Dr. Patricia Marsh: Queen’s University, Belfast
Dr. Marsh will be giving a talk entitled “The Spanish Influenza Pandemic in Antrim and Down 1918-1919” at Bangor Library on Thursday 21st February 2019 at 7.30pm, and Lisburn Road Library on Wednesday 27th February 2019 at 6.30pm 6.30 to 7.30 p.m.
Towards the end of the First World War in June 1918, a fatal influenza epidemic not only hit troops in the western front but also the civilians throughout the world. Although the exact mortality figures are unknown, it was responsible for the deaths of more people than the First World War[1] and in 2002 the global death toll of the pandemic was estimated to be approximately 50 million.[2] Although called the ‘Flanders’ grippe ‘by English soldiers’; ‘Blitzkatarrh’ by the Germans; ‘the disease of the wind’ in Persia; the name it became commonly known as was the ‘Spanish Influenza.’[3] So why Spanish influenza? The neutrality of Spain during the First World War meant that there was no newspaper censorship in that country and consequently reports about the disease were published not only in Spanish newspapers and also in the worldwide press. The Times reported 100,000 victims in Madrid of an unknown disease responsible for 700 deaths in 10 days, which had caused disruption to public services, offices and factories. King Alfonso XIII of Spain and other leading politicians were among those afflicted.[4] It was these reports that gave rise to the erroneous impression that influenza had originated in Spain, leading to the misnomer Spanish influenza. However, the Spanish themselves called it the soldier of Naples.[5]
The disease, however, did not originate in Spain. One theory is that the pandemic originated as early as the winter of 1916, on the Western Front at the British Army camp at Étaples. The outbreaks at Étaples were diagnosed at the time as purulent bronchitis but in retrospect they showed the same symptoms as the Spanish ‘flu. Dr Herbert French, author of the 1920 Ministry of Health Report was strongly of the opinion that the fatal cases from purulent bronchitis were likely to be the same as those of the pandemic.[6] It has also been suggested that the pandemic could have originated in China and that the movement of a very large number of workers from China to France during the First World War might have played a part in the pandemic’s development.[7] However the most popular theory was that influenza started in America. The earliest recorded outbreak of the disease was on 5 March 1918 among army recruits at Camp Funston, Fort Riley, Kansas. By the end of March it had spread to military training installations in several US mid-western and south eastern states and from here it travelled with the troops on the ships to the Western Front.[8]
The Flu in Ireland
Spanish influenza struck in three concurrent waves throughout the world and Ireland was no exception with three distinct waves of influenza, which occurred in June 1918, October 1918 and February 1919.[9] Speaking in 1920, the Registrar-General for Ireland, Sir William Thompson was of the opinion that influenza in Ireland was the worst disease of an epidemic nature since the period of the Great Famine.[10] The death toll in Ireland was approximately 23,000,[11] however this is a conservative estimate as not all influenza deaths in the country were registered and also some were registered incorrectly. The morbidity from the disease is more difficult to ascertain as no accurate records of incidences of influenza were kept during this period. However, Ida Milne suggests that as many as 800,000 people could have been infected in Ireland.[12] As many as 300,000 people could have been infected in the province of Ulster, where 7,582 people were recorded as dying from influenza. However, the death toll could have been much higher.[13]
The first recorded outbreak of Influenza in Ireland was on the United States Ship Dixie docked in Queenstown (now Cobh),[14] however this outbreak was confined to the ship as there were no reports of ‘flu in the town. The first wave proper was reported to be principally in Belfast and other districts of the north of Ireland.[15] First mention of influenza in the province appeared on 11 and 12 June 1918 in Belfast newspapers when a notice appeared regarding the re-opening, after influenza, of a department in James Mackie & Sons munitions factory situated in the Springfield Road.[16] Influenza spread from Belfast across the north of Ireland probably via the rail network. Elsewhere in Ireland there were also sporadic outbreaks at towns such as Ballinasloe, Tipperary town and Athlone. It is notable that these towns were situated near army bases as the general consensus was that ‘flu was brought to Ireland with troops returned home on leave or to convalesce from wounds and then spread via the rail network.[17]
The second wave originated in Leinster. Howth on the east coast appeared to be the entry point and was reported to be there as early as 1 October 1918.[18] From Howth it spread to Dublin and then throughout Ireland. In Ulster influenza was first reported in the naval port of Larne on 9 October 1918.[19] The disease did not reach Belfast until the end of October 1918.[20] Influenza spread to most Ulster towns during this wave and this was the most virulent wave in the province. County Donegal was badly affected during this outbreak, especially the Inishowen Union District, which had the highest death rate per thousand of population in Ulster.[21]
The third wave which started in February 1919, again originated in Leinster. It was first reported on 5 February 1919 in the Celbridge district in Co Kildare.[22] Initial reports of influenza in Ulster during this wave were in Holywood on 6 February 1919[23] and it was in Belfast by 18 February 1919.[24] Influenza visited most Ulster towns but in many such as Belfast, Lurgan, Larne, Newry and Dungannon this was a milder wave than those in 1918 and this may be because immunity was gained from previous waves. However, Dublin county and borough suffered severely during all three waves of the disease. County Donegal was again severely affected with a higher mortality during the third wave in 1919 than in both waves during 1918. This was also the case with other counties in the west of the country such as Mayo, Sligo and Galway.
Age distribution
There was an unusual age distribution for this pandemic as it targeted young adults in particular. Normally influenza kills the very young and the very old but Spanish influenza showed an unusual age distribution of deaths. Although there was still high mortality for the very young and very old there was also a very high mortality for the age group between 15 and 44.[25] In England and Wales mortality was concentrated among those aged 20 to 40 and especially those 25 to 35.[26] It has been suggested that this peculiarity helped to produce Britain’s ‘lost generation’ caused by not only from the high mortality among young men killed due to the war but also from influenza on the home front.[27]
In Ireland 55.5% of all influenza deaths in 1918 were of those aged between 15 and 45.[28] In 1919 more than 58% of the total influenza mortality was between the ages of 20 and 65.[29] Figure 1 is a graphical representation of the age-specific influenza death rates for Ireland comparing 1918 and 1919. It shows that the age-specific death rates for Ireland followed the global trend of targeting young adults and that during 1918 it was those aged 25 to 35 who suffered the highest mortality of any age group.[30] The Irish figures also show that infants under one year were also at particular risk during the pandemic. This was hardly surprising as, even without epidemic disease, the urban areas of Ireland such as Dublin and Belfast suffered from one of the highest infant mortality rates in the United Kingdom due to infection and poor diet.[31]
Figure 1: Graph comparing the age-specific influenza death rates for Ireland for 1918 and 1919
Why was the pandemic so detrimental to 25 to 35 age-group?
One theory was that elderly people had gained immunity to the 1918-19 pandemic due to previous exposure to the influenza epidemic of 1847-48 which may have been caused by a similar H1 virus.[32] Another is that young adults were more likely to attempt to work through illness, thus maximizing their risk of succumbing to influenza.[33] It has also been suggested that many of the age group 20-45 had been soldiers living in miserable conditions on the western front which would have lowered their immunity, but the same death rates were seen in young people in countries unaffected by the war.[34] However, the answer may lie in a scientific study that took place in 2007, which suggested that the strong immune systems of young adults overreacted to the 1918 virus causing this particular age group to be at the most risk during the pandemic.[35]
Read Part 2: Spanish Influenza in Ulster
[1] Howard Phillips and David Killingray, ‘Introduction’ in Howard Phillips and David Killingray (eds.) Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918-1919: new perspectives (London, 2003), pp 3-4.
[2]Niall P.A.S. Johnson and Juergan Mueller, ‘Updating the Accounts: Global Mortality of the 1918 –1920 “Spanish” Influenza Pandemic’ Bulletin of History of Medicine. 76 (2002),, p. 115
[3] Pete Davies, Catching cold: 1918’s forgotten tragedy and the scientific hunt for the virus that caused it (London, 1999), p. 58.
[4]The Times, 3 June 1918.
[5] Davies, Catching cold, p. 58.
[6] J. S. Oxford, ‘The so-called Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918 may have originated in France in 1916’ Phil. Trans. Royal Society London 356 (2001), pp 1857-1859.
[7]Christopher Langford, ‘Did the 1918–19 influenza pandemic originate in China?’ Population and Development Review 31:3 (2005), p. 492.
[8] K. David Patterson, and Gerald F. Pyle, ‘The Geography and Mortality of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic’, Bulletin of History of Medicine 65 (1991), p. 5.
[9]Annual report of the Local Government Board for Ireland for year ended 31 March 1919, [Cmd 1432], H. C. 1920, xxi, 1, p. xxxvii.
[10] William J. Thompson, ‘Mortality from influenza in Ireland’ Dublin Journal of Medical Sciences 4th Series 1 (1920), p. 174
[11]Patricia Marsh, ‘The Effect of the 1918-19 Influenza Pandemic on Belfast’, ( M.A. thesis, Queens University Belfast, 2006), p.42
[12]IdaMilne, ‘Epidemic or Myth?: The 1918 Flu in Ireland’. (M.A. thesis, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, 2005), p. 35.
[13] Patricia Marsh, ‘The effect of the 1918-19 influenza pandemic on Ulster (PhD dissertation, Queen’s University Belfast, 2010), pp 42-57.
[14] United States Navy Department, Annual report of the Secretary of the Navy, Miscellaneous reports (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1919), pp. 2423-4.
[15]Annual report of the Local Government Board for Ireland for year ended 31 March 1919, p. xxxvii.
[16]Belfast Evening Telegraph, 11 June 1918; Belfast News-Letter, 12 June 1918.
[17] Marsh, ‘The effect of the 1918-19 influenza pandemic on Ulster, p, 67
[18]Irish Times, 1 Oct. 1918; Irish Independent, 1 Oct. 1918.
[19]Larne Board of Guardians Meeting, 9 Oct 1918 (P.R.O.N.I, Larne union minute book 1918, BG/17/A/132)
[20]Belfast News-Letter, 30 Oct. 1918.
[21] Fifty-fifth detailed annual report of the Registrar-General (Ireland), pp. v.
[22]Irish Independent, 5 Feb. 1919.
[23]Holywood Public Health Committee meeting, 6 Feb 1919 (P.R.O.N.I., Holywood Urban District Council minutes, LA/38/9AA/3)
[24]Belfast Board of Guardians meeting, 18 Feb. 1919 (P.R.O.N.I., Belfast Union minutes, BG/7/A/101).
[25]Andrew Noymer and Michel Garenne, ‘The 1918 influenza epidemic’s effects on sex differentials in mortality in the United States’, in Population and Development Review, 26:3 (2000), pp. 566-67.
[26] Herbert French, ‘The clinical features of the influenza epidemic 1918-19,’ pp. 90-1.
[27] Niall Johnson, Britain and the 1918-19 influenza pandemic: A dark epilogue, (London/New York, 2006), p. 84.
[28] Thompson, ‘Mortality from influenza in Ireland’, p. 183.
[29]Fifty-sixth detailed annual report of the Registrar-General (Ireland), p. xvi.
[30] Mortality figures calculated from Fifty-fifth detailed annual report of the Registrar-General (Ireland), p xvi and Fifty-sixth detailed annual report of the Registrar-General (Ireland), p. Xvii
[31] Ruth Barrington, Health, medicine and politics in Ireland 1900-1970 (Dublin, 1987), p. 75.
[32] Christopher Langford, ‘The age pattern of mortality in the 1918-19 influenza pandemic: An attempted explanation based on data for England and Wales’, in Medical History, 46 (2002), p. 15. Ann H. Reid, Jeffery K. Taubenberger, Thomas G. Fanning, ‘The 1918 Spanish influenza: Integrating history and biology’, in Microbes and Infection,3 (2001), p. 83.
[33] Johnson, Britain and the 1918-19 influenza Pandemic, p. 88.
[34]Reid, Taugenberger and Fanning, ‘The 1918 Spanish influenza’, p. 83.
[35] Kerri Smith, ‘Concern as revived 1918 flu virus kills monkeys’, in Nature, 445 (18 Jan. 2007), p. 23.
Following the Great War Armistice signed on 11th November 1918 various peace treaties were signed during 1919. These culminated in a series of ‘Peace Rally’s’ 
Cost is as follows. Postage will be by 1st class.
George Washington Wesley Watson 1852 – 1929
However, George Washington Wesley Watson’s first wife, Margaret Maria, died on 22 March 1894 (at The Moat, left), and three years later he re-married, this time to his cousin, Eliza G Watson, of East 34th Street, New York, daughter of William Watson, a successful dry goods merchant of West Farms, Westchester County, New York. William had emigrated to America earlier in the century.
Because of the short time that the couple spent in Ireland, Wesley put “The Moat” on the market and he was approached by Robert John McConnell, a successful estate agent and property developer from Belfast. Upon purchasing the property, he subsequently named the Baronetcy conferred upon him by Queen Victoria during her visit to Dublin, after the house – 1st Baronet McConnell, of the Moat, Strandtown (1900) – the same year that he served as Lord Mayor of Belfast
These superior dwellings would have housed the burgeoning middle class, such as solicitors, merchants and physicians, who would have had several servants to tend to the family’s needs looking after a large house over four floors. Although there have been many changes to the thoroughfare over the past 200 years, three of the fine terraced houses can still be seen on the north side of the street occupied by such names as Solo Restaurant and the Oasis Gaming Centre
It was against this dramatic change in urban living that a property developer of the time, acting on behalf of a private client, acquired a narrow plot of land in 1885 next to Young’s Linen Warehouse for the purposes of erecting a four-storey building which would service the needs of an ever-expanding metropolis. It was built of red brick over five floors with a distant ornamental gable. When it was finished it was one of the tallest buildings on the street and must have looked very impressive compared to the Monumental Sculptor’s Yard which stood on the site before. It was designed as a private residence over 5 floors … but who could afford to have such a sizeable property designed for their own use?
The first occupant of 29 Wellington Place in 1885, was Doctor Joseph Nelson, MD; L.R.C.S.I (Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland). This was no surprise as the area around RBAI (Inst) on College Square was known as the ‘Harley Street’ of Belfast. Dr Nelson would have used the ground floor as his consulting rooms and used the upper floors as his private residence. Two doors up, was the residence of Dr. J. Cumins, Professor of Medicine at Queen’s College (now Queen’s University), so the importance of the area by the time Queen Victoria bestowed the Charter of a City upon Belfast in1888 should not be underestimated.
By 1901, Wellington Place was further becoming more commercial in nature. The former large houses were further converted for use as small hotels to serve the thousands of travellers arriving into the Great Northern Railway terminus (the main line from Dublin) on Great Victoria Street (now the site of the Europa Hotel). It was however chosen as the location for the City of Belfast YMCA, an enormously important organisation of the time for the development of young people by the Church of Ireland. It housed the Café Royale, one of the largest and most important meeting places for the people of Belfast.
One significant lodger at the home of Dr and Mrs Nelson was a young man from Comber, Co Down, by the name of Thomas Andrews. Although he came from a wealthy background, Thomas entered the shipyard of Harland & Wolff as a ‘gentleman’s appretice’ in 1889. Part of his training was to attend the nearby Municipal College of Technology (now John Bell House) when he studied maritime architecture. In order to do so, he stayed up in Belfast during the week at Wellington Place on the top floor of No 29, returning to Comber by train at the weekends. His studies led him to become a member of the Institution of Naval Architects, after which he became Managing Director of Drafting at Harland & Wolff. Thomas Andrews is best remembered as being the Chief Designer for RMS Titanic, built at Harland & Wolff for the White Star Line in 1912. He was selected to be part of the ‘guarantee group’ aboard RMS Titanic when she set off on her maiden voyage, but was lost at sea along with 1500 other passengers and crew when the ship sank in the early morning of April 11, 1912. The rest is legend …
Dr Nelson happily remained at his consulting rooms and residence at 29 Wellington Place but nearby, one major change in the area in 1906, saw his fellow physicians and surgeons on College Square leave the area in large numbers – the building of the Municiple College of Technology (now John Bell House) in the grounds of Royal Belfast Academical Institution. RBAI had almost gone bankrupt, and in a desperate attempt to raise funds, sold off the former lawns of the school to the Corporation of Belfast for the building of the new college. The surgeons and physicians felt that the area had degenerated as a result and they took themselves off to University Square beside Queen’s University which they considered to be much more prestigious.
29 Wellington Place remained the residence of Dr Joseph Nelson from 1885 until his death on 31 August 1910. His importance to the medical profession in Ireland was enormous, serving as President of the Ulster Medical Council for the session 1898-1899. However, as a young man, and after studying at Queen’s, he set sail for Italy where he obtained a commission from Garibaldi’s “Regimento Inglese” to fight for Italy’s unification. He was later presented with two medals for gallantry by the King of Italy. After gaining his MD at the University of Ireland in 1863, he once again took off, this time to India, where he became a surgeon on a tea plantation before becoming a tea planter in his own right. He returned to Belfast in 1885, where he was appointed the first ophthalmic surgeon to the Royal Hospital, where he held classes for students at 8:00 am daily. He regularly entertained his fellow surgeons and members of the Ulster Medical Society with his wife, Elizabeth at 29 Wellington Place over a period of 25 years. They had two daughters and one son, and lived comfortably with a staff of 4 servants: a housekeeper, a nurse and two domestic servants.
By the 1920s and 30s, Wellington Place had secured for itself a prominent place in the commercial life of the city. Many of the leading architects who shaped the face of Belfast had their offices here, in addition to the leading insurance companies of the day, distributors, stock and share brokers and solicitors. Mrs Nelson sold up following the death of her husband and what had previously been a family residence was converted into showrooms for Craig & Paton, Ltd., Laundry, Electrical and General Engineers: Telegraphic Address, “Rotary, Belfast” with the upper floor being occupied by the offices of the Belfast War Pensions’ Committee. The ground floor (which today has been authentically restored for Student Roost) had a modern 1920’s shop front added, but the building retained its unique first floor ‘running’ roof.
During the war years, many different organisations and professions occupied the 5 floors of 29 Wellington Place. Due to aerial bombing of Belfast during the Second World War, many businesses had to relocate from their destroyed premises, one being Robert Patterson & Sons whose Bridge Street store was destroyed in the Luftwaffe Blitz of Easter Monday, 1941. Patterson’s were Ironmongers, Mill Furnishers, Ship Furnishers, and Engineers and traded on Wellington Place until their premises were rebuilt in 1946.
Sadly, after 104 years of trading on Wellington Place, 
Plans were drawn up create a purpose-built managed student accommodation (PBSA) comprising 114 studios and 203 cluster rooms (317 units in total) to be named Swanston House with its main entrance at 29 Wellington Place.
Swanston House, managed by Student Roost, opened in August 2018 at 29 Wellington Place.
Queen Street, unlike its more upmarket neighbours to the north and west such as College Square and Wellington Place, was originally called David Street, this information coming from leases granted by the Donegall estate at the time. By 1819, it was being developed, roughly on the old town defences, hence the angle at the crossing of College Street, which would have followed the line of the town walls.
The original houses would have been substantial, but without the grandeur of those found on nearby Donegall Square beside the White linen Hall (now City Hall) and College Square beside Royal Belfast Academical Institution (Inst). As the 19th century progressed, Queen Street did however play host to some very important buildings, both commercial and institutional. The most notable of these was The Belfast Hospital for Sick Children which was established in King Street in 1873 and moved to new premises on Queen Street in April 1879.
Another important building on Queen Street of the period was the Working Man’s Institute and Temperance Hall built on the corner with Castle Street. Before the days of the internet, this building contained a library of ‘upwards of 3000 carefully selected works’ in addition to a lecture hall where talks and concerts were provided “to check the increasingly bad effects of the music saloons”, where alcohol would have freely been available. This was the beginning of the Temperance Movement which was set up by both the churches and industrialists to counteract absenteeism from the workplace, particularly in the mills and factories of the day.
From an early age, Swanston showed a keen interest in geology, becoming a member of the highly esteemed Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society (founded 1821) and the Belfast Naturalists Field Club which he joined in 1868. The Society met in one of Belfast’s most historic buildings, The Old Museum, which is located on College Square North just across from John Bell House. Working with Charles Lapworth, later Professor of Geology at Birmingham (the home of Student Roost)
It was his business interests that brought him to Queen Street. Having formed a partnership with Thomas Bones, the two men set about establishing a linen shirt, collar and cuff manufacturing business. Since the 1850’s Belfast had become the largest producer of articles of linen manufacture in the world. The partnership of Swanston & Bones provided the manufacturers of linen clothing with the accessories they required to complete the finished products before exporting them out of the port of Belfast to every part of the Empire and the civilised world. Their first manufactory was based at 50 King Street (adjacent to Queen Street) where they made shirt collars and cuffs.
Soon the partners began to look around for larger premises and found a plot of land on the corner of Queen Street and College Street upon which was a small cottage and garden, one of the last of its type in the city. Upon purchasing the land, they commissioned one of the leading architects’ practices of the day, Young & McKenzie to design a new manufactory and warehouse for their growing business.
The new building extended along Queen Street towards Wellington Place. In addition to the plot of land with the cottage and garden, the partners also acquired four Georgian houses and a cabinet manufactory belonging to Messrs McCutcheon.
Swanston, a Scot by parentage, also demonstrated great affection towards his adopted country. Shamrock and thistle motifs are found both on the entrance and in the pediment. A similar show of his fondness for Ireland is found in his bookplate which incorporates round towers, the Giant’s Causeway, a dolmen, a harp and most prominently the castle at Carrickfergus.
Mr Swanston developed the entire site with an imposing frontage of 150 feet to Queen Street and 80 feet to College Street, and in the process formed five distinct warehouses; Swanston & Bones taking occupation of the most prominent corner site. A semi-circular tower on the corner topped with a steeply pitched conical roof rose to a height of 75 feet, being originally covered in green slates and surmounted with a weather vane (now removed).
And so, William Swanston had achieved his dream of establishing a successful business, along with his partner, at the same time erecting one of the most impressive buildings in the city centre. The status of a city had been conferred upon Belfast in 1888 during a visit to Ireland by Queen Victoria, just two years before Swanston House was built.
Although he was extremely proud of his new premises, the partnership soon outgrew even this building, and the company built a new shirt, collar and cuff manufactory on the Limestone Road, which he called the Mountcollyer Factory (below). By 1901, his son Robert had joined him in the business, looking after the warehouse side and distribution of the company’s products across Europe. Swanston was by this time 59 years old, but still took an active part in the day to day running of the firm. They developed a laundry on the site which would have serviced other linen manufacturers in the city and to collect and deliver the products, the company built up a fleet of motorised vehicles, some of the earliest in the city. Such goods would have previously been moved around the city by horse and cart.
In 1901 the Singer Manufacturing Co moved into number 43 Queen Street, where they would remain for several decades to follow until the early 1970s. Founded in New York in in 1851 by Isaac Merritt Singer, the company’s sewing machines would go on to revolutionise home manufacture of clothing for the next 165 years. These were distributed all over Ireland from the company’s warehouse on Queen Street, managed by Mr James Marshall, having been manufactured in the UK at the company’s factory on Clydebank in Scotland, which was opened in1867.
At Clydebank, with nearly a million square feet of space and almost 7,000 employees, it was possible to produce on average 13,000 machines a week, making it the largest sewing machine factory in the world (right)… another first, along with the largest shipyard, ropeworks and linen thread manufactory, all of which could be found in Belfast!
He left an estate in probate worth £10,414, approximately £680,000 today.
The other half of the building was also converted for retail becoming the showrooms of EDCO – the Educational Company Limited. This was and still is, Ireland’s leading educational publisher, and retailed all sorts of media for students and teachers before the days of the Early Learning Centre. Perhaps it was the advent of Competition from these new retaillers, that by 2005, both busineses had decided to cease trading on Queen Street and Swanston’s buildings became vacant and unloved.
Work commenced in August 2016, demolishing the interiors of what had become a very unstable set of buildings (above). Using the latest construction support systems, the original Victorian façade was held in place, whilst the new building was erected floor by floor over the next two years. The new building, to be known as Swanston House was completed in August 2018 – the accommodation comprising of 317 bed spaces in a mixture of cluster bedrooms and studios located in a 7-storey low rise section and a 13-storey tower (see left).
William Swanston would be proud of the impressive and beautiful conversion of the building that still bears his name today, managed by Student Roost, one of the most dynamic student accommodation providers in the UK. You’re more than welcome!
This article commemorates the memory of Lance-Corporal Hugh McNeill of the Royal Marine Light Infantry who died on 21st June 1918, 100 years ago today. 
According to naval records, Hugh McNeill was born in Belfast on 5th January 1881. Hugh enlisted on 7th July 1899 and served in the crushing of the Boxer Rebellion (10th June to 31st December 1900) in China, for which he was awarded the China War Medal (1900). He subsequently served on 
Hugh McNeill then served with a Royal Naval Air Service’s Armoured Cars unit under Commander Charles Rumney Samson RN between 10th September 1914 and 17th October 1914 before returning to the Royal Naval Division. Following a period of furlough, an interview with Hugh McNeill was published in the Ballymena Weekly Telegraph in May 1915 in which he spoke highly of the “pluck and daring” of Commander Samson, particularly in engagements with roving units of Uhlans (Light Cavalry, with a Polish military heritage), saying that, “the Germans had come to greatly dread and fear Commander Samson and his gallant men”.
As early as February 1915, local newspapers reported that 150 artillery pieces captured from the Germans were in London and that they would be presented to districts, “which had done good work in the cause”, after the war. However, during the period of the war some war trophy guns were displayed in locations in the north of Ireland – two machine guns captured by the Ulster Division were sent to Londonderry (November 1916) and Portadown (July 1917) and a field gun was on temporary display in Belfast in 1916.
In March 1925, the Northern Whig reported that Enniskillen Urban Council had removed the German gun from the Diamond and the same newspaper reported, in December 1926, that the two guns outside the gaol were, “to be placed at the rear of the old gaol (out of the public view)”. In September 1927, the Belfast News-Letter reported (see inset) that Sir Basil Brooke had written to Enniskillen Urban Council requesting the guns for Colebrooke House and Brookeborough. The Colebrooke House gun has been on display at Enniskillen Castle since February 1976.
On 2nd October 1935, the Belfast News-Letter reported that Bangor Borough Council had decided to sell the Kingsland trophy gun for scrap, a decision which incurred the wrath of the Bangor Branch of the British Legion, which submitted a letter of complaint. The council subsequently reversed its decision.
The Northern Whig and the Belfast News-Letter both reported on discussions in the council chamber concerning the gun. Mr Robert McAfee expressed the opinion that “the town Ballymoney was deserving a better trophy. lt is 32 years ago since it was manufactured, and I question whether it was in the late war at all. It is like a piece of down pipe of spouting set on two wheels”. The field gun was placed on a pedestal in the small green at the Town Hall.
In Omagh, there was opposition from Nationalist councillors on the urban council to the trophy gun that was to be sent to the town by the War Office. In March 1923, Mr Orr spoke in favour of receiving the guns, saying that, “this was a matter above party or politics, as the men of their local regiment, the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, of which they were proud, belonged both to the Orange and Green flag”. Two months later, the Mid-Ulster Mail reported on the ongoing wrangle between rival councillors. Mr McLaughlin said, “the council should never have considered the question of taking the gun at all, as the feeling of the majority of the members was totally against”. 
In October 1923, the Ballymena Observer reported that the German guns sent by the War Office to Ballymena had not received a fulsome welcome by Ballymena Urban District Council. The Clerk said the guns they had received – one howitzer and one Maxim – were not suited to the importance of the town. They had been promised two field guns and a machine gun but had only received one field gun and a machine gun. The Chairman remarked, “if we are to have war trophies for the Memorial Park let them be something presentable. Other towns of much less importance than Ballymena have been able to secure something better than derelict German machine gun for their Parks”. One of the councillors, Mr Craig, went further saying, “What do we want with them, a lot of German rubbish?”.
Carrickfergus Urban District Council had requested two field guns and two trench mortars. However, the War Office offered a heavy field gun, a field gun and a machine gun but sent two heavy guns. These guns lay in the London Midland & Scotland Railway Company’s yard in Carrickfergus until 1929. Although they were never put on public display, the council spent £40 cleaning and painting the guns. In November 1929, the LMS Railway notified the council that the guns had to be removed within two weeks, prompting the council to send an ultimatum to the War Office stating that, “unless Carrick is relieved of its cannons they would be sold as scrap”. On 3rd December 1929, the Northern Whig reported that the council had accepted a tender of £12 [approximately £700 today] from O & T Gallagher of Corporation Street in Belfast.
In Dungannon, the trophy gun was pulled into position outside the British Legion’s new club premises for the Armistice Day commemoration in 1923. Six years later, due to bus traffic, the gun was moved from Market Square to a position overlooking the ex-Servicemen’s houses on Empire Avenue. In late 1937, Dungannon Urban Council considered a proposal to sell the gun for scrap, but this met with opposition from the British Legion and ex-Servicemen, who decorated the gun with a Union flag and a notice declaring “Not for Sale Lest We Forget”. There is still a German field gun on display in the park on Black Lane, the site of Dickson’s Mill. The information panel at the site records that the gun had been purchased by the Dickson family at an auction of military artillery in the south of England in 1920.
A list of the locations in Northern Ireland that received trophy guns is contained in 
Marketing material of the time proudly proclaimed that “It is highly probable that no establishment in the City of Belfast is so well known in all quarters of the globe as the Imperial Hotel “
In the Preface to the book, Gavin says,
