Between Wars | John Eccles MM

Between the Wars

Demobilisation

John Eccles remained in Salisbury, England with the 4th Btn, Royal Irish Rifles until he was demobilised on 20 March, 1919. He had volunteered early for service, before conscription had been introduced, so he was released just four months after the end of the war. Some had to remain in uniform until almost the end of 1919.

Furlough Pass, September 1918

During medical examinations in 1918 & 1919, doctors determined that, due to wounds, his degree of disablement was 50% and his earning capacity had been reduced by 60%.

He was issued all the relevant documents (details here) including a certificate of employment (below) - along with a cash payment of £2 to be charged against his account; a service gratuity of £1 for each year of service and a calculated war gratuity to compensate him for the loss of the ancient privilege of looting!

John with a group of friends after the war

Love at first sight?

The villages of Ballywalter and Ballyhalbert, the most easterly point on the island of Ireland, are less than four miles apart. They are located on the east side of the 'Ards peninsula, looking over the Irish Sea to the Isle of Man and Scafell Pike, the highest mountain in England.

One day, a young lady called Elizabeth Margaret Bailie was walking along the beach between her home in Ballyhalbert and Ballywalter. She spied a young man from the neighbouring village, none other than John Eccles, and she turned to her friends, and said: "I'm going to marry that man!"

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Down/Ballyhalbert/Ballyhalbut/1256287/

Well, sure enough, John and Elizabeth were married on 6 September 1919 in Glastry Presbyterian Meeting House.

Two of Elizabeth's brothers, David and James, had also served during the war with the Royal Irish Rifles.

Glastry Presbyterian Church

Strandtown (UVF) Hospital, Belfast

In 1921, John went to work at Strandtown Hospital in Belfast. The hospital was in Craigavon House, the ancestral home of Northern Ireland's first Prime Minister, Sir James Craig.

John was in charge of the gardens there until 1926. The Head Gardener for Lord Dunleath, W King, had written another letter of reference to help him get the job. When he finished the five years at Strandtown, a Dr Adamson also gave him a (glowing) reference.

Their words give a sense of their great respect for him. (Text transcribed below photos)

10 March 1921

To - Dr Adamson, Craigavon Hospital

Dear Sir,

Mr. John Eccles was employed in these gardens for eight years: the latter part of the time he acted as Foreman. I have the greatest confidence in recommending him for the position of Head Gardener at Craigavon. He has a thorough knowledge of flower, fruit and vegetable cultivation, both under glass and outdoor.

I have always found him sober, honest, trustworthy, and very obliging - in fact, in every way, a first-class, reliable man.

If you think fit to employ him, I have no hesitation in saying, he will give you complete satisfaction.

I am,

Yours faithfully,

W King

Head Gardener etc. to Lord Dunleath.

TELEPHONE KNOCK 14
CRAIGAVON HOSPITAL
STRANDTOWN
BELFAST

John Eccles has been employed here for the past five years in connection with the Hospital as Head Gardener.

He is absolutely honest and sober, and the most industrious man I have ever met.

Hе has a first class knowledge of all branches of gardening. In regard to work under glass, I have never met his equal.

Whilst here he has had complete charge of the gardens and disposal of the produce. This he has done in a highly satisfactory manner. From the date of his employment there was a great reduction in garden expenses.

I can strongly recommend Eccles for any gardening post, and shall be pleased to answer any questions regarding him.

Dr Adamson
Medical Superintendent.
26th January,1926

Strandtown Hospital, located at Craigavon House, Strandtown, Belfast was the former seat of the Craig family who had been in Ulster since 1608.

When wounded warriors began returning home from the battlefields of France and Belgium, James Craig offered to make Craigavon House, his home, available as a hospital for the injured soldiers. And so, a hospital wing was opened on July 21, 1917. The house became known as the ‘UVF Hospital’, but it cared for wounded soldiers from both sides of the community for many years. On 7 June 1921, James Craig was appointed the first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland.

When the hospital was no longer needed it was used as a nursing home for the elderly until a new facility was built on the grounds. The original building is currently owned by the Somme Association.

My grandad's work at the hospital from 1921-1926 was, no doubt, a labour of love - working with plants and, at the same time, helping former comrades recover both physically and mentally from the terrible ordeals they had experienced in the bloody battle fields of Flanders and France.

This brief 20-page publication from Military Heritage gives a good summary of the work that took place at Strandtown Hospital during this time. The vegetable garden even gets a mention...

Craigavon House had a particular remit in its early years to care for men who had developed psychiatric problems, known at the time as neurasthenia or shell-shock. In modern terms, their condition would be described as post-traumatic stress disorder.

The building was equipped with 70 beds and the men were given a variety of treatments for this little-understood condition, encouraged to relax in the sylvan environment of the Craigavon grounds and obliged to undertake, where possible, a range of useful tasks in the on-site vegetable garden.

Move to Moyallon

Some time between 1926 and 1932, John and his family moved to Moyallon. John and Elizabeth's youngest child - my mum - Anne, was born there in April, 1932. I have not been able to find any information about how he got the job, or when, exactly, he began to work at Moyallon House.

Moyallon (Moyallen, Moyallan) is a small townland (412 acres) in County Down situated midway between Portadown and Gilford, that runs along the eastern edge of the River Bann with a long Quaker history, beginning with the Christy family in 1675.

The Reading Room, Moyallon

John became head gardener for the Richardsons who lived in Moyallon House.

The Eccles family attended Knocknamuckley Church of Ireland church, and John would also go to the meetings at the local Friends' Meeting House, The Reading Room. My mum attended Moyallon elementary school, which had been built by the Richardson family in 1932.

Moyallon House has quite a sad history for the first half of the 20th century.

Thomas Wakefield Richardson became the proprietor of Moyallon House on the death of his mother in 1909. Mr Richardson lived there with his English wife, a cook and a Quaker housemaid. Other staff were added later.

It was an impressive building with all the standard rooms such as a large dining room and library, but it also had a morning room, a flower room, several cloakrooms, a billiards room, two kitchens, boot-rooms and three pantries. There were eight family bedrooms altogether, and on the first floor a sitting room, a bathroom with hot and cold water and a lavatory. The second floor had six servants’ bedrooms, a bathroom and a box-room.

Outbuildings included a laundry, drying-room and loft with three more servants’ bedrooms, three steam-heated greenhouses - where Grandad, no doubt, worked, stabling, stores and agricultural buildings. The grounds had two grass tennis-courts and a croquet lawn.

The couple had no children, and by 1945, when they had both passed away, the house became the property of their nephew, Alexander Reginald Wakefield Richardson.

Alexander and his wife, Marianne, had four children. But tragedy struck, and two of their children died of typhoid, and another child died a few years later. Because of the associations of the house with this terrible event, Alexander, Marianne and their son, Hugh, moved to a nearby Richardson property, The Grange.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, the property was used as a guest house. During that time, my wife and I attended a wedding reception and also had a meal on a bitterly cold January night with Granda Eccles' other daughter, my auntie Jean, and James Mallagh.

Moyallon House is now used as a family home with the outbuildings converted into apartments.

For more info, read Lord Belmount's excellent description of the History of Moyallon House