HUGH FITZJOHN MASSY (d. 1770) AND THE INGOLDSBY KIDNAP

My Massy ancestors were, by and large a ruthless lot. They occupied large parts of Counties Limerick and Tipperary and pretty much did as they pleased, considering themselves to be firmly above the law, both moral and civil. 

The Hole in the Wall Gang, who hid out in the Big Horn Mountains, Wyoming, between crimes. Just like the Massys.

Take Hugh Fitzjohn for example, a nephew of my 6x great grandfather. He wanted a wife. More precisely, he wanted the money that a wealthy heiress would bring as a dowry if he were married to one. So he just went out and took one – and I don’t mean that in the archaic patriarchal sense of “taking a wife”. He stole one that not only didn’t belong to him but may well have belonged (in the archaic patriarchal sense) to another man.

Frances Ingoldsby was the daughter of another big landowner. The Massys and the Ingoldsbys had fought alongside each other during Cromwell’s suppression of the Irish, and had both been rewarded with large tracts of Irish land. Their shared history seems to have counted for nothing however when, late on the 13^th November 1743, Hugh and a group of his friends and relatives forced their way into the rectory where Frances was staying. The Rev Thomas Royse, a relative of Frances by marriage, was helpless when menaced by the Massy party, which abducted Miss Ingoldsby and took her to a Massy stronghold in the Galtee Mountains.

The Galtee Mountains, home of kidnappers

Things got too hot for Hugh, however, when a reward was placed on his head. Travelling secretly with a reluctant prisoner cannot have been easy, but Hugh fled with Frances to France – Bordeaux to be precise. There, it seems, either Hugh’s charms or his brute force won Frances over; and reluctantly or otherwise the pair were married.

They returned to Ireland the following summer, perhaps because of the imminent birth of their first child Catherine – conceived, one imagines, under less than romantic circumstances. Hugh was tried twice for the kidnap of Frances, once in Cork and once in Limerick. But such was the power and influence of the Massy family in the region that he was both times acquitted. A claim by a servant in the Ingoldsby household that he and Frances had been secretly married before her abduction was never proved. The claim may have been a desperate attempt by the Ingoldsby family to invalidate Hugh’s marriage to Frances.

Frances and Hugh had another child, a son Hugh Ingoldsby Massy, in 1749. Perhaps the middle name was an attempt to patch things up between the two families. Frances died only six years later in 1755. Hugh Fitzjohn Massy died in 1770, and his son followed him to the grave only a year later at just 22 years old. Even at that early age Hugh junior left a widow, and one hopes very much that he won his bride with rather more finesse than his father won his mother.

I have the bare bones of this story mostly from Frank Tracy’s splendid study of the Massys’ history in Ireland, If Those Trees Could Speak. There is a much more detailed account of Frances Ingoldsby’s kidnap in a widely praised book by Toby Barnard, The Abduction of a Limerick Heiress.

PAUL BRASIER (active 1611-1649) AND THE COLERAINE QUAY

Paul Brasier, who first brought the Brasier family to Ireland, is an ancestor by marriage. (His great grandson Kilner Brasier married Elizabeth Massy, a granddaughter of my 8x great grandfather Hugh Massy!) Paul was part of the Ulster Plantation, the largest of the mass settlements of Protestant Englishmen and women in Catholic Ireland for the purpose of suppressing revolt against British rule, which took place in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Apart from his place in the family tree we don’t know a great deal about Paul. He arrived in Ireland in 1611 and settled in Coleraine, a fortified town founded by his fellow settlers (known as undertakers because they undertook the settlement mission) on behalf of the Corporation of London. Operating as The Honourable The Irish Society the corporation established the new city of Londonderry at the same time. 

One of sixteen archive boxes containing the remains of the Irish Society’s Great Parchment Book

Much of what we do know comes from an extraordinary survival. Most of the Irish Society’s early records were destroyed in a fire in London’s Guildhall in 1786. A survey of the Society’s estates in Co Derry undertaken in 1639 survived, but its parchment pages were so badly warped, shrivelled and damaged as to be completely unreadable. Despite that, it was kept in the archives because of its rarity and historic value.

In 2010, as the quatercentenary of the building of Londonderry’s defensive walls in 1613 approached, an ambitious project was launched to restore the Great Parchment Book and make it readable. Restoration alone could not smooth the crumpled pages enough. University College London developed some innovative corrective imaging techniques to straighten out the text digitally, finally revealing detail of the lives and works of the undertakers which had been lost for over two hundred years. The whole thing, images and transcriptions, is available online with an index of people, places and organisations – a wonderful resource. 

Paul Brasier’s name occurs several times in the book, principally as a member of a consortium commissioned by the Crown to build a riverside wharf in Coleraine. The book records in some detail the terms and conditions of the commission. It must be a minimum size,

from the full sea or high water mark down into the said river sixty foot at least and twenty foot at least in breadth, and the said quay or wharf shall be walled on the outsides next the water with good, sufficient, and strong timber

and the consortium must not use cheap materials; they

shall laid forth and expend in and about the building and making of the said wharf forty pounds sterling at the least.

Coleraine quay c1890
 

In return for building this commercial asset to the town, the consortium could run and develop the quayside facilities

at their proper costs and their dues, to make, erect, build, and fully finish one crane and cranehouse on any such part of the aforesaid wharf as shall be most convenient

and thereby, it was to be hoped, make their money back; they

shall have and hold all profits, commodities, duties, and payments belonging to the said quay, wharf, and crane for the term of one and twenty years from the feast of Phillip and Jacob now last past, for and under the yearly rent of forty shillings sterling for the last twenty years of the said one and twenty years payable unto his Majesty, his heirs and successors.

Coleraine quay c1980, before redevelopment as a branch of Dunnes Stores

So the King was getting his cut. And that was the purpose of the Great Parchment Book. Charles I, whose predecessor James VI/I had started the Ulster Plantation, needed money and confiscated the Irish Society’s Ulster holdings after accusing it of not paying the Crown its due. The book was a record by the King's Commissioners of what was taxable, what could (in today's terms) be monetised. Undertakers now found themselves with meaningless titles and astronomical rents to pay to the Crown, and many returned to mainland Britain in disgust.

It sounds as if Paul Brasier and his partners were hoping to profit by doing business with the new regime. It is certainly true that, at the same time that disillusioned undertakers were leaving the plantation, the Brasier family’s land holdings now began to increase. In 1649 he received a further grant of land in Ulster, presumably not from Charles I who had been beheaded in January that year but from Charles’ executioner Oliver Cromwell. It is tempting to speculate that Paul was being rewarded for having survived the gruesome massacres of Protestant settlers in the Irish uprising of 1641 – an uprising which my 8x great grandfather Hugh Massy helped to suppress, and massacres for which Cromwell would exact a terrible revenge.

ERASMUS SMITH (1611-1691) AND THE DROGHEDA SCHOOL

My 8x great grandfather Austin Cooper, Austin the Settler as he is known in the family, was the first Cooper in my family tree to settle in Ireland, which he did in 1661. His father held a position in the court of Charles I and Austin’s children were all born at Hampton Court, the royal palace on the Thames. At Hampton Court Austin married his bride, my 8x great grandmother Mary Dodson. Mary was a niece of the great Irish educational philanthropist Erasmus Smith, my 10x great uncle.

Erasmus Smith (1611-1691)

merchant, philanthropist

Austin remained a royalist during the English Civil War, and his move to Ireland despite the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 was the result of his having bought property from a Cromwellian officer (the real estate equivalent of sleeping with the enemy). Erasmus Smith on the other hand was a staunch republican, a shrewd merchant who supplied Cromwell’s armies with food rations, particularly during those armies’ ruthless campaigns of suppression in Ireland. One can’t help wondering how Austin and Erasmus got on.

While Austin the Settler had to sell up in England for only £1500 and start from scratch in Ireland, his uncle-in-law Erasmus amassed vast estates there. Erasmus received 666 acres of confiscated Irish land from a cash-strapped Cromwell, in lieu of payment for his services to the army. Many English officers in the same position were very happy to sell him their unwanted Irish land for ready money. By the time of his death his original 666 acres had been expanded to the tune of some 19,000 acres.

Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) (1656, painted by Samuel Cooper, no relation)

and Charles II (1630-1685) (c1670, painted by Peter Lely)

After the restoration, when Charles II was installed on the throne, Erasmus Smith – unlike Austin Cooper – was able to retain his Cromwellian holdings. One of the keys to his success was an annual £100 donation to Charles II’s favourite school, Christ’s Hospital (now in Sussex, but from 1552 to 1901 in London itself). He also won favour by his establishment in 1669 of an educational Trust, funded by part of the income from the Irish estates. Such a charitable act, he convinced his former enemies, could hardly be rewarded by the confiscation of the very estates which funded the charity.

Erasmus was a pious protestant, who believed – like many of the protestant dominations which emerged during Cromwell’s regime – that education was the key to godliness. He was convinced that the Irish rebellion of 1641 (whose suppression his rations fuelled) was the result of poor education.

Erasmus Smith’s idea of education was to teach children “fear of God and good literature and to speak the English tongue.” To this end he put money into two existing Dublin institutions, Trinity College and the Kings’s Hospital School; and founded three grammar schools, at Templemore, Galway and Drogheda.

Templemore Christian Brothers School

formerly Erasmus Smith’s Grammar School (building of c1820)

Drogheda had been the scene of one of the worst of Cromwell’s atrocities in 1649, a massacre of thousands of Catholic Irish men, women and children in which I’m sorry to say another of my 8x great grandfathers General Hugh Massy may have had a hand. The memory of the event was still fresh and raw when Erasmus established Drogheda Grammar School only twenty years after it; excluding Catholic children from it cannot have helped local feeling.

Galway Grammar School (building of 1807)

after its restoration by Yeats College in 2006

Of Erasmus Smith’s three grammar schools, Templemore in Tipperary is now a Catholic school run by the Christian Brothers. Galway’s closed in 1958, but the derelict building has recently been restored and now forms part of Yeats College. Drogheda Grammar School is now run on Quaker principles for children of all faiths and none. It will celebrate the 340^th anniversary of its opening in 2019.

Drogheda Grammar School’s former premises, the two red-brick buildings in which Samuel Cooper was a schoolboy. They were built 1730-1740 and demolished in 1989. The school moved to a new rural campus in 1976 (picture from www.geograph.ie)

In the 1760s when Drogheda Grammar School was approaching its first centenary, one of its pupils was my 4x great grandfather Samuel Cooper (1750-1831), great great grandson of Austin the Settler. Samuel could have called Erasmus his 6x great uncle, and I wonder if he was aware of the relationship. Probably not, after four generations – but when Samuel grew up, he became a professional estate manager; and amongst his portfolio were the estates of the Erasmus Smith Schools Trust.

MAJ GEORGE GODFREY MASSY WHEELER VC (1873-1915) AND THE INHERITANCE OF BRAVERY

I was musing earlier this year about non-genetic disposition – in the case of some of my Protestant Irish ancestors, their tendency to be assassinated. It’s that old question of nature versus nurture: obviously assassination is not genetic, but the behaviour which leads to it may be inherited, just as a man may mistreat his wife because he learned that behaviour from his father. I find a more noble example of nurture, of imparted behaviour repeating itself across the generations, in my cousin G.G.M. Wheeler.

Major George Godfrey Massy Wheeler was the grandson of Major General Hugh Massy Wheeler of Cawnpore. Cawnpore became the rallying cry of British troops fighting back against the Indian Rebellion of 1857, after the town was the scene of a long siege and short but ruthless massacre. Hugh Wheeler was the officer commanding the town when Indian troops under his command rose up and besieged the British civilian and military population. Hugh was forced to accept an untrustworthy promise of safe passage as conditions worsened in the British garrison, and led the survivors of the siege to awaiting boats at the river’s edge, where they were treacherously slaughtered.

Major General Hugh Massy Wheeler of Cawnpore (1789-1857)

The major-general, his wife, a son and a daughter all died in the Cawnpore Massacre, along with another cousin of mine, Captain Robert Urquhart Jenkins, and 890 others of the 900 British in the town. Whatever you think of British imperialism, Wheeler conducted himself with noble dignity in an unwinnable situation. His actions became a by-word for bravery among the ranks of the Indian Army, in which in time both his son General George Wheeler and his grandson George Godfrey Massy Wheeler served.

In April 1917 G.G.M. Wheeler found himself part of a British force of 7000 encamped at Shaiba, southwest of Basra in Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq). War had broken out in the region largely to protect the interests of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, and now the Allies (represented principally by elements of the Indian Army) were ranged against the regular and irregular forces of the Ottoman Empire.

Major George Godfrey Massy Wheeler of Shaiba (1873-1915)

On 12^th April 18,000 Ottoman troops attacked the British camp. They were repulsed, and in a heroic counter-attack Wheeler led out the cavalry in an attempt to capture an enemy flag. As he withdrew, the entrenched Ottoman forces emerged and pursued his men across open ground, where British artillery were able to inflict heavy losses.

The following day, unfortunately, his confidence having been boosted by the previous evening’s success, he tried the same manoeuvre in a different part of the battlefield. Fired up, he rode off towards the enemy’s standards, but soon outstripped his men. Too far ahead of them to call on their support when he got into trouble, he was killed; and without his leadership, the attack failed.

An Indian cavalryman of the 7^th Hariana Lancers, the troops commanded by Major G.G.M. Wheeler

Elsewhere, the Arab irregulars who made up the vast majority of the Ottoman force were scattered by British counter-offensives. The remaining Ottoman troops regrouped in a strong defensive position overnight and by 4pm on the 14^th April British soldiers were running out of water and bullets with little to show for their efforts. It was a surprising bayonet charge by the Dorsetshire Regiment which turned the tables, restoring British energy and confidence for one last assault on the Ottoman positions. 

Perhaps their do-or-die spirit was inspired by Wheeler's earlier actions. The Ottoman troops crumbled and fled the battlefield in what proved to be a turning point in the Mesopotamian campaign – it gave Britain the initiative once more and discouraged Arab alliance with the Ottoman Empire. Wheeler was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross, the highest British award for military gallantry, for his deeds and example. His grandfather (who died before the introduction of the VC) would have been proud.

Having set out to tell the simple tale of a grandson like his grandfather, I promptly found that G.G.M. Wheeler is not the only Wheeler recipient of the Victoria Cross. Maj George Campbell Wheeler (1880-1938), also serving in the Indian Army, won one in 1917 for another action in Mesopotamia. I cannot so far uncover their relationship, but there must be one. Perhaps they were siblings, and perhaps G.C. Wheeler learned HIS bravery from the example of his older brother G.G.M. Wheeler.

RICHARD CHADWICK (1800-1827), THE BRIDGE AND THE GRACE-MARA VENDETTA

My 4x great uncle Richard Chadwick was murdered in circumstances remarkably similar to those surrounding the death of his cousins Austin Cooper and Francis Wayland twelve years later. Do such things run in families? In a sense yes – all three men were killed in their inherited roles as members of the hated ruling protestant class in Ireland.

Richard worked for his uncle Billy Sadleir as a land agent for the township of Rathcannon in Tipperary (Rathkennan on some of today’s maps), west of Holycross. Billy was a major landowner in the county and a leading Orangeman in Tipperary town, and Richard was according to one account “firm” in his dealings with Billy’s tenants.

Rathcannon, near Holycross, Co Tipperary

scene of rebellious acts in 1827 and 1848 which led directly to at least two murders,  eight hangings, and eight transportations

For “firm” read “ruthless.” Rents at that time were paid in the form of tithes to the protestant Church of Ireland, something which stuck in the craw of Catholic tenants. The Catholic Association was formed in 1823 to agitate for change, and its members did so through non-payment of rent. In 1827, two years into the job, Richard met such tactics by simply evicting tenants; they in turn responded by setting fire to houses and haybarns.

Richard was also the local magistrate; and his next move in the so-called Tithe War was to arrange for the building of a police barrack at Rathcannon. If he hoped that this would deter the Association’s activities or help to monitor them, he had badly misjudged the mood (just as Francis Massy, another cousin did, eleven years later). At noon on 30^th June 1827 he oversaw the cutting of the first sod for the new building. On his way from the site to Holycross with his building foreman Philip Mara, his road was blocked by two gunmen. One ordered him to “give yourself up, you rascal,” and the other, favouring actions over words, shot him twice at close range.

“Oh Mara, I’m shot, I am killed,” Richard cried, and died. As Mara ran off, he saw the second gunman searching Chadwick’s clothing, from which he stole promissory money notes and Richard’s gun. He used this to fire a third shot into the lifeless head of his victim.

Paddy Grace was hung on a portable gallows at the site of his crime, the last man in Ireland to be so executed

Mara identified the gunman as Paddy Grace, a popular local activist already known to the authorities as a troublemaker. When Grace was arrested at dawn the following morning, and the stolen notes were found in his possession, his fate was sealed. He was tried and convicted in Clonmel on 17^th August before a jury of Orangemen and the sentence of death by hanging was carried out with great haste only three days later.

Of course the gunmen were not acting in isolation. Other men walking with Richard Chadwick as he left the site withdrew before the shooting, leaving him alone with Philip Mara; and after it, no one came running from either Rathcannon or the next village Bohernacrusha, although both were well within earshot. It was as if they all knew what had just happened. Mara himself, as Chadwick’s foreman, may have tipped the assassins off about his boss’s movements, then turned informer on Grace when he realised that he would come under suspicion.

Piery Grace, who had held his dead brother in his arms at the gallows, began to gather a gang of heavyweights to take revenge on Mara (the key witness to Paddy’s act, and now under protective custody) by killing his three brothers. They murdered one, Daniel Mara, in a house at Bohernacrusha, on 1^st October 1827; the other two only escaped the vendetta when the authorities spirited them out of the country for their own good. The gang of twelve was eventually caught: six, including Piery, were hanged, and six more transported to Australia.

A cartographical footnote to the story:

The sentencing of Thomas Meagher, Terence McManus and Patrick O’Donohue after the Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848 – death was commuted to life transportation

Twenty years later, when the Dublin-Cork line of the Great Southern and Western Railway was laid through the area, a bridge over it was built on the road (the modern R661) and at the very place where my 4x great uncle was shot. A year later, messrs Meagher, Leyne and O’Donohue, three leaders of another secret society, Young Ireland, were arrested on the bridge after a failed uprising. Meagher and O’Donohue were transported in 1849; and Leyne was eventually hung in 1854. The crossing is known to this day, perhaps surprisingly, not as Grace’s, Meagher’s, Leyne’s or O’Donohue’s but as Chadwick’s Bridge.