Eileen O'Sullivan WRAF

[Airshipped]

Hi,

 

I'm wondering if anyone has further information on Miss Eileen O'Sullivan and her role in the WRAF uniforms drama of 1918/1919? Apparently Cohen and Wilks (a reputable company still in existence) were a successful tenderer for WRAF uniforms but backtracked on some of the specifications, e.g. allegedly they attempted to engage in various cost-cutting measures to increase its margin on the contract but without breaching the terms of the contract. O'Sullivan alleged that they were making a substantial saving on how they weaved/cut the bias. I think that some of O'Sullivan's allegations were proven, but not to the amount she'd claimed - not enough to claim fraud or corruption.

 

I can't seem to locate the relevant files on Hansard - all that turns up are a few PQs in Jul/Aug 1919 - but she definitely attended a Select Committee hearing. O'Sullivan's testimony on the alleged incompetence or indifference of named RAF officers (Maj W.C. Bersey, Capt E.H. Cockburn and Lt-Col O.W.R.G. Latimer) cost O'Sullivan her job.

 

I think one problem for O'Sullivan was that the Violet Douglas-Pennant drama was unfolding before a parliamentary enquiry in August 1919, so O'Sullivan's case was undermined by the credibility (or lack thereof) of the scattergun approach of Douglas-Pennant (who mixed first-person evidence with hearsay and all sorts of allegations around incomptence, corruption, immorality, etc on how the WRAF was run).

 

Google Books offers a few snippets but they don't match up to anything on Hansard.

 

https://books.google.ie/books?id=c9YOAQAAIAAJ&q=o'sullivan+latimer+wilks+cloth&dq=o'sullivan+latimer+wilks+cloth&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwib6YOMo4LqAhWNTxUIHaM7AgUQ6AEwAXoECAIQAg

 

and

https://books.google.ie/books?id=EBkyAQAAMAAJ&q=o'sullivan+latimer+wilks+cloth&dq=o'sullivan+latimer+wilks+cloth&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwib6YOMo4LqAhWNTxUIHaM7AgUQ6AEwAHoECAMQAg

 

From what I gather, O'Sullivan didn't rate Douglas Pennant too highly, but according to the latter, some of O'Sullivan's written requests for support and assistance in determining how the WRAF got saddled with a contractual mess were actually withheld from Douglas-Pennant and that she only discovered this after the fact. (Very much on the lines of self-justification in the various apologias that Douglas-Pennant wrote in the years afterwards, and not difficult to build a retrospective defence of "oh I wasn't told of that at the time ...that information was withheld from me ..." and so forth).

 

Ultimately, the parliamentarians held the view that O'Sullivan had an overgrown sense of a woman's importance in the decision-making processes, and that her working relationship had broken down with the RAF officers responsible. (A newspaper article or two appear to mention O'Sullivan threatening to throw some hapless officer out the window).

 

In the Air Force List of June 1919, O'Sullivan was an Assistant Commandant Second Class

 

https://digital.nls.uk/dcn23/9578/95788113.23.pdf

 

Any further leads or suggestions would be welcome.

[DavidOwen]

A quick FMP newspaper search for her with WRAF included brings back 26 results inclduing one from the Thanet Times of 12 November 1963 in which the 78 year old Miss O'Sullivan recounts her life story just about. Link

 

The earlier (contemporary) articles concentrate on the Court of Inquiry in the main with one from the Western Times of 25 September 1919 headlined "W.R.A.F. Threatens to Throw Colonel Through Window" Link Fascinating stuff.

 

Picture from 1963 courtesy of FMP

[Airshipped]

Many thanks David. It'd appear that O'Sullivan attended two different enquiries / tribunals in 1919. 

 

(I was lost in the reeds of Hansard to the extent I missed the newspaper archive route to finding her).

 

A fascinating character and an interesting life story.