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Born County Longford. Could you let me know if he features in your tree, (he may do in mine???) thanks, gill
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Hi there - you can check in Search Trees to see if he features in any other trees on this site
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is this him?
Henry Wilson's Career
A soldier from the early 1880s, Wilson rose to the command of the Staff College at Camberley, Surrey (1907-10). During this period he cultivated the friendship of his counterpart at the French war college, General (afterward Marshal) Ferdinand Foch; an association that may account for Wilson's readiness to involve Great Britain in French strategy. He played a dubious part in the Curragh incident (March 1914), surreptitiously encouraging some British army officers who refused to lead troops against Ulster opponents of Irish Home Rule.
On the outbreak of World War I, the British government chose Wilson's policy of fighting in France alongside French armies in preference to attacking the German invaders in Belgium, the strategy of the commander in chief, Field Marshal Earl Roberts. Wilson agreed with Roberts, however, on the necessity of military conscription (not instituted until 1916). The smooth mobilization of the standing army and its rapid movement to France in August 1914 may be credited largely to Wilson's prewar planning.
Wilson himself soon went to France as assistant chief of the general staff. His only field command in the war (December 1915-December 1916) was marked by the loss to the Germans of a sector of Vimy Ridge, near Arras, by his IV Corps. In September 1917 he took over the Eastern Command, a position that enabled him to live in London and ingratiate himself with Lloyd George. As chief of the imperial general staff (from Feb. 18, 1918), he aided the prime minister in securing Foch's appointment as supreme commander of the Allied armies on the Western Front.
Disagreeing with the government's postwar Irish policy, Wilson, who had been promoted to field marshal and created a baronet (1919), was refused reappointment as chief of staff by Lloyd George. Wilson then left the army and entered the House of Commons as a Conservative member for the Ulster constituency of North Down (all in February 1922). During May 1922, Wilson was working in Ulster, advising the Northern Irish Government on policing the new border. He was also an eloquent speaker on behalf of Anglo-Irish Unionism.
Murder of Henry Wilson
On the morning of 22 June 1922, Wilson was returning to his home in Easton Place (London). He had just unveiled the war memorial at Liverpool Rail Station, in London. He had paid his taxi driver, and was feeling for his keys, when two men came up behind him, pulled out revolvers and shot him down as with an arm wounded by the first two bullets he half drew his sword. His two murderers fired a total of nine bullets at Wilson before attempting to escape. They were eventually captured half a mile away from Eaton Square.
Wilson's body had been laid on a couch in his study. Bernard (later Sir) Spilsbury, the famous pathologist, arrived at the scene and carried out his examination of Wilson's body. Wilson, aged 58, had been shot in the left forearm, twice in the right arm, twice in the left shoulder, in both armpits, and twice in the right leg. Both armpit wounds had fatally pieced Wilson's lungs.
In the period leading up to the trial of the two suspects, a police guard was placed on Spilsbury's house and another police officer was detailed to follow Spilsbury.
The two suspects were identified as Reginald Dunne (also known as John O'Brien) and Joseph O'Sullivan (also known as James Connelly). Both suspects were members of the IRA and aged 24 years' old. O'Sullivan had lost a leg at Ypres in the First World War, and this had hampered his escape from the scene. Instead of fleeing the scene on his own and possibly making his own escape, Dunne stayed to try and aid O'Sullivan.
The Aftermath
Both suspects were tried together with the murder of Sir Henry Wilson, before Mr. Justice Shearman, at the Old Bailey on 2 July 1922. Spilsbury was able to precisely describe where the murderers had been standing in relation to their victim and even the order in which some of the shots had been fired.
In his notes, Spilsbury wrote
Wilson was not shot after he had fallen. All nine wounds were inflicted when he was erect or slightly stooping, as he would be when tugging at his sword-hilt. The chest injuries were from shots fired at two different angles: one from the right to left and the other from left to right. Either would have proved fatal and produced death within ten minutes. The bullet through the right leg passed forwards and downwards, and therefore the shot came from directly behind. That in the top left shoulder had been fired from the left side and rather behind, and the downward direction proved that the arm was in a raised position as the bullet entered. The wounds in the forearms were inflicted from behind whilst the arms were still at the side of the body.
Both Dunne and O'Sullivan were found guilty of murder, and sentenced to death by hanging. On 10 August 1922, both men were hanged together in a double execution at London's Wandsworth Prison. As was usual for executed prisoners, they were both buried within the prison grounds. In July 1976 the remains of Dunne and O'Sullivan were repatriated to Irelandand reburied in the republican plot at DeansGrange Cemetery.
Sir Henry Wilson was buried in the crypt at St. Paul's Cathedral, located in the City of London. As Sir Henry Wilson had no children, the baronetcy became extinct upon his death.
The Memorial to Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson (Stephen Stratford 2002)
The war memorial unveiled at London's Liverpool Street Rail Station can still be seen today.
A plaque was added after Wilson's death, to commemorate his unveiling of this memorial on the morning of his murder. The inscription on the tablet reads "To the Memory of Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson Bart, GCB, DSO, MP Whose death occurred on Thursday 22 June 1922 within two hours of his unveiling the adjoining memorial".
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if you google as I did you will find a photograph of him on the front of a book which you can get from Amazon
Description
Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, an Irishman who in June 1922 was assassinated on his doorstep in London by Irish republicans, was one of the most controversial British soldiers of the modern age. Before 1914 he did much to secure the Anglo-French alliance and was responsible for the planning which saw the British Expeditionary Force successfully despatched to France after the outbreak of war with Germany. A passionate Irish unionist, he gained a reputation as an intensely 'political' soldier, especially during the 'Curragh crisis' of 1914 when some officers resigned their commisssions rather than coerce Ulster unionists into a Home Rule Ireland. During the war he played a major role in Anglo-French liaison, and ended up as Chief of the Imperial General Staff, professional head of the army, a post he held until February 1922.
After Wilson retired from the army, he became an MP and was chief security adviser to the new Northern Ireland government. As such, he became a target for nationalist Irish militants, being identified with the security policies of the Belfast regime, though wrongly with Protestant sectarian attacks on Catholics. He is remembered today in unionist Northern Ireland as a kind of founding martyr for the state.
Wilson's reputation was ruined in 1927 with the publication of an official biography, which quoted extensively and injudiciously from his entertaining, indiscreet, and wildly opinionated diaries, giving the impression that he was some sort of Machiavellian monster. In this first modern biography, using a wide variety of official and private sources for the first time, Keith Jeffery reassesses Wilson's life and career and places him clearly in his social, national, and political context. Reviews
"An admirable biography which does justice to its subject without glossing over his faults and limitations...impressive"--Brian Bond, Times Literary Supplement
"Erudite, carefully researched and considered biography"--Maurice Hayes, Irish Independent
Product Details
344 pages; 4 maps, frontispiece, 8 plates;
ISBN13: 978-0-19-923967-2
ISBN10: 0-19-923967-3
About the Author(s)
Keith Jeffery is Professor of British History at Queen's University, Belfast, having previously been Professor of Modern History at the University of Ulster. He has been Parnell Fellow in Irish Studies at Magdalene College, Cambridge, and a Visiting Scholar at the Australian National University and the Australian Defence Force Academy.
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