Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie: (commanding 1st Battn. Royal Irish Rifles) Dated November 4th, 1914-March 11th, 1915Laurie, G. B. (George Brenton)
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Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie: (commanding 1st Battn. Royal Irish Rifles) Dated November 4th, 1914-March 11th, 1915
Laurie, G. B. (George Brenton)
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
I was moved even to tears, which I trust were not unmanly, at your
touching reference to the glorious death, last Sunday, of my dear,
lamented friend, Colonel Laurie, who would, I had hoped, in the course
of nature, have survived me for many a year. It may, perhaps, be of
interest to your readers to know that this gallant soldier, who--I can
speak with some knowledge--proved himself excellent in every relation
of life, and who, _felix opportunitate mortis_, died for us and for
our liberties at the head of a renowned Irish regiment--the Royal
Irish Rifles--had, though not himself an Irishman, connections and
associations with this country of which he was justly proud. His wife
is a great granddaughter of the Right Hon. John Foster (Lord Oriel),
the last Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. He himself was the
great-grandson of an illustrious Irishman, Dr. Inglis, the Bishop of
Nova Scotia, who was the first Anglican Colonial Bishop ever
consecrated--a Trinity College, Dublin, man, and the son of a rector
of Ardara, in Donegal. Dr. Inglis emigrated to America, and was, on
the eve of the War of the American Independence, Rector of Holy
Trinity Church, New York, then (and I believe now) the principal
Anglican Episcopal Church in that city. Dr. Inglis was a pronounced
loyalist. He was warned not to read the State prayers for the King and
the Parliament. He disregarded the warning. His reading of those
prayers was interrupted by forced coughs and sneezings and other
manifestations of disfavour. He was then the recipient of many
threatening letters. On the next Sunday his voice, when reading the
obnoxious prayers, was drowned by a clattering of arms. On the Sunday
following guns were actually levelled at him as he read the prayers
quite undismayed, having, like his great-grandson, the heart and
courage of a hero. Yielding to the entreaties of friends, he left New
York for Canada, and on his return, more than twenty years afterwards,
to New York, when Bishop of Nova Scotia, he disinterred a magnificent
silver coffee pot which he had buried on the eve of his hurried
departure, and found in the place he had left it. That coffee pot is a
precious heirloom in Colonel Laurie's family. There is a brass tablet
to the memory of Dr. Inglis in St. Patrick's Cathedral, erected there
by the enthusiasm of Chancellor H.V. White, Rector of St.
Bartholomew's, whose own ministry was for some years in the Colonies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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