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Remembered Today:

Lt. Hercules Ralph Langrishe


MGrant

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Hercules Ralph Langrishe was from Knocktoper Abbey, Co. Kilkenny. Ireland. Born in 1888 and educated at Eton then entered the army. He was a cavalry officer , Mountgomeryshire Yeomanry and maybe Imperial Camel Corps. He died in a flying accident on 16- 2-1917 aged 29. Would anybody have more information on the circumstances of his death.

His brother Terence Hume Langrishe was a officer in the Irish Guards. He gets two mentions in Kiplings history of the 1st Bn. I have a later record of him as 1st Lieutenant ( Flying Officer ) in 106 Squadron RAF ( Ireland ). I am looking for information on 106 Squadron.

Thanks.

Mick

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Mick

His very brief obituary notice in "Flight," 22 February 1917 , p. 190, states only that he was "killed while flying on duty on February 16th." No additional details are stated.

Regards

Trelawney

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Hi Mick,

This gentleman died in Avro 504 A1995, which was a 13 Reserve Sqn aircraft. He got himself into a stall and then a nose dive from only 100 feet and crashed. His aircraft then burst into flames. This info comes from my transcription of a RAF Museum Casualty Card. Hope this helps.

Regards,

Trevor

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Hello Mick

I just wondered what your interest was in the Langrishe brothers, they were relations of my grandmother.

Moriaty

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Hi Trevor,

Thanks very much for that information. I just got a copy of your book The Sky their Battlefield during the week and have got good information on Irish airmen I have been looking up from it. Is there anything similar out there for airmen that died in accidents, training etc.

Regards.

Mick.

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Hi Moriaty,

I have a interest in Irish airmen and I live in Co Kilkenny not too far from the village of Knocktopher. Hercules is named on the Great War Memorial in St Canices Cathedral in Kilkenny city, where I first came across his name. There has been a series of books produced in the last number of years under the title " The Landed Gentry and Aristocracy " and one of the families in the Kilkenny volume is the Langrishe of Knocktopher . It includes a picture of Terence in uniform.

Regards.

Mick.

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On ‎13‎/‎12‎/‎2010 at 10:41, Mooncoin said:

Is there anything similar out there for airmen that died in accidents, training etc.

Mick

Chris Hobson's Airmen Died in the Great War (ISBN 0 871505 81 X) covers all deaths in the RFC, RNAS, RAF, WRAF and AFC, plus USAS and USN airmen attached to British units.

Regards

Gareth

Edited by Dolphin
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Hi Mick,

Chris Hobson's book is a fantastic resource for this information, though unfortunately it's become very hard to obtain. This Forum is as good as any place to sort queries about casualties. Just keep posting!

Regards,

Trevor

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Hello Mick

Also in St Canice's Cathedral is the Connellan Memorial window for the four grandsons of Peter Connellan of Coolmore who were killed in the Great War, they would have been related to the Langrishes as Peter Connellan's wife was Anna Maria Langrishe.

Elsewhere on the Forum you will find a posting about the exploits of the Sir Hercules Langrishe, father of Hercules (known as Heck) and Terence (known as Pingo).

Moriaty

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Lt Hercules Ralph Langrishe, son of Sir Hercules Langrishe, 5th Bart. of Knocktopher Abbey, Co. Kilkenny.

Educated Eton 1901.

Commissioned 2/Lt - 29/08/1914 - Montgomeryshire Yeomanry.

Served East Anglia until he embarked for Egypt - March 1916.

Lt - 08/06/1916.

Attached RFC during August 1916.

Killed in an accident in France 16/02/1917. Age 29.

Also commemorated on the Grangegoram Memorial, Dublin.

Regards ... Maricourt

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Two queries.

If Hercules Ralph Langrishe was killed in a flying accident in France, were his remains brought back to Ireland? His CWGC entry says he is buried in Knocktopher St David Church of Ireland churchyard, Co Kilkenny and he is commemorated at Grangegorman, Dublin.

There is an HR Langrishe on the Charterhouse Roll of Honour with no biographical details, but a Charterhouse list of pupils shows an HR Langrishe of Knocktopher who left in 1904.

Moriaty

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Moriarty - the accident appears to have happened in England - his death was registered in the Dover registration district - so I guess the family were able to return his body for burial in Ireland

Cheers

Sue

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Hi,

I can confirm that 13 Reserve Squadron was at Dover, in 6th Wing, from late November 1915 until June 1917 when they went to Yatesbury. They were a training unit and your surmise that the accident happened in England is entirely correct.

Best wishes,

Trevor

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  • 8 months later...

Hi, as co-author of the woefully incomplete Charterhouse Roll of Honour I first of all apologise for the continued sketchiness of my WW1 page - I'm working hard on an update! Here is my recently completed entry for Hercules Langrishe:

LANGRISHE Hercules Ralph

2nd. Lieutenant Montgomeryshire Yeomanry attd. Royal Flying Corps.

He was born on 1st February 1888, the 1st son of Sir Hercules Robert Langrishe, 5th Bart., of Knocktopher Abbey. He was at Charterhouse 1903 - 1904. He was killed in a flying accident in the UK on 16th February 1917. His grave is in Knocktopher (St. David) Church of Ireland Churchyard, Co. Kilkenny. He is commemorated on the Grangegorman Memorial Panel 3 (Screen Wall).

I don't think this adds much but it does at least confirm the earlier posts.

Best regards,

Eric Webb

PS Do contact me with any other Carthusian queries.

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  • 2 years later...

Three years on, I'm just resurrecting this thread to make a further comment and enquiry about Hercules Langrishe's education. He had a term at Eton (1901) as Maricourt said, and a year at Charterhouse as stated above, so probably had private tutors some of the time.

His name is on the Ascham St Vincent's Memorial Arch in Eastbourne, so attended one of the two prep schools Ascham House or St Vincent's (merged 1908), at some point presumably between 1895 and 1900. I suspect it was St Vincent's as that school had a number of aristocratic and upper-class Anglo-Irish pupils in 1901 but if anyone knows for sure I'd be interested to know. I'm doing a brief biography of hime for a booklet about the men on the arch.

Liz

PS I now have the information from the school chronicle obituary that he attended St Vincent's from 1898 to 1900, 'when he passed into Eton.'

Edited by Liz in Eastbourne
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  • 8 months later...

Hi Liz, I look after the archives for St Neot's Prep School in Hampshire. Hercules Langrishe also attended St Neot's briefly for a year in 1896, not sure what happened to him in 1897 as our records don't show were he went on to.

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Thanks for the additional information on Hercules (Heck) Ralph Langrishe.

Moriaty

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Hercules Ralph Langrishe was from Knocktoper Abbey, Co. Kilkenny. Ireland. Born in 1888 and educated at Eton then entered the army. He was a cavalry officer , Mountgomeryshire Yeomanry and maybe Imperial Camel Corps. He died in a flying accident on 16- 2-1917 aged 29. Would anybody have more information on the circumstances of his death.

His brother Terence Hume Langrishe was a officer in the Irish Guards. He gets two mentions in Kiplings history of the 1st Bn. I have a later record of him as 1st Lieutenant ( Flying Officer ) in 106 Squadron RAF ( Ireland ). I am looking for information on 106 Squadron.

Thanks.

Mick

Just picked up on this topic. CCI 44/2 (summer 2013) contains a selection of photos from the Terence Langrishe album. He, too, trained at Dover (with 65 TS) before posting to Ireland.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Seeing that this is back to life, it may be worth mentioning that Heck's widow was a Wingfield of Powerscourt.

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/powerful-portrait-of-the-big-house-and-the-lords-and-ladies-who-loved-it-so-26410296.html

Heck's mother in law was a failed poet, from a 'Moses' family that became 'Beddington' to better fit in as they married out from the tobacco industry to the landed gentry of the Wingfields:

http://www.rte.ie/tv/artslives_old/prog2.html

Interesting clan.

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  • 4 months later...

Turtle Bunbury has a little about the family here

http://www.turtlebunbury.com/history/history_houses/hist_hse_humewood.html

In 1887, Fitzwilliam Dick's beautiful youngest daughter Helen (born 1863) married the charismatic Captain Hercules ("Herky") Langrishe. The marriage settlement of £100,000 went a long way to clearing the mortgage then hanging over the Co. Kilkenny estate of Herky's father, Sir James Langrishe, 4th Bart, of Knocktopher. Herky's mother Adela de Blois was the only daughter of Thomas de Blois Eccles of Charlemont, Staffordshire. Herky led an exciting life and was Master of the Kilkenny Hounds for a number of years. He succeeded his father in 1910. Their eldest son Heck was killed in a flying accident in 1917 so the second son "Pingo" succeeded as Sir Terence Langrishe upon Sir Herk's death in 1943. Helen, Lady Langrishe, died at Knocktopher in 1955.
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and from the Irish Independent, referring to a book called Twilight of the Ascendancy, by Mark Bence-Jones,

the popular Herky Langrishe, whose Kilkenny estate was mortgaged seven times, but was "able to support himself as a Master of Foxhounds, a yachtsman and a pioneer motorist by working his way through the £100,000 which his wife had been given by her father"
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  • 4 months later...

I am new to this forum having only just found it. My uncle, Hercules Ralph Langrishe died at Lympne aerodrome according to family history, but I do not know if he was stationed there or was en route from Dover aerodrome. My father Terence Hume, 7 years younger than his brother (b.1895), also trained at Dover and I have some pictures from his flying photograph album of Dover and Fermoy. I also have his Log Book covering his initial training, instructor training and move to Ireland. He completed approx. 800 hours.

There is reference to photos from my father's album in #21; how do I obtain copies of these please?

The Heck mentioned in post #22 refers to my elder brother, Hercules Ralph Hume, not to his uncle Hercules Ralph. They were both called Heck, not to be confused with the father of H.R. and T.H., my grandfather, who was also called Hercules, known as Herky.

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