Captain Barrington Chadwick Quinan, RFC/RAF

[Malcolm12hl]

Captain Barrington Chadwick Quinan was seriously injured in an air crash in Essex on 22 December 1917.  He had previously undergone a long convalescence for shrapnel wounds to shoulder, hip and heal and an attendant case of shell shock suffered while serving with the 5th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force on the Western Front on 26 May 1915, and had then served in a series of staff and training positions before being accepted for flight training by the RFC in September 1917.  His Canadian service record stops with a note that he was ordered to report to the RFC school at Reading on 10 September 1917, and then resumes with coverage of his hospital treatment after his 22 December crash - treatment which would be ongoing until he died of pneumonia in a Liverpool convalescent hospital on 20 July 1918.

Can anyone supply details of his RFC career, and more specifically his 22 December 1917 crash?  There was a brief posting on the subject back in 2009, but it did not lead anywhere.

[Red Gate]

He was with 37 Squadron at the time of his accident. He had taken off from Goldhanger flying a BE2c and was forced to land with engine failure. He was clearly seriously injured when he was taken to Colchester Military Hospital.

 

[helpjpl]

1.  Forced landing, through engine failure, at Woodham Walter, near Maldon, Essex. 

Remarks:  Under instruction. 3 solo flights 1hr 45 mins:

http://www.rafmuseumstoryvault.org.uk/archive/quinan-b.c

2. Death:

https://search.findmypast.co.uk/search/british-newspapers?date=1918-07-01&date_offsetdate=1918-07-31&lastname=quinan&modifiedfacets=true&exactnames=true&exactkeywords=false

JP

[Malcolm12hl]

Thank you both - this fills in the gap in Quinan's service record very well.  His family/service background is interesting to say the least.  His Anglo-Irish father had joined the RNR as a merchant marine apprentice before becoming a harbour master and marrying at Kidderpore, Calcutta, where Barrington and his two older siblings were all born.  Quinan senior died young while home on leave in Dublin, and Barrington moved to Glasgow with his mother after she remarried, emigrating from there to Canada before the war.  His older brother Edward's career was as long and distinguished as his was brief and tragic - a Sandhurst graduate, he was commissioned into the Royal Fusiliers, transferred to the Indian Army, with whom he fought in both world wars, finishing his service as General Sir Edward Pellew Quinan.