by the Irish Rugby Football Union Volunteer Corps in memory of “an honourable comrade and true and distinguished sportsman.” See https://ourhistory-hayes.blogspot.ie/2009/08/irish-rugby-dont-mention-1916-uprising.html].

[5] Irish Times, 11th September 1914. Entrance into ‘D’ Company was open to anyone between 19 and 35 years of age, or, for ex-soldiers, those up to 45. Anyone older than that, or otherwise deemed ‘unfit’, was invited to remain in Dublin as a “home guard”.

Educated at Charterhouse and Trinity College Dublin, Ernest Julian was the only son of the late John and Margaret Julian, of Drumbane, Birr, King’s County (County Offaly). Presidents Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese both held the same Chair in the 1970s. See also An Irishman’s Dairy, Kevin Myers, 25th January 2005  – https://www.boat.tcdlife.ie/KevinMyers250105.php

Charterhouse forwarded me the following notes on him:

Ernest Julian:
Charterhouse, Lockites House, between Cricket Quarter (summer term) 1894 and Cricket Quarter 1897, Junior and Senior Scholar.
Julian joined Charterhouse in April 1894 at the unusually late age of sixteen, having won a Junior Scholarship, and was placed in the Remove A Form.  He was, perhaps, placed in too low a form and should have gone straight into the Vth  Form, as he swept the board in the end of year exams in July 1894, winning the class Maths prize for Removes division I, the French prize for Removes division I, and coming  3^rd out of 35 boys in Classics; presumably his last school had not taught science, as he only managed 28^th place in Natural Science.
His ranking in the summer 1895 exams was rather less spectacular but still good.  He was in the V Form A division, but the same exam was taken by all the V Form sets and he was ranked 36th out of 113 for Classics, 12th for Maths, 24th for Natural Science, and 11th for French.  He also successfully sat the Senior scholarship exam.
CQ1896 found Julian in the Under VI Form.  He was placed 16th out of 23 for Classics, 11th out of 29 for Maths and 4th out of 29 for French.  In his final term, CQ1897, Julian was in the Middle VI and was 28th out of 35 for Classics, 4th out of 41 for Maths and 12th out of 38 for French.
Charterhouse Register entry: L JULIAN, Ernest Lawrence. b 28 July 1879: s of John Julian of Dundrum, co Dublin, Crown Sol: Jun and Sen Schol: C’97: Schol of Trin, Dublin: Sen Moderator in Classics and Brooke Prize: BA: Barr Irish Bar: Reid Professor of Law, Dublin Univ: In Gt War, Lt 7th R Dublin Fus: died of wounds in Gallipoli 8 Aug 1915

[7] G. E. Bradstreet also captained the Portora XV who won the Ulster Cup in 1908. The Irishman’s Diary in The Irish Times of Saturday, December 16, 1950 refers to both his dramatic and sporting prowess and gives his nickname of ‘Billie’. I’m not sure which season it was that Trinity were unbeaten. Trevor West’s 150 Years of Trinity Rugby 1854-2004 does not mention him but says in his introduction: ‘Two books have previously been published dealing exclusively with the history of the Dublin University Football Club and all the club records have been deposited in the Library.’

[8] See history of Kilmore House at https://www.markhams-of-derryguiha.com/id24.html

[9] He hailed from Carrowgarry House near Enniscrone which is, I think, the house at https://buildingsofireland.com/niah/search.jsp?type=record&county=SL&regno=32401918

[10] Alex Findlater, a doctor,  (great-uncle of Alex), a 54-year-old doctor who would sail to Gallipoli with the Royal Army Medical Corps; Charles, a 44 year old bachelor engineer; and Hebert, a 42 year old solicitor, married with two sons. See Alex Findalter, ‘Findlaters
- The Story of a Dublin Merchant Family 1774-2001’, Chapter 8. Gallipoli, https://www.findlaters.com/chapter8.html)

[11] Albert E Wilkin was a 27 year old Boot & Shoe Shop manager living at 17 St. Lawrence Road, Clontarf West on the 1911 Census. According to the 1901 Census, his father was William Wilkin, according to a record of his death in The Weekly Irish Times of Saturday, October 2, 1915. By 1901 he was living with his uncle Robert James Wilkin, a Bride Street cabinet maker who grew up on a farm in Cavan, at 93 Mount Pleasant Avenue, Rathmines. His mother Frances Jane Grattan died before he was 18; her father Robert Grattan worked in the textile industry in the Liberties area of Dublin, as a fustian or cord cutter which was a process involved in the manufacture of corduroy.

Is he the Albert E Wilkin referred to at https://www.igp-web.com/igparchives/ire/fermanagh/education/tubrid-school-recs.txt ?

[12] Salary quoted here.

[13] The Irish Times, Thursday, September 17, 1914, p. 6.

[14] Alexander’s East India and Colonial Magazine, Volume 10, p. 429 refers to ‘the light company of the Bombay European regiment (the old Toughs). By 1843 the unit had expanded to two battalions and they were known as the 1st Madras Fusiliers and the 1st Bombay Fusiliers until 1862. They later evolved into the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers with their depot at Naas, Co. Kildare.

C Company of the 7th Royal Dublin Fusiliers were apparently known as the “Larkinites” as it was made up of strikers who had been locked out and were on employers blacklist. Amongst them was Sergeant Louis Dowling, formerly a tailor on Dame Street.

[15] Hugh Crawford Pollock lived in Dublin and enlisted [check] in London. Son of Hugh Percy and Helen C. Pollock, of 4, Vergemount Hall, Clonskeagh, Dublin. Assistant Manager to Messrs. Harrison & Crossfield in Sumatra, came home from there to enlist. Religion Church of Ireland. He fell on 16 August.

[16] ‘The Brightest Jewel: A History of the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, Dublin’, Charles Nelson, Eileen McCracken (Boethius, 1987), p. 205, 215.

[17] ‘From Lady Pupil to Lady Gardener’ (Ingram and Forrest, 1997).

[18] ‘IN MEMORIAE CHARLES FREDERICK BALL’ – see obituary to C. F. Ball at https://www.kewguild.org.uk/media/pdfs/v3s23p265-39.pdf  Born in Loughborough in 1879, Charles Frederick Ball is believed to have been the son of Alfred Bramley Ball (a pharmaceutical chemist) and Mary Bowerly Ball (a British subject born in Ohio, USA).

Sir Frederick Moore was later involved in the work of the “Irish National War Memorial Committee” and the Memorial Gardens.

[19] The white feather story was told to Seamus O’Brien by Donal Synott, a former Director at the Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin, who heard it from Sir Frederick Moore’s son. This was also reported in the Irish Times, as per here.

[20] The Evening Mail. Quoted in Hanna op. cit: pp 24-27.

[21] The Irish Times, Monday, October 19, 1914, p. 10.

[22] Alex Findalter, ‘Findlaters
The Story of a Dublin Merchant Family 1774-2001’, Chapter 8. Gallipoli, https://www.findlaters.com/chapter8.html)

[23] Letter to Lord Kilbracken via Sue Kilbracken.

[24] 23 of those men who sailed with the 7th had been transferred to “B” Company for the machine gun section.

[25] The Gunning Family, Marion Maxwell, for BBC Northern Ireland’s Your Place of Mine.

[26] Letter from Captain Poole Hickman, published in the Irish Times, Tuesday, August 31, 1915.

[27] Richard Scorer Molyneaux Harrison was born in 1883 and previously served in Peshawar, India as a Captain with the 51st Sikh Regiment.

[28] ‘It was a magnificent performance, and we have been personally congratulated on it, and we have called the hill fort Dublin’. From a letter from Captain Poole Hickman, published in the Irish Times, Tuesday, August 31, 1915.

[29] Letter from Captain Poole Hickman, published in the Irish Times, Tuesday, August 31, 1915.

[30] Captain James Cecil Johnston was Adjutant of the 6th (Service) Battalion of the 6th Royal Irish Fusiliers. The 35-year-old grew up between Magheramena Castle, near Belleek, and Glencore House in County Fermanagh and was educated at Charterhouse. He served in the Anglo-Boer War as a young man. Since 1910, he had been a close confidante of the Earl of Aberdeen, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, serving as both his Private Secretary and Master of the Horse at the time of his departure for Gallipoli. From 1910 to 1912 he was also Deputy Ranger of the Curragh. Johnston, who offered his services on the outbreak of war, was made Adjutant of the Battalion in October 1914. He was killed at Suvla on 9th August. Second Lieutenant R.S. Trimble, who was wounded on the same occasion, describes the incident in a letter to his father, Mr. W. Copeland Trimble, of Fermanagh. He was standing between his Colonel and his Adjutant in conversation when a shell came along. It tore the Colonel’s arm to pulp, and though it passed Mr. Trimble, who was slightly out of the line of fire, the concussion of it dashed him violently to the ground, and then exploding, it blew Captain Johnston literally to pieces. [p. 87, ‘The Irish at the Front’ by Michael MacDonagh here ). His Commanding Officer, Lieut.-Col. F. A R. Greer, wrote: We reached the point we were making for, and your husband and I were trying to make out exactly how the situation was, when a shell from some sort of machine gun came over from our right front, caught me on the arm and exploded practically on him. His death, of course, was instantaneous. I saw that much before I had to clear out myself; there were none but dead and dying just there. It will comfort you to know he died a brave and gallant soldier, looked on by all of us as one of the best. I can safely add the sympathy of every officer and man to mine. He died at the farthest point the Battn. reached that day.” Another officer wrote: “I saw Johnston in a redoubt early next morning and during Sunday (8 Aug.), like most of us he was very tired that day, as we had no sleep and practically no food. He was in good spirits, however. His death has been a great blow to us as he was very popular, and deservedly so, in the regt. He was confident that he would come back all right.” He left a widow and three daughters, all under the age of six. One of them grew up to be the novelist Myrtle Johnston. The Johnstons abandoned Magheramena after his death and the castle was demolished in the 1950s. (See ‘The Roll of Honour. a Biographical Record of All Members of His Majestys Naval and Military Forces Who Have Fallen in the War’, Vol. 1, p. 221. Thanks also to  https://lordbelmontinnorthernireland.blogspot.ie/2013/11/magheramena-castle.html

Charterhouse sent me the following notes on him:

James Cecil Johnston:
Charterhouse between Long Quarter (spring term) 1895  and Long Quarter 1897.  Robinites (a holding House for new boys) for one quarter, then Girdlestoneites House. Johnston joined Charterhouse in January 1895, aged fourteen.  He was placed in the Upper IV Form, C Division, and remained there for the whole of his two years at  the School.  The C Division was for boys who were aiming for a career in the Army or in business and it focused more on Maths and Modern Languages to prepare them for the Sandhurst and Woolwich entrance exams.  His Housemaster’s Pupil Register lists his address as “The Abbey, Cirencester” – were the Johnston’s renting a house in England as well as their homes in Ireland?  The Housemaster’s leaving note just says “Tutor”.  Johnston’s exam results are not exceptionally bad (in fact his French was very good), but presumably not good enough for him to be promoted to the next Form and we might speculate that his parents removed him to a private tutor because he was not thriving at Charterhouse.
Summer 1895: 19th out of 22 boys for Maths, 3rd out of 22 for French, 8th out of 17 for Latin, 14th out of 22 for English/History and 16th for Divinity
Summer 1896: 11th out of 16 for Maths, 1st for French, 4th out of 10 for Latin, 10th out of 16 for Divinity, 5th out of 13 for ‘Special German’.
Charterhouse Register entry: Rg JOHNSTON, James Cecil. b 31 Dec 1880: s of J H Johnston of Tonbridge: L97: 14th Hussars 1901: S African War 1901-2: Retd 1903: of Magheramenna Castle and Glencore House, Fermanagh: High Sheriff, co Fermanagh 1910: Master of the Horse to Lord-Lt of Ireland: In Gt War, Capt and Adj 6th R Irish Fus: m 1903, Violet Myrtle, d of SAW Waters, Asst Inspector-Gen RIC: Killed in action in the Dardanelles 9 Aug 1915.

[31] Kiretch Tepe Ridge is sometimes spelled Kireçtepe ridge and also called Kizlar Dagh Ridge.

[32] Letter from Captain Poole Hickman, published in the Irish Times, Tuesday, August 31, 1915.

[33] Initially held back, ‘D’ Company were dispatched to support the 5th Inniskillings who were being annihilated by heavy-duty shellfire and machine gun fire near Kidney Hill.

[34] Captain R.G. Kelly, a H.Q. Lieutenant with the 7th RDF, recalled how during the fighting at Kireçtepe Sirt, he saw the Turks lobbing bombs over the trench at the 7th Dublins and the Dubs catching them and hurling them back again. ‘”The Irish troops resisted gallantly although the few bombs they had were far inferior …. Couple of dozen hurriedly made Jam Tins. Turkish bombs were caught and thrown back again. One private (Wilkins by name) caught four but fifth unfortunately blew him to pieces. PS. I hold a copy of recommendation for this particular Private to whom no recognition was ever given, which of course was nothing out of the ordinary on Gallipoli.’ This information came from a letter written on 11th May 1931 Captain R. G. Kelly of Rathmines, Dublin, to General Aspinall-Oglander, the official historian of the Great War.

Henry Hanna, in ‘The Pals at Suvla Bay Dublin’ (E. Ponsonby 1916), p. 110) – ‘The sights I saw going along that place I shall never forget. Some of our fellows throwing back the bombs which the Turks threw over and which had not exploded. One fellow caught them like catching a cricket ball. Wounded and dead lying everywhere. The sun streaming down and not a drop of water to be had. Neither had we bombs to reply to the Turks and drive them out.’

‘Often, the men in the front line were to be seen catching the bombs and throwing them back but their heroism was never recorded because their officers were practically all killed.’ – https://www.dublin-fusiliers.com/battaliions/7-batt/d-coy/d-coy.html

[35] Private Walter Appleyard was buried in Gallipoli at the foot of Dublin Hill. He’s one of 30 [check] members of the Irish Land Commission who died. His 1911 census report is here and his brother George Stuart Appleyard also served at the front. A hi-res image of Appleyard is here.

[36] This account comes from an unpublished letter in the late Alex Findlater’s possession (See footnote below) but Hanna claimed that the first charge was led by Captain Hickman; he was struck by a bullet and mortally wounded; and that Major Harrison the charged waving his cane, before being struck by a bomb and killed.

Poole Henry Gore Hickman was born on 8 Jun 1880 to Francis William Gore Hickman of Tyredagh Castle and Elizabeth Brown O Brien.

[37] At least 33 Wanderers Rugby Players were killed in the war.

[38] Unpublished anonymous letter in Alex Findlater’s possession. The letter is thought to have been sent to Willie Findlater in Dublin. In was written from Chichester and dated Saturday 18th Sept, but has no name at the end. Alex Findlater suggests the letter he has was ‘topped and tailed, maybe to fit a scrap book’ and may be ‘a copy made at the time.’ It starts:

Dear Sir,

My mother asks me to tell you the end of L-Corpl Findlater- well on Sunday the 15th August we were told that we had to relieve the Munsters…’.

A couple of paras later: ‘I imagine you have heard of Major Harrison–well I heard him say to Captain Hickman and Captain Tobin “if you want to get your name up and the name of your company come with me and we will charge the slope”. We were behind the hill and 6000 Turks had the bottom surrounded, but we never seen them–Findlater’s platoon was leading so they went in first–they did not go five yards when a bomb dropped and blew Major Harrison and our two Captains and Lieut Fitzgibbon to pieces including 30 men … That was how we lost the best of our men–it was a mad-man’s charge, but on the other side a very brave one–we were relieved at 6 that evening.”
“It was a hard job fighting and ducking from 5 in the morning until 6 in the evening and the only thing to keep our spirits up was an odd song and a smoke from a woodbine”

Also killed on 16 August was Lieutenant Harold Gordon Jameson of Campfleld House, Dundrum, co. Dublin. Born in 1888, the Trinity–educated engineer had spent the years immediately prior to the war working with the Sudan Irrigation Service. Amid the Upper Nile Provinces, he made a name for himself as a game hunter, including three elephants. In Ireland when war broke out, he was gazetted a 2nd Lieut. Royal Engineers (S.R.), 1 Oct. 1914, and subsequently attached to the 65th Field Coy. He was killed when his company was told to hold the Karakol Dagh. His commanding officer (who was himself wounded on the 14 or 15 Aug.) wrote “He was a general favourite amongst officers and men. We had a hard time at the Dardanelles, but your son’s never-failing courage and cheerfulness under these adverse circumstances were of the greatest help to us all. His death is a great loss to the 65th Coy., and to the R.E. of the 10th Division.”

Captain Eastwood of the Royal Irish Regiment also watched, before he too led his men over the top. He later recalled: “I saw the Platoon Commander, a man of thirty, a Dublin barrister, come forth, his platoon also after him; they would have followed him anywhere.  They were laid low in the same way as number 1 platoon…I shouted GO!  About seven men rose out of the original hundred”.

[39] Unpublished anonymous letter of 18 September 1915 in Alex Findlater’s possession.

[40]  ‘We went back to our dug-outs about a mile back. Just as we were getting our dinner… two shells came along….and one fellow got his head blow off…and another lost his leg.’ (H. Hanna).

[41] For Ernest Hamilton’s 1911 census, see https://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1911/Antrim/Portrush_Town/Mount_Royal/131206/

[42] Ernest Hamilton, ‘The 7th Dublins in Gallipoli – Desperate Days Fighting’, letter published in The Irish Times, Thursday, September 16, 1915, p. 4.

[43] Amongst those who died capturing Scimitar Hill was 2nd Lieutenant Bob Stanton, a solicitor from Cork City. A few years before the war, Bob had fallen out badly with his father, with whom he worked, when the latter refused to permit him to marry the woman he loved because her family were riddled with tuberculosis. Bob abandoned the Stanton practice and in 1912 he moved to Clones, County Monaghan, where he prospered as the only Catholic solicitor in the area. His body was never found because the shelling set fire to the bush where he fell. On 1st July 1916, Bob’s younger brother, George Stanton, a young medical graduate from Trinity College Dublin serving in the R.A.M.C., received fatal stomach wounds during first day of the Battle of the Somme and died the following month.

[44] As Robin Prior put it, the 29th was ‘brought north from Helles for its final martyrdom’.

[45] Quoted in “The Pals at Suvla Bay being the Record of “D” Company of the 7th Royal Dublin Fusiliers” by Henry Hanna K.C.

[46] Eliza Pakenham, Soldier Sailor: An Intimate Portrait of an Irish Family, p. 217. The oaks, at the end of the avenue at Tullynally (closest to the house) were planted by the 5th earls mother, to mark the event of his return from the Boer War.

[47] Winston Churchill summed up this battle thus: ‘The British losses were heavy and fruitless … On this dark battlefield of fog and flame Brigadier-General Lord Longford, Brigadier-General Kenna VC, Colonel Sir John Milbanke VC, and other paladins fell. This was the largest action fought on the Peninsula, and it was destined to be the last.’

[48] “The Pals were ignored when Sir Ian Hamilton, the commander of the British at Gallipoli, later wrote, ‘So I bid them all farewell, with a special God speed to the campaigners who have served with me through from the terrible yet most glorious earlier days – the incomparable 29th Division; the young veterans of the Naval Division; the ever victorious Australians and New Zealanders; the stout East Lancs, and my own brave fellow-countrymen of the Lowland Division of Scotland’. Hamilton had no trouble remembering his ‘fellow country-men of the Lowland Division of Scotland’.”

[49] The Royal Navy enjoyed excellent relations with the insurance industry at this time, a rapport exemplified by the fact that Henry Montague Hozier, Clementine Churchill’s late father (allowing for claims of her mother’s infidelity) had been the secretary of Lloyd’s.

[50] ‘An Irishman’s Diary’, Kevin Myers, Saturday, November 9, 1991, p. 11.

[51] Weekly Irish Times, Saturday, February 3, 1934, p. 13.

[52] William Kee won a Military Cross (bar posthumously 16th September 1918) for his valour in Somme but died three days later in Germans hands on the 24th March 1918. “”Temporary Lieutenant William Kee, Royal Dublin Fusiliers.–Although twice wounded, he continued to lead his men during an attack until ordered back to the dressing station. He has several times carried out reconnaissance work most efficiently.” There was a William Kee who studied mathematics at Trinity who got into a lot of trouble in June 1912, see https://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/archive/wit/1912/0615/Pg015.html#Ar01500 He’s recalled by a monument at Stranorlar (St. Anne) Church of Ireland Churchyard. However, according  to ‘The Pals at Suvla Bay’, William Kee was a Divinity student at TCD.

[53] He sailed on board Alaunia, now a hospital ship for 2,000 people. There were 68 burials at sea on the voyage home.  On the day of his death, he lost a finger early in the charge.

[54] When he returned to his home in England, Alex Findlater note that he was ‘drawn in triumph through the streets in a brougham from which some of his most enthusiastic admirers had detached the horses. He was several times called upon to respond to eulogistic addresses. The town was gaily decorated with flags and bunting, and a banner inscribed ‘Welcome to our Doctor and friend’ was carried in the procession.’ As Alex notes, ‘this was in sharp contrast to the lack of welcome accorded to his colleagues returning to Ireland’.

[55] Sergeant Brady was charged with allowing Private J. Shine 11th Battalion R.D.F. to escape on 7th November 1916. He faced a court martial a week later at Portobello Barrack’s. He was found not guilty and subsequently transferred to the 1st Battalion with whom he was killed on 1st March 1917 in France. He has no known grave and his name is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial Somme pier and face 16C. For more, see ‘Joseph Brady – A Pal on Trial’ here.

[56] Lieutenant Gerald Bradstreet, only son and heir of Sir Edward Bradstreet of Clontarf, was born in Algiers in 1891 and studied engineering at Trinity. In August 1915, a party of Infantry advancing to the Turkish trenches lost all the officers leading the attack. The men wavered and seemed inclined to turn back.. ‘“He did a plucky thing. The infantry had been drawn from some trenches and being tired and having only junior officers with them they were not able to advance. Lieut. Bradstreet was sent up by the General to tell them they must advance, and he rallied them, cheering them on, and was almost at once hit in the leg. The trenches were retaken. He crawled back to Brigade Headquarters, refusing assistance, and was from there helped onto the ship”.

[57] Officers 7th Battalion, Royal Dublin Fusiliers – https://www.dublin-fusiliers.com/battaliions/7-batt/officers-7th-bn/officers-7th-bat.html Brett, a former Ireland rugby international from Dun Laoghaire, served as a machine gunner with B-Company, 7th RDF, at Gallipoli, until evacuated with enteritis.

[58] There is only one accession of Quercus calliprinos at Glasnevin, a 1923 accession that came in from Kew. The records officer at Glasnevin might be able to run through the old ledgers from 1915 to see if C. F. Ball sent acorns to Glasnevin.

[59]  Seamus O’Brien writes: ‘Three of his Escallonia seedlings were named after his death, Escallonia ‘C. F. Ball’ (the finest of the three), E. ‘Alice’ (named for his widow) and E. ‘Glasnevin Variety’.’

C.F. Ball’s obituary notes “Even while on active service in Gallipoli his love of collecting persisted, and numerous seedlings are
growing on at Glasnevin from seeds he sent home, gathered in the vicinity of Suvla Bay.” [‘IN MEMORIAE CHARLES FREDERICK BALL’ ]

Oak seeds were indeed sent back by a Kew officer from Gallipoli for cultivation at Kew. The Gallipoli oak (Quercus calliprinos) that now stands on the Cedar and Oak Lawn at Glasnevin is from a pot that arrived from Kew in 1923. I asked Glasnevin whether it could be directly connected to acorns that C. F. Ball might have sent to Kew seven years earlier. The reply from Matthew Jebb was:

Dear Turtle
I have looked through the accession books and can record that Quercus coccifera palestina did indeed arrive from Kew in June 1923, and is without doubt the plant on the lawn. Kew did not keep records of exact provenance information on such donations, so a search there will be unlikely to tie the two plants together.
However it is worth noting that the material that arrived was a potted plant (arrival was June).  Acorns do not survive long and unless sown within a few months they die from dessication. So they could not have been ‘held over’ for planting like many other plants. There are several possibilities for the origin of the Glasnevin tree:

1. 1. C.F. Ball’s acorns had grown to fruiting size by1921/22, so that the plant was a young seedling.
   2. The seedling that arrived was in fact 6-7 years old.
   3. The tree has a quite independent origin from a fresh(er) seed batch received at Kew, or
   4. The seedling is from an older tree in the collections at Kew.

My honest opinion is that 3 or 4 are the most likely scenarios, even though 1 or 2 would make a wonderful story, the time line makes this improbable.
best wishes
Matthew

Seamus O’Brien concurred: ‘I’d say it would be pretty much impossible. Seven years would be a long time to hold over an oak in a pot, generally 3 to 4 years is the longest, after that its roots are compromised.’