Orders, Decorations & Medals - British Groups

Lot 3631    Session 12 (11.30am Thursday)    Orders, Decorations & Medals - British Groups

Estimate $4,500
Bid at live.noble.com.au
SOLD $8,000

GROUP OF NINE: The Most Honourable Order of the Bath, Companion (CB) neck badge; The Royal Victorian Order, Member (MVO) breast badge; The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, Commander (CBE) Military (1st type Britannia); The Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem in England (Grade II) Knight of Grace breast star (previously [Grade VI] Esquire of the Order, neck badge); King's Police Medal (GVR) (1st type coinage head); British War Medal 1914-18; Visit to Ireland Medal 1903, with suspension brooch but missing back bar and pin; Coronation Medal 1911; Visit to Ireland Medal 1911. The first four medals unnamed, Wm. V.Harrel. M.V.O. Assist. Commr. Dublin Met. Pol. on fifth medal, Commr. W.V.Harrel. R.N.V.R. on sixth medal, W.V.Harrel. M.V.O. Asst. Comm. D.M.P. on seventh medal, last two medals unnamed. The fifth and seventh medals engraved, the sixth impressed. Extremely fine.

OStJ (Esquire) to William Vesey Harrel, Esq: LG 31/3/1899, p2159. OStJ (Knight of Grace) to William Vesey Harrel from Esquire: LG 15/8/1902, p5327. RVO (Member 4th Class) to William Vesey Harrel, Esq, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Dublin: LG 11/8/1903 p5057. CB (Ordinary Member of Civil Division 3rd Class, Companion) to William Vesey Harrel CB, MVO: LG 14/6/1912, p4298; also Edinburgh Gazette 18/6/1912, p628. Temporary Commission in RNVR as Commander to William Vesey Harrel CB, MVO: LG 4/5/1915, p4264. CBE (Military Division) to Commander William Vesey Harrel CB, MVO, RNVR: LG 1/4/1919, p4196, ’For valuable services on the Staff of the Commander-in-Chief, Queenstown.’ KPM to William Vesey Harrel MVO, Assistant Commissioner, Dublin Metropolitan Police, for ’Twenty-four years’ service distinguished by success in administration and by special political and secret services. He has also rendered service on the occasion of Royal Visits.’ The KPM was personally presented to Asst Commissioner Harrel by His Majesty the King at St James’s Palace at 11am on 23 February, 1911. Together with numerous papers and research documents including a copy of the 72-pages of Minutes of Evidence of the Royal Commission into the Landing of Arms (Gun Running) at Howth, about 4 miles from Dublin on 26 July 1914; p154-167 of the book ’A Short History of the Irish Volunteers’ by Bulmer Hobson, Vol 1 (as passed by censor), 1918; also documents relating to the KPM; copies of London and Edinburgh Gazette entries; copy of the Roll for RN, RNVR, RNAS showing British War Medal 1914-18 is sole entitlement; copies of Police Service records and other relevant documents. William Vesey Harrel was the son of Sir David Harrel GCB, GBE, KCVO, PC (Ire), appointed Chief Commissioner of the Dublin Metropolitan Police in 1883 and then Under-Secretary for Ireland in 1893 until 1902 when he retired due to ill health. He did however sit on a number of tribunals and voluntary bodies including service as Chairman of the Interim Court of Arbitration on industrial matters from 1918-1919. Thus, his son William was well connected. On 9 April 1886 at the age of 19, and with no previous employment, he entered the Royal Irish Constabulary as a Cadet, advanced to 3rd District Inspector on 24 May 1886 and 2nd District Inspector on 8 February 1890. Some of his postings include;- appointed to the Divisional Commissioner’s Staff C.O. Mullingar 20 August 1893; appointed Crime Special Office Dundalk from 1 June 1895; appointed Private Secretary to the Inspector General 9 September 1897; appointed Inspector of Prisons in Ireland from 29 September 1898. As well, Harrel was favorably mentioned in records on 25 August 1887 for good police service on Eviction Duty and also on 9 July 1890 for service in connection with the Dowra murder case. In January 1902 William Harrel was appointed Assistant Commissioner of the Dublin Metropolitan Police operating out of Dublin Castle. In this role he was one of the principal participants in the confrontation with about eight hundred Irish Volunteers armed with illegal weapons landed at 12.30pm at Howth on 26 July 1914 and marching towards Dublin. The events following the landing resulted in troops from the King’s Own Scottish Borderers being called out as well as additional constables from the Royal Irish Constabulary. At about 4.30pm, Assistant Commissioner Harrel, together with officers from the Dublin Metropolitan Police, intercepted the marchers at Malahide Road whereupon the leaders of the Volunteers had a parley with the Assistant Commissioner who demanded that they give up their rifles. They refused and so they were informed that the military were on hand, armed and prepared to fire if need be. In his evidence to the Royal Commission, Serjeant Sullivan stated, ’He (Captain Cobden of KOSB) gave an order to his men to load; and accordingly at that point the rifles of one hundred of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers were loaded. And when we come to a later period you will find that they were never unloaded until they reached the barracks at a much later hour in the evening; and still more regrettable, the senior officer who subsequently took command over the hundred men, marched them through the city with loaded rifles. The Volunteers having refused to give up their rifles at Mr Harrel’s summons, there was a scuffle of some kind at the bottom of the Malahide Road, first between the police and the Volunteers in a somewhat futile endeavour of a handful of police to disarm eight hundred men; and eventually the military, or part of them, engaged in the scuffle, and some bayonet wounds were inflicted on the Volunteers, so the order to fix bayonets must have been given prior to that event, because some Volunteers were wounded with the fixed bayonets of the military. Two revolver shots were fired, as I am instructed, not by the Volunteers, but from a group of bystanders behind, who I am unable to identify. I need not here say that these manoeuvres on a Sunday in that neighbourhood attracted a large number of people, because Dollymount and Clontarf are favourite resorts of the people on summer Sundays. And there was a large crowd behind the soldiers. From this group two revolver shots were fired, and two of His Majesty’s soldiers were injured thereby. The net result of that scuffle - for it could hardly be described as anything else - was that nineteen rifles out of the eight hundred, were taken from the Volunteers. Their leaders were again in parley with the Assistant Commissioner, and while they were debating with him the propriety or the impropriety of the proceedings, the rear ranks of the Volunteers dispersed and disappeared, and the result was that when Mr Harrel closed the negotiations he found that the body of the Volunteers had completely disappeared from the neighbourhood along with their rifles, leaving behind them the two front ranks of unarmed men facing the police and the military.’ Then the Dublin police and Royal Irish Constabulary left and the army soon after marched back to barracks. During the march they were subjected to considerable jeering, hooting and scoffing by the crowd which followed them. Some missiles were thrown at them and on occasions the rear ranks made bayonet charges on the following crowd. This continued until they reached Bachelor’s Walk and a full blown confrontation ensued which resulted in the death of three civilians, and about forty to fifty persons wounded between great and small but seriously wounded were thirty two persons. The official inquest into the incident reported very adversely upon Assistant Commissioner Harrel’s actions and led to the scapegoat suspensions of Harrel and Major Haig of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers. The feeling against the KOSB in Dublin was very bitter and the battalion was confined strictly to barracks and subsequently they were transferred to the Western Front. For many years thereafter the Irish Nationalists referred to the battalion as the King’s Own Scottish Butcherers. In a report in the New Zealand newspaper, Hawera & Normanby Star, 28 July 1914 headed ’The Deplorable Dublin Incident. Mr Birrell’s Statement, Assistant-Commissioner Of Police At Fault’. At a meeting of Nationalist in the London House of Commons presided over by Mr Redmond, Mr Birrell stated that ’Mr W.V. Harrel, Assistant Commissioner of Police, has requisitioned the military on his own responsibility. Mr Harrel had been suspended pending an enquiry. Mr Redmond said Harrel ought to be hanged...’ Another report in The New York Times, 2 October 1914 states, ’Orders given by police official responsible’. It then reports on the findings of the Royal Commission which found that the employment of the police and military was not in accordance with the law. The report further says that, Assistant Commissioner of Police Harrel was responsible for the calling out of the military and for the orders issued to the police. On 4 April 1915 William Vesey Harrel was gazetted as Commander, RNVR and on 26 April posted ’Colleen’ addl. for Intelligence Duties on the Staff of the Vice Admiral, Queenstown. He was awarded a CBE (Military) ’for valuable service on the Staff of the Commander in Chief, Queenstown.’ He was demobilized from 1 November 1919. In Harrel’s application for superannuation, it states that he ceased duty with the Dublin Police on 19 November 1914 and that, ’Except as regards the events connected with the applicant’s removal from Office to which reference is made in Irish Office letters of the 23rd October and 19th November, 1914, to the Treasury, I certify that Mr. William Vesey Harrel discharged his duties with diligence and fidelity to the satisfaction of the Head Officers of his Department’ signed by Under Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, Dublin Castle, 27 November 1914. William Vesey Harrel died on 4 May 1956, aged 88, and is buried at Deansgrange Cemetery, Dublin, South West Section, Part one, N.138.