THE LATE COLONEL LAURIE.
To the Editor of the "Irish Times."
Sir,
I was moved even to tears, which I trust were not unmanly, at your touching reference to the glorious death, last Sunday, of my dear, lamented friend, Colonel Laurie, who would, I had hoped, in the course of nature, have survived me for many a year. It may, perhaps, be of interest to your readers to know that this gallant soldier, who—I can speak with some knowledge—proved himself excellent in every relation of life, and who, felix opportunitate mortis, died for us and for our liberties at the head of a renowned Irish regiment—the Royal Irish Rifles—had, though not himself an Irishman, connections and associations with this country of which he was justly proud. His wife is a great granddaughter of the Right Hon. John Foster (Lord Oriel), the last Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. He himself was the great-grandson of an illustrious Irishman, Dr. Inglis, the Bishop of Nova Scotia, who was the first Anglican Colonial Bishop ever consecrated—a Trinity College, Dublin, man, and the son of a rector of Ardara, in Donegal. Dr. Inglis emigrated to America, and was, on the eve of the War of the American Independence, Rector of Holy Trinity Church, New York, then (and I believe now) the principal Anglican Episcopal Church in that city. Dr. Inglis was a pronounced loyalist. He was warned not to read the State prayers for the King and the Parliament. He disregarded the warning. His reading of those prayers was interrupted by forced coughs and sneezings and other manifestations of disfavour. He was then the recipient of many threatening letters. On the next Sunday his voice, when reading the obnoxious prayers, was drowned by a clattering of arms. On the Sunday following guns were actually levelled at him as he read the prayers quite undismayed, having, like his great-grandson, the heart and courage of a hero. Yielding to the entreaties of friends, he left New York for Canada, and on his return, more than twenty years afterwards, to New York, when Bishop of Nova Scotia, he disinterred a magnificent silver coffee pot which he had buried on the eve of his hurried departure, and found in the place he had left it. That coffee pot is a precious heirloom in Colonel Laurie's family. There is a brass tablet to the memory of Dr. Inglis in St. Patrick's Cathedral, erected there by the enthusiasm of Chancellor H.V. White, Rector of St. Bartholomew's, whose own ministry was for some years in the Colonies.
Colonel Laurie's father, General J.W. Laurie, C.B.[13], served with great distinction in the Crimea, where he was twice wounded; in the Indian Mutiny, and in the Transvaal. He was Honorary Colonel of the Royal Munster Fusiliers, and, having sat for some years in the Canadian House of Commons, was from 1895 till 1906 Unionist Member in the Imperial Parliament for the Pembroke Burghs, and a prime favourite with all sorts and conditions of men in the House of Commons. Colonel Laurie's elder brother, Captain Haliburton Laurie, who was one of the most deservedly loved men of his generation, fell in the Boer War in 1901. If he had not been a great soldier, Colonel Laurie would have been a great historian. His knowledge of history, more especially of military history, was profound, and his memory was singularly retentive. He had, moreover, a very sound judgment in the marshalling of facts. He had written with a pen of light the history of his regiment, which he loved, and which loved him, and on which in life and in death he had shed additional lustre.
Yours, etc.,
J.G. Swift MacNeill.
Dublin, March 20th, 1915.