Educated for War – The Story of Fingal’s Hely-Hutchinson Brothers
By Colm McQuinn, Fingal County Council
In November 2011, Fingal County Council Archives received a donation of the papers of the Hely-Hutchinson family, originally of Swords. A branch of the Earls of Donoughmore of Knocklofty and later Palmerstown, they owned two big houses and estates in the Swords area, Seafield and Lissenhall. John Hely-Hutchinson, Deputy Lieutenant, Justice of the Peace, and County Sheriff for Dublin had two sons, Coote Robert and Richard George ‘Dick’, as well as three daughters. Both brothers were sent to boarding schools in England, including Harrow, which operated as feeder school for the British Military Academies. Both brothers served with distinction with the Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment) before and during the First World War. Through correspondence, official documents and photographs, their story can be extracted to illustrate how different they were from the many Irish Catholics who joined the British Army at this time, and how they had been prepared for life to someday serve as army officers.
The early years and the Royal Fusiliers
The Hely-Hutchinson brothers Coote and Dick were born in 1870 and 1871 respectively, into a privileged Irish family which had a long, distinguished military history. Their grandfather, Coote, had been a Captain in the Royal Navy, and it was he who brought the family to Swords, having inherited Lissenhall House and Demesne through marriage. His son Francis, the boys’ uncle, followed in his father’s footsteps and joined the Royal Navy. Through marriage the family were related to many officers in the British Armed Forces.
While their father, John, may not have been a member of the armed forces, he was an enthusiastic huntsman, on foot and on horseback, as well as fishing. John was a keen shot and was an advocate of teaching boys to shoot from an early age. Among his papers is a collection of correspondence with a number of hunting gun manufacturers and hunting magazines in England, wherein he discusses the finer points of various aspects of the sport.
The two boys were sent to boarding school during the 1880’s. We can only assume that it was for financial reasons that only the eldest son, Coote, was sent to his father’s alma mater, Harrow. Dick was sent to a newly-opened school in Clifton, Bristol. Dick excelled at sports while in Clifton and represented the school at boxing. He went on to Sandhurst, but not as a cadet. It is likely that his elder brother Coote, graduated from Harrow into the Royal Fusiliers. Interestingly, there are Certificates in Musketry for both men from the School of Musketry in Hythe. They would have had no idea how significant this would be for them in the second decade of the next century. Dick qualified as a gymnasium and fencing instructor, while Coote became an instructor in Musketry.
Unfortunately, Coote was not as prolific a letter-writer as his younger brother, so we know little of his career and postings within the Royal Fusiliers. We know however that he spent most of his time with the 7th (Extra) Reserve Battalion as an instructor. A photograph, dated 1897, places Coote at a regimental colour ceremony at the Phoenix Park, Dublin.
From Dick’s writings we can trace his entire career. He was gazetted to the 2nd Battalion Royal Fusiliers as a 2nd Lieutenant on 13 May 1891. he was in Portobello Barracks and the Curragh as Superintendent of Gymnasia, Dublin District until 1902. He spent the turn of the century in Aldershot as an instructor in fencing and gymnastics and was able to come home to Dublin on leave. In 1899 he got married, and his wife, Alice Cunningham of Belfast, travelled with him to India, where he held posts in Darjeeling and Bangalore, and attended hunting and gymkhana in Secunderabad, Decca, Hyderabad and Ootacamund. He was promoted to Major in 1907 and was in Malta in 1908. He was Superintendent of Gymnasia, Northern Command 1908-1911. In 1912, back in Ireland, he was posted with the 1st Battalion to the Curragh. Prior to the outbreak of war August 1914, his unit moved to Kinsale, County Cork.
Outbreak of War and Ypres
The 1st Battalion, Royal Fusiliers formed part of the British Expeditionary Force, 17th Brigade, 6th Division. Dick left his wife, Alice, and their infant daughter Pamela in Dublin in the care of his family.
He wrote to his mother from Kinsale before leaving for Le Havre:
‘Dearest Mother,
Just a line to you all to say goodbye….. keep your spirits up. I hope Kaiser Bill will take it in the neck before this war is finished.
Your loving son,
Dick’
A month later on 3 October, he wrote about his experiences at Ypres:
‘My dearest Mother,
Many thanks for your last letter, we are having a bit of an easy, after ten days in the trenches at the front, it came very welcome as it is hard work & nobody gets very much sleep & there was a lot of digging & tin cutting to do…. the luxury of a bed now is beyond words; also having a real wash with hot water was nice…
There are no fences, great big bare plateaus, with very deep valleys & thick woods, ideal places for artillery fighting, as they get very long ranges & good concealment, both sides use aeroplanes for fire detection. The German spy system is marvellous; as they retreat they leave them behind to mark for their artillery. Two were caught near our position, concealed in a hay stack, with a telephone & enough food for six weeks. We caught one near here with a pair of glasses observing artillery fire.
I expect he will be shot… We have had very little rain lately; the mud in these parts when it does rain is something colossal’.
Writing to Alice on 8 November, he describes how so many officers and men get wounded:
‘…a Welch Fusilier was trying to get back to his trenches, with some tea, when he was hit by a sniper. The artillery observing officer saw him & went out to try & get him in. He was hit, & then two of our men went to try to get him in & they were hit too all badly, & the cause of all the trouble was only very lightly hit, & could have remained out quite well where he was till it was dark. There are an awful lot of officers & men wounded like that…
These new sharp nosed bullets make worse wounds than the old ones, as when they meet a bone they turn over, which of course is very bad for the bone’
A Regimental History of the Royal Fusiliers, by H.C. O’Neill, describes the situation in November at Ypres:
‘It was now freezing hard, and the men’s feet were beginning to suffer. At night on the 21st, Major Hely-Hutchinson arrived to take over command, with Captains Lee, Pipon and Magnay from the 1st Battalion. A draft of 300 special reservists arrived, and companies reorganised and given some training. But on the 27th, the battalion had to take over the trenches at Kemmel from the Norfolks. It was the last test to apply men so little accustomed to warfare; but the days were critical and such risks had to be taken. Major Hely-Hutchinson had to deal with some serious cases of nerves, but under his firm hand the unit settled down, and spent three days in the trenches’.
There is a letter in the collection to Alice Hely-Hutchinson from Captain Philip Magnay dated 1 December, which he wrote while on leave from the 4th Battalion in London for four days. He says her husband, ‘is well & of course delighted at commanding. I came in with him from the 1st Bn & I can safely say that he is better both in health & spirits than ever before in the war….I heard quietly from some of the NCO’s & men that they like the idea of Major Hely-Hutchinson commanding which means that they think him a worthy successor to Colonel McMahon. If you knew how they idolised Colonel McMahon you would know that this is praise indeed for your husband’.
Dick was promoted to Commanding Officer. He wrote to his mother again, in December:
‘We are just back from a short spell in the dirty old ditches & they were very dirty ones this time…Our company was practically wet the whole time. I know when I went round I was wet up to the knees, however they came through alright, & we had very small losses, which pleased me very much, as it was my first effort as a C.O. under fire. We got shelled a bit one day but fortunately no damage was done…..
The men get any amount of tobacco & cigarettes & woolleys now, people at home are very good about sending them out things & the authorities are also doing them very well in the way of clothes & equipment, even supplying them with goatskin fur coats, which are rather a white elephant, as it is quite impossible for a man to carry all the kit he has to, & when he gets it all on, he can’t fight in it…
The mud on the roads is beyond all words, most of these Belgian roads are paved in the middle & each side is mud about 2 feet deep in some places. Some of the heavy motors have great difficulty in keeping on the roads at all’.
In a letter to his father in December 1914, and did not hold back on any details:
‘My dear Father,
Many congratulations on your 78th Birthday, I had no idea you were that old, it is quite wonderful, & I hope I come home from this beastly country in time for your next birthday. We spend so many days wading in mud up to our waists & then so many days getting dry again. You would not believe the state of the trenches it worse than any mud you can imagine. We came out the night before last, & the men are not dry yet. It is beastly country as there doesn’t seem to be any stones, the roads go to nothing & the ditches have no bottoms whatsoever, whole boxes of ammunition disappear in to the mud & are lost. Our trenches are about 150 to 200 yds from the Germans & one place this was only 15 yds… They were so close we were throwing hand grenades at each other. The Germans snipe all day & all night & we have shots then whenever we can see them’.
The Western Front
Fighting resumed in Belgium in early 1915. In a letter to his sister on 29 January, he wrote:
‘My dearest Cissy, We came out of the trenches last night, we had rather more killed and wounded than usual, as we were in bad trenches, & bullets were very plentiful, especially at night. A shell came into one of the fire trenches the other day & wet into a dug out & blew one of the servants out right over the other trench towards the Germans, he crept back with only a broken leg, & he was lifted at least ten yards’.
In a letter to his father on 7 March, he writes again about the fighting:
‘We have had rather a trying time lately & were sent off rather suddenly to take up some trenches in a different part of the line. The trenches were very bad & the Germans were rather uppish & thought they could do what they liked with us. However, I think we have put them in their places now, & they are certainly damned careful how they show themselves.
The Blokes we relieved had got the wind up rather badly & thought they never could look out of their trenches. So, of course the Bosch gave them beans. The trenches were in an awful state, one trench we had to abandon & dig a new one, we filled in the old one with 26 dead bodies in it, some of them all swollen up & so churned into the mud & slush that we could not pull them out even with a rope. In another they had to take the bodies out in bits & bury them, as the arms etc came away if you pulled them. I should think we buried at least 120 bodies, all under heavy fire at night
Your affectionate son,
Dick
P.S. Send me a box of decent cigars’
On 30 March 1915, the brothers received word their mother had died. In June, Dick was stationed at Bellewarde Lake, near Ypres. The 4th Battalion had captured the nearby wood, and according to the Regimental Battalion History: ‘At 10am the brigadier of the 7th Brigade had taken command; and he ordered Major Hely-Hutchinson to go into the wood which had just been captured by the battalion and organise the men who remained. This was immediately done’. The battalion could not hold the wood however, and had to retreat: ‘All day the battalion was under heavy artillery fire, and during the afternoon gas shells were used freely. Of the 22 officers and 820 men who entered the battle some 15 officers and 376 men became casualties… Major Hely-Hutchinson was badly wounded’.
The telegram which arrived at Alice’s home in Foxrock on 19 June, states: ‘Have arrived at 16 Bruton St, West. Slight wound in the head from shell graze. Will probably come over tomorrow or next day.’ But a telegram from the War Office two days later informed Alice that: ‘Major R.G. Hely-Hutchinson was slightly wounded on June 16th, but is “remaining at duty” until further notice’
He was back at the ‘front’ by mid summer and on 26 July, he wrote to Coote:
‘My dear Cooty, I am fit and well but slightly fatigued, we came out of the line yesterday morning. After 16 days severe fighting; so of course we are what you call slightly depleted.
We went into the line on the 8th & did an attack on the 14th, a real good one, everything went A1, & it was a great success. I went down the night before to see where I would dig in before the attack & the place where we had to go to was alive with bursting shells, so I was a little nervous as to how many I would lose before I got dug in….The attack was most successful; our bombardment was terrific, & the 1st line trench of the Germans was completely blotted out…we also captured a village & a German General with his staff’.
Although there are no family records placing Coote in France we do know that the 7th (Extra) Reserve Battalion, with whom Coote served, were called up from their training and landed at Le Havre on 24 July, 1916. Three days later they joined the 190th Brigade, 63rd (Royal Navy) Division. On 8 August, Dick wrote to Cissy about Paris, where he had spent a few days on leave:
‘I have just come back from 72 hours leave in Paris & I had a top notch time there, & lived at the rate of several thousands a minute; but got great value for it. We stopped at the Ritz who gave us beautiful rooms, with a bathroom attached for 10 francs… We ate of the best and a good deal more & we saw no kaki & my mind was free of all care & worry, & nobody wanted to know what I am to do about this and that, & all the French ladies all said, “vive les braves officers Anglais”, & the entente was very good’.
Dick was wounded again at the end of 1916 and seems to have been appointed to lighter duties for a while with a territorial battalion in Guilford, Surrey. He returned to France as Commandant, Reinforcement Camp, 3rd Army Corps, British Armies in France on 5 November 1917, until 22 March 1918, Dick was wounded again in March 1918. In a letter to Cissy on 29 March, from Acheson Hospital, London he wrote:
‘Just about this time some Boches suddenly appeared in the road & all the men wanted to leave, however I rounded them up & started them to return the fire, & at that moment I got the bullet in the foot, so I handed over to Davies & proceeded to hobble back…
My servant Kitson got his arm round me & I walked about 1 1/2 miles, I then felt rather like collapsing, however Kitson spotted a handcart & got a hand from another man to put me on to the road. There were a few shells falling around, however Kitson pushed like a man & took me nearly 2 miles more to a Dressing Station, where they sent me on a stretcher to the next (station) where I got an ambulance to a village…
Then I got into pyjamas & my things were all put in a sack & a list made of them & that is the last I saw of them. No train came till next morning & I was much relieved as I did not want to be caught in pyjamas by the Boche’.
On recovery Dick was appointed Administrative Commandant of the British Armies in France until 19 November 1918.
Lieutenant Colonel Coote Hely-Hutchinson 
Richard George Hely-Hutchinson
The two brothers ended the war with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Dick retired from the Army on half-pay on 28 April 1920. He remained in England with Alice and Pamela. He seems to have kept in touch with some of his fellow former Royal Fusiliers and there is an interesting collection of Royal Fusiliers Christmas cards in the collection.
After the war, Coote returned to Swords to take over the family estate, the brothers’ father having died in 1919. In that year he was awarded an O.B.E for his services during the war. A year later he was appointed High Sherriff of Co. Dublin and was elected as a Councillor to Dublin County Council for the Balrothery Rural District. He served on a variety of Committees within Dublin County Council, including the first Libraries Committee, which included Hannah Sheehy-Skeffington, but his main focus seems to have been mental health services, particularly at nearby St. Ita’s Psychiatric Hospital, Portrane, and agricultural issues, where his opinion was often sought, as it was by the Royal Dublin Society. He continued shooting, and hunting with the Ward Union Hunt and the Fingal Harriers. On his death in 1930, the then President of Ireland Liam T Cosgrave sent his personal condolences to his wife Julia saying: ‘His country will miss the splendid public services and activities which he contributed to her welfare for so many years’.
Coote and his wife Julia had five children, one of whom, Michael, followed the family tradition and entered the British Army and served in the Second World War with the Royal Norfolk Regiment, and was a Prisoner of War in Malaysia. He returned to Broadmeadow Estuary for a while after the war and his daughter Caroline was one of the donors of the Hely-Hutchinson collection to Fingal Archives.
The full story of the Hely-Hutchinson brothers is told through an exhibition mounted at Fingal County Archives and Local Studies Library, Clonmel House, Swords where many more photographs and original documents from the HelyHutchison Collection will be on display. To visit the exhibition please contact:
