Lt L'Aime who was here

[corisande]

Another of the shot British Officers in Ireland

This is from the Times but I have not been able to get anything on Lt L'Amie. I suspect that the name is wrong, but a regiment is given. The obvious places like Irish deaths and CWGC do not appear to have him, nor do MICs, BMD, etc.

Can anyone find him anywhere with this limited information

Current state of my information on him is on this link

[Carmania]

I have an article from The Times (also dated 7th October 1920) which refers to him as Lieutenant Horace St C L'Amie and that he was serving with the 2nd Battalion. Searching for Horace St Clair L'Amie on Ancestry produces his birth, Probate Index, MIC etc.

Aled

[corisande]

Thanks Aled

You are always very good at these puzzles

[corisande]

And I go a bonus in that second Times article

The second bit of it talks about Mr McClean, a commercial traveller, and Mr Collis of Ministry of Pensions being kidnapped at Lisdoonvarna. McClean is the MacLean shot on Bloody Sunday, and I have on this page a write up from the IRA of what they did with them on capturing them. I have never manged to get anything much on Collis yet, but they were both undercover men, as I suspect L'Aime was

[IPT]

In 1901 census as;

Horace H Clare Amie

Birth: abt 1897 - Newport, Monmouthshire, Wales

Residence: 1901 - Rowlstone, Herefordshire, England

[corisande]

Thanks for the 1901 - I always know these hyphened or apostrophized names leave a lot of scope for creativity

[corisande]

The name "L'Amie" seems to make it particularly difficult on OCR with LG and Times

I have him in censuses, birth and probate, but of his service, I can only get his coming out of Sandhurst and promotion to Lt

I have the ref to his Nat Archives file, but have not seen that.

He has a CWGC grave in Grangegorman, but the Collinstown incident where he was shot does not seem to feature on IRA claims.

Current state of L'Amie information here

[Carmania]

I have never manged to get anything much on Collis yet, but they were both undercover men, as I suspect L'Aime was

I've got some stuff on Collis but rather than mix this thread up I'll send it to you direct.

Aled

[corisande]

Thanks Aled, I got that now

I might start a new one on Collis later. I never like gunging threads either, I was so pleased to see that bit on him in the Times, I just got carried away!

[corisande]

I have had a reply from someone in the L'Amie family whom I tracked down. They do not know much about him - he had no children but there is a descendant of his sister). He tells me:-

The story goes something like this. As he was walking across the parade ground his revolver went off killing him instantly. That is all my knowledge of him

I have not found anything else in the papers. Current page on him has not a lot to show for his war service

The other thing I should add is that it is difficult to say if these two events are linked

1920 Sept 20. The well known ambush on the ration party from the 2nd battalion, Duke of Wellington's Regiment, based at Collinstown Camp. They had arrived at Patrick Monk's Bakery at the junction of Upper Church Street and North King Street in Dublin to collect the weekly supply of bread - the plan had been to capture their weapons without any untoward incident, but things went awry and six British soldiers were killed in the encounter. Kevin Barry, could not get away in time and was captured, and eventually charged with the death of Private Marshall Whitehead.

1920 Oct 6. Shot at Collinstown Aerodrome, Dublin. One cannot help wondering if there was a connection between the Monk's Bakery Ambush and Lt L'Amie's death. Though the IRA never claimed any responsibility