Captain George Berkeley Descriptive List (Ref. PR12)

PR12/

Context

Archival History Collection reference PR12 consists of the papers of Captain George Fitzhardinge Berkeley (1870-1955).

Biographical History George Fitzhardinge Berkeley was born in 1870, the only child of Major George Sackville Berkeley. He was educated at Wellington and Keble College Oxford. In 1899 he married Caroline Isabel Mason (d. 1933). Served in Great War 1914-19 as Brigade Musketry Officer, also with 3 cavalry res. regt. and on Claims Commission in France and Italy. Justice of the Peace in Oxfordshire 1906-1937. Married his second wife, Joan Weld, in 1934. Member of Vincent's (Oxford) and Kildare Street (Dublin) clubs. Resided at Hanwell Castle near Banbury, Oxfordshire, England. Died 14 November 1955.

Publications include an article in ‘ Home rule problems ’ , Ed. by Basil Williams, (London, 1911). Also ‘The Irish Batallion in the Papal Army of 1860’ (1930).

In November 1913, the Irish Volunteer Force (I.V.F.) was founded. A national committee was formed with Eoin MacNeill as Chairman, Bulmer Hobson as Secretary and Sir Roger Casement as Treasurer. In the Spring of 1914, Volunteer Corps were formed across Ireland. In 1914, a committee met in London to consider how to provide arms for the I.V.F. The members of the committee were included Sir Alexander Lawrence, Capt. George Fitzhardinge Berkeley, Mary Spring-Rice, her cousin Conor O'Brien, Erskine Childers and Darrell Figgis. Between them they subscribed £1,524 and Figgis was sent to Hamburg in order to purchase arms. The arms were purchased. Erskine Childers on his yacht "Asgard" (now on display in Kilmainham Jail, Dublin) and Conor O'Brien on his yacht "Kelpie" set out to bring the arms to Ireland. On July 25, 1914, Erskine Childers, Mary Spring-Rice and two Donegal fishermen landed 900 Mauser rifles and 29,000 rounds of ammunition safely at Howth. Conor O'Brien also landed 600 Mauser rifles and 20,000 rounds at Kilcoole, Co. Wicklow. In August 1914, the First World War started. John Redmond, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, urged the members of the I.V.F. to join the British Army and to fight in Flanders in his now famous speech in Woodenbridge, Co. Wicklow. This caused a split in the I.V.F.

- 3 -