Notes on the Blackley Family

PART FOUR

Mccalmont and Harrison once attended a dance at some hotel and absconded themselves in armchairs in front of a fire each with his brandy beside him.  Harrison said,  "This is rotten brandy, Jimmy" and each threw his measure into the fire.  There was a sudden blaze which caught the curtains and in a few seconds the room was alight.  One of them rang the bell and when a waiter appeared said, "Put out this fire".  The fire brigade was summoned and the flames brought under control,  when Harrison was heard to remark "Very lucky we were here to give the alarm, Jimmy". King Edward VII,  while Prince of Wales,  came over to stay with the Londonderrys  at  Castle  Stewart.   Before  dinner  one night the Prince accidentally knocked over some silver ornaments and proceeded to pick them up and replace them.   John Harrison adjusted his  eye-glass and watched him with interest and seeing that one piece had escaped the Prince's notice,  he nodded helpfully towards it saying "Another piece here".

In 1898 my father married Ethel, daughter of Col. E. W. Cuming of Crover, Ballyjamesduff,  who had  commanded the  79th  (Cameron)  Highlanders and had served with them in the Crimea.  She was one of nine brothers and sisters.   Her brothers were what Wavell has described as far ranging wildfowl, their lives devoted to service, sport and adventure, and her sisters married men of the same type.  My uncle E.D. Cuming himself a writer of note, and the greatest authority of his day on R.S. Surtess, has written a record of the family, which is in my possession.

Alas, as has so often happened in the last fifty years, the last of them, my cousin Eric Cuming,  was killed when just twenty,  while commanding D.    Company of the 1st Battalion, Royal Irish Fusiliers in their last action in 1918.  A boy of great promise he had by then won a Military Cross and Bar and it is believed in the family that he was considered for a still higher award.

I was born on 10th March, 1899 and two days later my mother died of a blood-clot.  She lies buried beside her parents in Ballymachugh Churchyard near Crover.  A little more then two years later my father married Ida, daughter of Richard Allen, a Cavan solicitor, whose wisdom and kindness had gained  for him universal regard and affection.   Unfortunately he did not transmit these amiable qualities to his daughter, and the marriage was not a happy one.  Ida set out to bring me up as her own son.  Any reference to the Cumings was taboo and of course I was never allowed to go to Crover, a rambling family house on the shores of Sheelin where my grandmother lived on until 1909.  A policy of appeasement led my father into accepting this insane arrangement which not only cau~ed me much childish unhappiness but prevented me from meeting any of my mother's family until I was over 21.  My sister Oonagh was born in 1904.

A word about Drumbar where I lived for my first 22 years may be of interest.  It was originally the Farnham dower-house and is rather smaller than Currane.  Our staff consisted of a cook, parlour maid and housemaid. A laundry woman came to wash once a week.  And our outside staff consisted of a coachman and a gardener.  There was never any difficulty in getting staff.  If one became a casualty a letter to a Registry Office in Dublin produced an immediate replacement.  The cook was paid £22 per annum and the others to scale.  It should be remembered however that labour-saving devices (main water supply, electric light, Aga cooker, washing machines, vacuum cleaners,  refrigerators,  motor  transport)  did not exist.  Our water was pumped by hand from a well daily and our light was provided by oil lamps.  Our range of visiting was within the radius to be reached with a horse and trap and explains why on a return to Cavan in 1947 I knew so little of the country beyond that radius.

Owing to its physical characteristics Cavan was not a hunting country and our chief recreation was shooting in winter and tennis in summer. My father was, like Lord Farnham, a fierce Ulsterman and Orangeman and in the years just before the first War, carried a strong influence among those who armed and drilled and organized to prevent the coercion of Ulster under Irish Home Rule.  Irishmen have long memories and he paid the price after the war when the British Government with Lloyd George at their head  abandoned  the  Loyalists  in  an  attempt  to buy  peace with the extremists.

The Irish rebellion which took place in 1916, was badly mismanaged by its organizers and was put down without much difficulty and it was not until 1919 that the malaise which followed brought Sinn Fein out again as an active force and from then onward circumstances became increasingly unpleasant.  To quote from an obituary in the Times, they ·'forced Lord Farnham to leave Ireland, abandon his home and with his family to submit to exile.  For two years a detective,  tactful but not to be eluded, followed them round to provide police protection.  For his land agent there was neither exile nor police protection and he remained at his post while troops, Black and Tans, and R.I.C. were successively withdrawn; meanwhile his mail used to bring pictures of coffins and that detestable weapon of  Irish 'patriots',  anonymous threatening letters.   These used to arrive at breakfast and were of course concealed from his family.

But they made no noticeable difference to the characteristic gusto with which he attacked his bacon and eggs.  The climax was reached on the night of 8th April, 1922 when a murder gang of about 25 armed men carrying rifles and apparently Mills bombs (I picked one up afterwards) came and broke into the house.  By a stroke of fortune my sister and stepmother were away and I was home from Oxford; another piece of luck was a full moon in a clear sky which illuminated our attackers.  My father and I, sleeping with our revolvers under our pillows, (such were the times) were awakened by the barking of our dog shortly before midnight and saw our assailants outside the front door.  They hammered on the door calling upon my father to open it.  It would have been easy but bad tactics to shoot their way into our glass porch.  I remember those minutes waiting for them to break down the doors as the worst of my life, but when battles was joined all fear left me.  At such close range it was almost impossible to miss even with weapons of such inaccuracy and after we had fired nine shots they drew off carrying their dead and wounded with them.  Of their intentions there can be no doubt.  Only a few months before, they pulled out Dean Finlay of Bawnboy, an old clergyman of 79 years and shot him in front of his wife.

Thus ended our life at Drumbar and we were, I think, lucky to get out of Ireland alive.  For the next few years my father had a house at Pinner and worked with Leckhampton until my stepmother's behavior passed the limits of human endurance and with the assent of her daughter and myself my father left her and spent the remaining 13 years of his life in rooms in Ebury Street and at the Junior Charlton Club where I enjoyed many happy evenings in his company during my leaves from the Sudan.  He died on 31st Jan. 1938 and is buried in Brookwood Cemetery.

Fred and Humphrey married soon after the 1914-1918 war and brought great happiness to themselves and to our family by their marriages.  Fred went into practice in Bristol, and during the war joined the R.A.M.C., winning a mention in dispatches.  After the war he joined the Ministry of Health and was stationed at Exeter and afterwards at Southampton.  A keen horseman and fisherman, he contrived to find time to hunt up to 1914 and to fish up to the end of his life.  On reflection I would say that he had the most balanced temperament of us all and inherited from his mother more than his share of her reliability.  He died on 5th Nov. 1948, and is buried at Southampton.

Humphrey  began  his  medical  career  as  assistant  to  Dr.  Lumsden  in Guinness's  brewery  and  in  1914  became  a  partner  in  a  practice  at Warminster.  He too served with the R.A.M.C. and then returned to resume his  practice.   Both  he  and  Fred  lived  in  lovely  houses  and  were unfailingly generous in the hospitality shown to my father, myself and my family.  After the second world war Humphrey returned to his old haunts and at the date of writing he and Joyce are living at Fitzwilliam Lodge, Blackrock, Dublin. And Mary, Fred's widow, is living at 17 Herbert Park, Dublin.

Winnie died in London in 1912.  I did not know her well but I remember being much impressed at the time by Gaggie telling me that all her life she had never told a lie.  This struck me as unusual.

Vera married in 1912 Hubert Hamilton whose sister Mary afterwards married Fred.  He was a barrister of some distinction and later became a County Court Judge under the Irish Free State.  They had for many years a house in Burlington Road and later bought back Moyne,  a lovely house near Durrow, with 600 acres of land which had originally been a Hamilton property.  Hubert died on 21st February, 1946 and his son Paul lives at Moyne while Vera is living at 9 Elgin Road, Dublin.

And there  I will  close  this  account of  family affairs down to and including my father's generation.   It has been made possible through the helpfulness and generosity of various members of the family who have given me papers on which these notes are largely based.  These will be preserved for passing to those who come after in the hope that one day some younger Blackley will add another chapter.   I would also record the great assistance given to me by Mr. Horace E. Jones of 20 Edgar Road, Sanderstead,  Surrey,  himself a Fellow of the Society of Genealogists who discovered and gave me the book on Blackley parish and produced other valuable information about the Travers and Blackley families.