Major Carew - who was he

[Carmania]

The citation for his MC is here.

Aled

[corisande]

Thanks Mark

I have added the extra info on Cambridge, I don't think he lasted too long there, has a commission in Shropshires in a few months after entering Magdalane.

Aled

I am grateful for tat MC citation, searched everywhere for it and just could not find it. LG index system has be beat sometimes.

[mhifle]

Hi,

This looks like him in the Gazette in 1873

Mark

http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/23983/pages/2719

The King's Light Infantry (Shropshire Regiment) formed 1 July 1, 1881, as the county regiment of Herefordshire & Shropshire, part of the Childers Reforms.

Renamed as The King's (Shropshire Light Infantry) in March 1882.

An amalgamation of the 53rd (Shropshire) Regiment of Foot and the 85th (King's Light Infantry) Regiment of Foot, which became the regular 1st and 2nd Battalions.

The 1881 reforms redesignated the militia and rifle volunteers units within the regimental district as battalions of the regiment.

The Shropshire Militia and Royal Herefordshire Militia became the 3rd and 4th (Militia) Battalions respectively, and the 1st and 2nd Shropshire Rifle Volunteer Corps became the 1st and 2nd Volunteer Battalions.

4th (Militia) Battalions based at Hereford

11 March 1885 4th Battalion Shropshire Regiment Light Infantry one of the two best shooting (Militia) battalions with a figure of 79.84

11 May 1885 4th Battalion Shropshire Regiment Light Infantry at Redhill for 27 days annual training and exercises

[IPT]

If Edith was indeed not guilty of "familiarity with Mr Earle", she presumably was by the time she married him two years later.

[janecavell]

If Edith was indeed not guilty of "familiarity with Mr Earle", she presumably was by the time she married him two years later.

Well spotted, IPT !!!

Corisande, it looks like Frank MMH Carew was 'economical with the truth' when it came to his age. There is a birth registration for him in the first quarter of 1865, Carmarthen district. The GRO index gives his name as Frank Murray Maxwell Morwell Carew. It is unclear whether Morwell is an alternative reading of Maxwell or a garbled version of Hallowell.

Since parents were allowed six weeks to register a birth, he could even have been born at the end of 1864.

On the 1861 census his father Benjamin Francis Hallowell Carew (then 29, with his occupation given as 'retired from the Army') was in Llanboidy, Carmarthenshire. His birthplace is given as Scotland which may explain why he has been difficult to track down. I haven't found him or his wife in 1871, when their children are 'home alone' (well, not quite alone, for there was a governess and numerous servants) in Wales.

Robert Hallowell Carew of Cornwall, who was named as Frank's guardian (for some legal purpose?) in the 1873 London Gazette, had been born in Ealing about 1821. Maybe Frank's uncle? He was also an army officer (shown as Major and Adjutant of Rifle Volunteers on 1881 census, for example). One of his sons, Walter Raymond Hallowell Carew, who went to Japan, came to a sticky end: he was poisoned by his wife (another Edith) in 1896. She was initially sentenced to death for his murder but her sentence was commuted to life imprisonment with hard labour. She was in prison in Hong Kong when she launched an unsuccessful appeal. By 1901 she had been transferred to a prison in England.

Well, I am getting way off topic now so had better stop. I'm still not convinced that Frank MM Hallowell Carew is your Major Carew but it has been very interesting finding out about him!

[corisande]

I'm still not convinced that Frank MM Hallowell Carew is your Major Carew but it has been very interesting finding out about him!

I think we could all agree with that. I have added the extra bits on him now - Photo was a nice find.

I have put in the bits about 4th Shropshire LI - one wonders if he owned up to being "removed for being absent without leave when he re-joined the army in 1914

The family, poppy3, are as you imply "complex". I drew the line under investigating the wonderful arsenic poisoning in Japan. I think the whole family were "economical with the truth". His father seems to have been bankrupted around the time of F M M H 's birth. But I drew the line under that

The big game expedition that went wrong is worth mentioning.

As you say the rub is whether this is the man or not. In my opinion the "Major Carew" I am seeking - that is the man involved in Sean Treacy's shooting on Talbot St, Dublin in 1920 and in taking on the IRA hot squad with his revolver on 21 Nov 1920 has to be a gazetted "Special Appointment" and this is the only Carew that I can find having been though the lot (problem with LG is that the software is not spot on all the time)

Certainly at least 2 of the others on this are Ireland Intelligence men. And I cannot find another Carew on Special appointments in 1920. The rejigging of intelligence in Dublin dates from the change in Administration in Apr/May 1920, and you can trace the men killed from that date and on special appointments. And a man who escaped but wrote an account of his intelligence work Jeune - was a special appointment.

It is back to Sherlock Homes and eliminating everything until what you have left must be the answer. To date this man is traceable from birth to death, and was in the tank corps and was a special appointment. I concede he was older than the average agent. But he appears to have been a tank company commander and heavily involved in fighting during WW1

It is quite addictive winkling all the little bis on him though!

[corisande]

...and..

The real Carew, whoever he his continues to elude me. I have started to read "The last days of Dublin Castle - the diaries of Mark Sturgis" and Carew pops up

"Major Carew, who must be a stout fellow - it was he who grappled with Treacy at the time he was shot - (I met him first years ago, and can't remember where) put up a good show and escaped. A party went to his house, he did not let them in and fired from a window hitting two - this lot made off and he escaped unharmed"

For the record this is not quite true - Carew was living over the road from a house in Upper Mount Street which was raided, and he fired at the attackers there

[johnny_doyle]

Frank Murray Maxwell Hallowell Carew dissolved a financial business in the late 1890's and seemed to embark on a career as a property developer. Little snippet here about him, his sons and wife :

http://www.deneroad.com/NorthwoodHistory.html

http://www.gellibrand.com/fam00280.html

Dont think he's your man.

Re the Major Robert John Henry Carew RFD, there are 3 MIC's for him on Ancestry; 2 as R J H Carew which give details of 2 Mentioned in Dispatches, 1/1/1916 and 1/6/1918. He died in Feb 1968; born 1888. Info re his family can be found here :

http://snap.waterfordcoco.ie/collections/e...0772/100772.pdf

http://thepeerage.com/p35257.htm#i352569

Definitely not your man.

I dropped an email to my father in law who has an interest in Sean Treacy (His father and uncle fought with him at Knocklong and other skirmishes; his uncle's wife and his grandfather were rounded up after the "Battle of Fernside"). His uncle was then in the US working for Harry Boland and involved in procurement and minor counter intelligence tasks. The father in law was none the wiser about Carew but is going to look at some of his papers.

No mention of Carew in "Fighting for Dublin" though there is an attempt to list those targetted/killed/escaped Bloody Sunday.

Not sure if you've come across this webpage before; touches on an element of the British Intelligence setup in Dublin

http://thompsongunireland.com/Hugh%20Pollard/pollard.htm

[corisande]

Hello Jonny Doyle

Surprised not to have seen you on this one before :-)

I have the stuff on property developing. My current page on Major Hallowall Carew is up to date

As you say the Waterford man is not my man. But I am still looking for evidence one way or the other that Hallowell is or is not the Major Carew of Dublin.

He certainly is the only Carew on Special Appointment, as on my post above, and I know for example that Lt P Attwood in the same block of 5, was in Intelligence (he is mentioned in Jeune's bit of British Voices)

The H Carew on that block of Special Appointments is certainly the man for whom I have constructed the life history. Right now the balance is that it is the man whom escaped the IRA and was also involved in the death of Sean Treacy

It is odd that the IRA never put out anything on Carew, as they must have known that he was the man in the Treacy death. One can tell from his grading (not rank) that he was one of the more senior intelligence men at the time.

If you have time could you give me the list from "Fighting for Dublin" of those targeted or escaped Bloody Sunday. I obviously know those who died. It is the others that are elusive, particularly as only their Surnames are usually given. Mind you if they did not have Carew inn the book, they could not have dug too deeply, he was high profile, blazing away from 28 Upper Mount St at the IRA across the road.

I have been in contact with the Thompson Gun man, he works for the Daily Mail, but his interest is confined to guns rather than events.

[IPT]

As much as I can coax out of Google snippet view;

Forth the banners go: reminiscences of William O'Brien

Another officer came along and said to Major Carew : "What are we going to do with this fellow? " pointing to me. " Mr. O'Brien and I are going down to have lunch," said Major Carew, very coolly. We had a small restaurant on the ground floor in Eden Quay, and we went down. He, or some of his officers, had been there and told the man in charge, Wilson, that they would all have lunch there. I sat at the table and had lunch. All the officers went off afterwards, except one, who apparently remained there for my benefit ! The raid commenced precisely at twelve o'clock and lasted until about 5.30 pm In the meantime we had a meeting arranged for twelve o'clock. Joseph McGrath was to be at it. He was manager of our health insurance department. Cathal O'Shannon was to be there also. They were a bit late and when they arrived the place was surrounded, not only by the Black and Tans , but by a huge number of people looking on.

[corisande]

Thanks very much for that - you did well to tease that out of the snippet, it is always quite a challenge. I sometimes go into the coding to see how they fire the random snip. It is annoying if you know what you want is there, but they are stopping you getting what you want.

In this case though, we seem to have the enigmatic Major Carew appearing yet again without an initial or Christian name.

[johnny_doyle]

would have commented earlier but got sidetracked into looking into the career of Admiral Hallowell Carew.

Fighting for Dublin is supposed to be the British account of events from 1919 to 1921 and while it carries lots of useful info I have the feeling that lots of info has been left out.

Less info than I thought re the 21st Nov :

Appendix C carries the following names and small biographies of officers killed November 1920:

Lt Col H F Montgomery

Major Charles Mile Cholmeley Dowling (wounded in the hand 1914; seriously wounded April 1918)

Capt L Price

Capt W F Newberry

Lt D L MacLean (wounded in the face during WW1)

Lt A Ames (Born and raised in America)

Lt H Angliss

Cadet F Garniss

and states that the personal service records for Capt G T Baggallery, Lt R G Murray, Lt G Bennett, Cadet C A Morris were not available.

re 21 November, it mentions the murder of 8 officers, 2 Auxiliaries and the wounding of 4 officers (2 mortally) then lists them in

Appendix II list of Casualties 21 Nov 1920

Killed

Major Dowling CMC

Capt L Price

Capt G T Bagallery

Capt W F Newberry

Lt D L Maclean

Lt A Ames

C A Morris RIC

F Garniss RIC

Wounded

Lt Col H F Montgomery (Died of Wounds) Royal Marine Light Inf GHQ

Lt Col W J Woodcock Lanc Fusiliers

Lt R G Murray (Died of Wounds) General List (late Royal Scots, TF)

Capt B C B Keenleyside Lanc Fusiliers

There is a write up of the op in Talbot St. Mention is made of 1 officer, 20 other ranks (Lancs Fusiliers) and an armoured car being sent from the Castle to Talbot St. "On arrival the alarm was given and it has been since ascertained that one of the rebels deliberately exposed himself in the street, opening fire to divert our attention. Fire was also opened from the house. This man (Treacy) was killed and also several other civilians. Of the Crown forces, one was killed and 3 wounded." No mention of Carew unfortunately.

Re Fernside, Drumcondra 12th Oct : "Fernside, Drumcondra was raided by a few Intelligence officers. Unfortunately 2 officers were killed (Major Smythe DSO and Captain White) but at least 2 rebels losts their lives, and the notorious Dan Breen was badly wounded."

[corisande]

Thanks for that. They are not actually breaking any new ground there, so the only way forward there would be if any of you relations can drag out anything on the shooting of Sean Treacy. It is extremely difficult to actually see what happened with something like Treacy's death as each sides propaganda depts was anxious to obscure what happened

The Fernside raid is covered quite well by Lt R D Jeune who took part in it (British Voices chapter)

Another of the Special appointments in that "block of 5" that includes " H Carew" is Boddington and he the man who commanded the Drumcondra raid

[IPT]

Accounts state that a press photographer took a photo of the moment Treacy was shot. Is there a copy of this photo available? It would have been difficult for Carew to avoid being included, considering he was grappling with him at the time.

"The entire confrontation had been witnessed by a Dublin newspaper reporter who captured a photo of Treacy the instant he had been hit. "

Frustratingly, Getty have an image entitled "Sean Treacy Shot" with lots of bystanders, but the desciption states it is a picture of Treacy's victim.

Do we know anything of an attempt on Carew's life in a restaurant? There's a pay-per-view snippet on Google News here, which mentions Carew entering a restaurant on Dame Street;

http://news.google.co.uk/archivesearch?q=%...=N&start=10

Also, of the two privates who gave evidence against Patrick Moran, was one of them Carew's batman who had given him a warning?

As an aside, was our man FMMH Carew technically a major in 1920, or am I splitting hairs?

[corisande]

The Sean Tracy photo is in fact a fake :-0.

It comes from a 1920's film and is one of the stills used to publicise the film. Someone dug it up years late and passed it off as the real thing. It is now recognised as a fake, and then NLI who hold the original admit it to be a fake (I have had some emails from them in the past clarifying their position!)

You are probably splitting hairs on peoples rank in Ireland at that time, cynically most officers were still 2nd Lt with acting, brevet, and temp ranks in any order you like

Thanks for the Baltimore Sun reference. I think it is just pointing to the generic "Major Carew" again, but I can do a bit of digging with the information and see who else reported it. Times seems to have been very lax in reporting any Irish news.

There is the same problem with Carew's batman Snelling (write up here) no initials and no regiment are given anywhere

[corisande]

Don't you love it when something comes together in research. I know a number of readers of this thread thought I was nuts with bee in my bonnet on "Special Appointment". How about this for neat

List of Special Appointments from a 1920 Gazette for Carew, Attwood, Boddington, Hyem, Noble

List of New Year Honours Jan 1923

You can see that of the 5 men in that block of Special Appointments, 1 got OBE, 3 got MBE (not sure why poor old Boddington missed out, I cannot find his, but he is recorded later in life with OBE)

Winter and Darling, two of the higher ups in Intelligence in Dublin got higher awards

Interestingly they got "civil" rather than "military" honours for their time in Intelligence in Ireland

[janecavell]

Great find! It must have been exciting to find that set of names all in one honours list.

Comparison of the two lists in your last post is pretty convincing evidence that H. Carew MC was 'Hallawell' Carew. Now that you've found the OBE award it is all looking good for this to be the F.Hallowell Carew OBE, MC, who died in 1943, and who has turned out to be F.M.M.H. Carew.

It looks like your hunch about 'special appointments' was right too. A good piece of detective work, well done.

[corisande]

Thanks Poppy3

It is nice when things come together.

Quite frightening though to think that Collins Intelligence were reading the Times too (or London Gazette) and would have a list of names of Intelligence men about to arrive "under cover" in Dublin

The stupidity of functionarios (sorry Spanish) never fails to depress me.

[corisande]

I was just finishing off my write up on Hallowell Carew, and noticed one of the many odd things in his life.

I have his MBE in 1923 (see above) but his death notice in the Times has him with OBE

I cannot find an OBE for him between 1923 and his death in 1943. Is this grade inflation (one would not put it past him) or has he done something else worth of the States reward

[corisande]

"Major Carew, who must be a stout fellow - it was he who grappled with Treacy at the time he was shot - (I met him first years ago, and can't remember where) put up a good show and escaped. A party went to his house, he did not let them in and fired from a window hitting two - this lot made off and he escaped unharmed"

Having finished reading Mark Sturgis' Diary (that is where that quote comes from) one can tell from Sturgis' style that he knew jolly well where and when he met Carew). In fact Sturgis does not comment on many people as "low" down the hierarchy as Carew.

I was sent the letter that Gen Boyd wrote recommending awards for the undercover men and naming 6 of them including Carew - he gives them all full initials except "Major Carew" who is just "Major Carew, Tank Corps".

I am a bit sorry for the old rogue that he took so much trouble to hide his past, and here we have with modern data bases in computers managed to expose his whole life. Mind you I would not mind betting that there still a few skeletons in his life that are still resting in the cupboard.

I am off on holiday for a month now, but have another couple of similar characters from the undercover men in Dublin to ask the forum for help on when I get back

[Carmania]

Enjoy your holiday. Look forward to more detective work when you get back.

Regards

Aled

[corisande]

There really was nothing to stop this chap. Major H Carew has my current write up.

I got his record at Kew. He had testimonials from both Gen Boyd and Winter. After the war served with Palestine Police.

Turns out he took 10 years off his age and got an interview will Intelligence in 1939

He was in fact 73, not his claimed 63 when he volunteered in WW2. I never managed to find out what he did in Malay States or Algiers.

A few years later he died

1943 Jan 28 The Times reports the death on the 28th January 1943 of Major F Hallowell Carew OBE MC son of the late Francis Hallowell Carew of Beddington Park. Private funeral and no other details. The death of Frank M M H Carew was registered in Berkhamstead in the March Qtr of 1943, age 77 (ie born 1866)

A really fascinating man

[Peter Mc]

A Major H. Carew joined the Palestine Gendarmerie on 18 March 1922, on or around the same time as the majority of the ex-RIC and Army intake.

[corisande]

Thanks Peter Mc

You don't have the list do you of who joined the Palestine Gendarmerie in that bunch. I would like to pick out the undercover men. Gen Boyd wrote a personal letter to Childs recommending a number of them

I know Carew joined and left Jan 1926

As I understand it, the number of British officers was quite small

The Palestine police force was founded in July 1920 at the time consisted of 18 British Officers supported by 55 Palestinian Officers and 1,144 rank and file,

[Peter Mc]

PM me the names you want and I'll see what I can do. The list I have runs from 1922 so anyone joining prior to that I wouldn't have.