William Arthur Moore (1880–1962)
Keith Haines
Odd things happen to one in the common way of living, but to me they have the misfortune to appear at the time quite ordinary and natural … Just ordinary days most of them seemed at the time.
Arthur Moore, The Orient Express (1914), p. ix
Front Cover Pic: Arthur Moore, c.1910 (Reproduced from Morgan Shuster, The Strangling of Persia (1911))
Early Life
Although the name of Arthur Moore has largely been forgotten, in the first half of the twentieth century he carved out a notable reputation as a highly-respected international journalist – as well as a traveller and adventurer. Although not a native of Newry, most of his formative childhood and teenage years were spent there, and he retained some affection for it: in his (unpublished) memoirs he wrote that “The people had reason to be proud of their town”.
He was born on 21 December 1880 in the village of Glenavy, the youngest child of the curate, Rev. William Moore. He was known in adult life as Arthur but, interviewed in Newry in 1985 Elizabeth Holton (then aged 100), who had played on the streets with him, indicated that as a child he was always called Willie. Between 1884 and 1892 the family lived at Ballyward in Co. Down when the clergyman became rector at Drumgooland. In 1892, as a result of the patronage of Francis Charles Needham, Third Earl of Kilmorey, Moore was appointed to St Patrick’s Church in Newry, where he remained until his death on 4 August 1920.
St Patrick’s Church, Newry (Courtesy of Keith Haines)
(Newry and Mourne Museum Collection)
The minister was born in Liverpool, where his father had worked in the Hydraulic Engineering Department of the Mersey Docks. He originally worked in the merchant navy but, having married Marianne Frizelle of Sligo in 1872, decided to train for the clergy. Although some historians have claimed that others such as Holy Trinity Church in Bandon, Co Cork, was in 1610 “undoubtedly the first edifice ever raised in Ireland for Protestant Worship”, the honour goes to St Patrick’s in Newry which dates to possibly as early as 1578. It was an appealing church to inherit as Moore’s predecessor, Rev. Dr Francis King, had had it re-roofed and re-carpeted, added two transepts and a vestry, and installed marble pillars, a pulpit of Caen stone and an organ.
William Moore became a popular and respected minister. Even as early as mid-1894 his commitment of “twelve months of constant and unremitting care he has so willingly and ungrudgingly bestowed on the parish” was rewarded with three Sundays of “rest and recreation”. In 1902 he was presented with a bicycle and a purse of sovereigns and, similarly, a few months before his death in 1920 he was awarded a £25 bonus.
Just as the news of Britain’s declaration of war on Germany was announced (4 August 1914), the local Newry Reporter revealed that St Patrick’s Church had appointed a new organist (J G Wilson), whose delight may have proved short-lived. Moore’s relationship with all his church organists appears to have been discordant. He had reprimanded one at Glenavy, and at Drumgooland the installation of new harmonium did not inhibit him from dismissing three organists in eight years. In late 1895 at St Patrick’s the organist, Mr Rolston, was chastised “in regard to the singing” and during Moore’s near thirty years’ incumbency there were to be at least five different organists/choirmasters.
His first decade also witnessed a rather unseemly public disagreement in The Newry Telegraph with Rev. Samuel Smartt, vicar of the other Church of Ireland in Newry, St Mary’s. Until the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland in 1870 the latter had held a pre-eminence over its partner on the hill. Moore interpreted Smartt’s observations to imply that St Patrick’s was not a full parish church and there was to be an enduring correspondence between the two men in the letters column of the local press. Moore eventually endeavoured to end the wrangle in early 1901, and the Vestry minutes in 1902 rather mischievously recorded that “nothing but peace and goodwill has existed in the Church”! All was evidently forgiven for, when a ‘United Service of Prayer of All the Protestant Churches of Newry’ (in response to the outbreak of war) was held at St Mary’s on 19 August 1914, Moore was asked to give the sermon.
The clergyman found the passing years difficult and challenging. Until the turn of the century the family lived at the parsonage on Canal Street, but by 1901 they had moved to 2 Corry Square, and in his final years he began to find the hill to the church much less accommodating. There were also increasing financial pressures upon the church. Probably with some irritation, he pointed out at the United Service that some people tended to turn to the Church only in unsettled times. The congregation at St Patrick’s had been declining in the early years of the century, partly due to the fact that increasing numbers from Ulster were emigrating to such as Canada and Australia to find the employment which was not available at home.
It was said that Rev. William Moore was a little pompous in his demeanour, perhaps brought on by frustration at the lack of promotion, but he had a kindly and charitable disposition. He raised five children of his own and, when his brother George died in Liverpool, he adopted his three nephews and raised them all on a salary which never exceeded £300. Despite his very limited income, when the school opened on 3 September 1894 Moore sent his younger son to board at the expensive Campbell College at Belmont in East Belfast, at which sons of clergymen received a ten per cent discount on fees. The young Arthur had probably demonstrated academic aptitude when he was educated at home “in the three Rs, English and classical history” by his aunt, Jane Frizelle, and at the Intermediate (or day preparatory) School on Downshire Road run by William (known as Larry) Stoops. A fellow pupil from the latter school, Chalmers Fisher, also joined him at Campbell – and both of them were to go to St John’s College, Oxford, on scholarships. Stoops sent his own son, Samuel, to Campbell in 1901; the latter taught English and Classics at his father’s school (1906 – 1913) before eventually becoming Headmaster at Kimberley Boys’ High School in South Africa.
In 1900 Arthur went to Oxford on an Open Scholarship which, supplemented by a grant from Campbell, totalled half his father’s salary at the time. Amongst his undergraduate friends was Aubrey Herbert, whose half-brother discovered the tomb of Tutankhamen in 1922 and who was the model for John Buchan’s character, Greenmantle. Arthur took a particular interest in politics. Probably assisted by the innate Irish ‘gift of the gab’, he became an expert debater and, although it was very unusual for someone of his social background, in 1904 he was elected President of the Oxford Union, a post usually held by more prominent members of the social order.
He returned home to Ulster at Christmas 1902 and 1903, but soon after leaving university in 1904 he obtained the post of secretary to the Balkan Committee in London. Apart from his brief visit to Newry in September and October 1906 it is unlikely that he ever saw his parents again. His mother died in February 1917, while Arthur was serving in the Balkans, and his father passed away in August 1920 when Arthur was working in Persia (modern-day Iran). There is incidental evidence that, when he returned from India in 1952, he toured Ireland, and this would have been the only occasion on which he may have visited his parents’ grave in St Patrick’s churchyard.
The Balkans
The Balkan Committee had been formed by influential figures (such as Arthur Evans who had excavated the Minoan palace at Knossos on Crete) to publicise and defend the interest of the Christian population within the Ottoman (or Turkish) Empire. Arthur’s commitment as secretary was to herald a lifetime of dedication to the underdog – whether it be in the Balkans, Persia (modern-day Iran) or India – and of a readiness to badger, irritate, antagonise and alienate bureaucrats, officials, politicians, Government ministers and Viceroys, as well as his employers!
Arthur first travelled to the Balkans in the summer of 1905, via the Orient Express, where he met King Peter of Serbia in Belgrade (although he embarrassed himself by asking the monarch for details of railway timetables). When he travelled to the rural areas, however, he discovered first-hand the grim, unrelieved poverty and violence which most peasants
endured. In one village he noted: “I saw a babe of three of whose skull but a hollow fragment remained, and I cannot believe that the child was not clubbed”. At this stage he also made his first tentative, but unsuccessful, attempt to enter the mysterious Albania.
He made a return visit to the Balkans in 1906, and then returned directly from Constantinople to Newry, where his father’s parishioners were regaled with tales of his travels. Participating in one of his father’s services in October, he mentioned that he had visited Philippi where St Paul had been imprisoned, probably drawing comparisons with the sufferings of contemporary Christians, and it cannot have been coincidence which caused him to choose, for the second Bible reading, 2 Corinthians VIII which begins with a reference to “the grace of God which has been shown to the churches of Macedonia … in a severe test of affliction”.
His third visit to the Balkans in July 1908 laid the foundations for his future career as a successful journalist. He was sent to Macedonia by the Balkan Committee to observe and report on the sudden eruption of the Young Turk Revolution which attempted to reform and modernise the Ottoman regime by means of a Constitution. It created astonishing scenes but it caught the British press unawares, so Arthur despatched reports which were printed by many newspapers including the most influential, The Times. He encountered the amazing spectacle of harmonious relations between nationalist groups previously ready to cut each other’s throats. In the Macedonian capital he observed: “the walls of Salonika (now Thessaloniki) at this moment contain all the elements of hate and cruelty which have made Macedonia a hell on earth for its inhabitants. These people who come linked arm-in-arm, laughing together, drinking endless coffees together, dancing together, have schemed and plotted against each other’s lives for years past … they have killed each other with every refinement of cruelty”.
Arthur was asked by the Balkan Committee to congratulate the Young Turk Committee of Union and Progress, and in return he requested permission to enter Albania. They were reluctant to allow him to travel in such a dangerous and unknown country, but he persuaded them that he could gauge on their behalf Albanian reaction to the Constitution. From the end of August 1908, accompanied by a guide, Arthur Moore became – in his own words – “the first west European to penetrate central Albania”. [It was a country – it could not be called a nation – which was fraught by interminable blood-feuds and vendettas, where the women did the work, such as farming and heavy labouring, because the men needed to carry rifles to defend their communities. Edith Durham, who travelled in northern Albania just before the First World War claimed that “they were deeply addicted to shooting one another, either in furtherance of some feud, or merely for target practice”.
Guns were a common-place in Ulster and Irish politics from at least the late nineteenth century, and more so after 1910 with the increasing likelihood of Home Rule. After Fred Crawford successfully smuggled 20,000 rifles into Larne in April 1914 for the Ulster Volunteer Force, they were distributed around the counties of Ulster. On 19 August, the 3rd Battalion of the South Down Regiment was presented with new colours and The Newry Reporter recorded the impressive display as six hundred men paraded at Rathfriland.
Arthur was to discover – even before the outbreak of the First World War – that everywhere he travelled the gun was commonplace. As the Balkan hills emptied into Salonika he penned: “Men who had held the hills for years, sleeping by day and waking by night, came down to the town … Wild, fierce figures, with whom no brigand that has ever trod the stage of a theatre could compare in dressing for the part, shaggy men with Mannlichers, knives and revolvers and a double-burdened belt of cartridges marched in proudly and were greeted by the whole populace as heroes”.
In a small Albanian village Arthur witnessed the endemic enthusiasm for gunfire even at religious festivals: “Rifle-fire rattled incessantly, for everyone carried a Martini, and to fire it is the method celebration that appeals to the Albanian heart … Every Martini was pointed in the air, and everyone blaze away at intervals. Presently the bishop with all his robes on … galloped up on a smart horse. Bang went all the rifles, and the bishop … whisked out his great silverwrought revolver and let off every cartridge in the air”. When Arthur became involved in the siege of Tabriz in northern Persia early the following year, he echoed such scenes amongst the rebels against the Shah: “Others there were of that terrible brotherhood who used to sing La Marseillaise in memorable evenings at Tabriz, with a contagious rolling swing that might have lit the fires of revolution in the soul of a usurer. Swarthy, deep-chested merry fellows, with the inevitable bandoliers and Mauser pistols on them even at their feasts”.
Nevertheless, Arthur found that whatever the circumstances and hardships he encountered in such places as Persia and Albania, hospitality for a stranger – even despite the prevailing poverty – could be lavish. He later recalled in his unpublished memoirs that at Bourgayet he was served a dish of mutton by a child “with bright, excited eyes”, for Arthur was the first Feringhi (west European) he had seen. The boy was named Ahmet Muhtar Zogolli (later Zogu) who eventually became King Zog of Albania. As he departed Salonika the Ulsterman probably reported to the Young Turks that there was little chance for the Constitution to succeed in Albania, but his adventures had furthered his future career as an international journalist, much on the lines of ITN reporter, John Irvine, who also later followed Arthur Moore to Campbell College.
As a child in Newry, the books which Arthur read, including Rudyard Kipling, created “a passionate desire to see the world”, and he later wrote that “I must see the glamorous East. How I was to get there I did not know, but get there I must. Also I knew that I should”. Eventually he realised that “the way to get to the East was to become a journalist, get yourself sent there and have a newspaper paying your expenses”. Apart from about eight years (which included the First World War), Arthur spent the period 1909 to 1952 as a journalist in Persia and India. He developed an instinct for a good story and during his career delivered a number of scoops for his employers. One of these was his coverage of the siege of Tabriz in northern Persia.
Persia
Following his success in reporting the Young Turk Revolution a number of British newspapers combined to send him to Persia to cover the rebellion of the nationalist forces
against the Shah, who had refused to honour the agreed Constitution. Moore travelled via Moscow to the border town of Jolfa in Azerbaijan, and took the 24-hour journey by postchaise to Tabriz. He crossed the Aji Chai Bridge into the city on 19 January 1909 “half-dead with cold and half-blind with snow”. He was expected ultimately in Tehran, the capital, but he got no further. For the next few weeks Arthur lodged with the British Consul, Albert Charles Wratislaw, as all the roads to the city were closed by the forces of Mohammed Ali Shah who laid siege to the city which became the last centre of resistance against him.
The siege lasted 100 days and, for most of the large population, resulted in total destitution and famine made worse by the greed and corruption of the town’s officials and the two leading military commanders. Arthur did not develop much respect for either the besieging royalist forces or the nationalist defenders; of the former he wrote: “They had a reputation for fierceness which should not be mistaken for bravery. They possess the common vices of cowards – treachery and cruelty. They were out for loot with the minimum of risk”. Arthur spent his early weeks gathering information and filing reports, many of which, to the great annoyance of the Shah, succeeded in reaching the British press. He acted totally impartially, visiting and interviewing both sides in the struggle. In doing so, he often put his own life at risk accompanying raids on the royalist trenches in the hills around Tabriz. At one point, a Georgian soldier next to Arthur blew his own head off with a mistimed hand grenade: “I narrowly escaped a drenching as all the blood gushed out from his body toppling backwards”.
He became frustrated at the incompetence of the raids undertaken by the defenders, which meant that “by the end of March the town was in the last extremity of starvation”. Arthur had made friends amongst the besieged residents and eventually on 1 April (in company with an American schoolteacher named Howard Baskerville) he joined the nationalist forces. Wratislaw commented that “at this time, if there was a row on, as a good Irishman he felt bound to be in it”! In the following days he helped to drill the town’s forces and eventually, on the night of 18/19 April Arthur managed to assemble (to his own surprise) a force of 350 men to make a final sortie on Qaramelik (to the west of the town) where the royalists were known to store food. They pushed back the Shah’s forces from the gardens five times, during which Baskerville was killed, but in the end could not hold the advanced position and were forced to retreat.
Nevertheless, this final sortie ensured that Tabriz held out just long enough for the arrival of relief forces from Russia. The reports and engagement of Arthur Moore at Tabriz resulted in
him being appointed as Special Middle East correspondent for The Times, which he described as “the most influential newspaper in the world”, and in the autumn of 1909 he returned to Persia, based in Tehran. As he proved to be throughout his life, he became a controversial and combative individual!
In 1907 control of Persia had been divided – without consultation with the Persians –between Russia in the north and Britain in the south. Britain’s principal interest was to ensure that Persia remained a buffer against the interest of other nations in India, which was regarded as ‘the jewel in the crown’ of the British Empire. Both Britain and Russia endeavoured to maintain their power by keeping Persia economically dependent upon them. As ever supporting the underdog, Arthur felt that this was morally indefensible and agreed with the American, Morgan Shuster, who had been sent to sort out the Persian economy, that these “two powerful and presumably enlightened Christian countries played fast and loose with truth, honour, decency and law”. The Ulsterman became involved in trying to arrange a loan of £6 million from a London bank for the Persian Government, but as this might have enabled the latter to break free from Russian and British control, the British Government intervened to block it. Arthur wrote of “the arrant humbug” of the British authorities, and the minister in Tehran reported that “it is evident that [Moore] intends to do his best to create trouble”!
Wherever Arthur travelled and worked he avoided a superficial approach to his work and endeavoured to gain a full appreciation of the issues, problems and circumstances of the people of the country. Following his death in 1962 one commentator was to conclude that “the world of journalism has lost another link between the age of dedication and our own, of journalism as a mere profession”. He took a close interest in the political scene in Persia, and became very disillusioned about the lack of progress and development. The paramilitary nationalist leaders he had met in Tabriz had arrived in Tehran but Arthur concluded that, far from wanting to improve the circumstances of all Persians, they were only interested in promoting and enriching themselves. As one of Arthur’s Persian acquaintances bemoaned to him in April 1912: “Two years ago we talked of that glorious future, the era of liberty and independence, but we have been like the thieves who found themselves in heaven – we have looted Paradise instead of living in it”.
Mohammed Ali Shah was deposed in 1909 but sought revenge for his humiliation. He despatched his chief supporter, Arshad-ed-Dowleh, from Vienna to start a coup. Two mitrailleuses (a type of machine gun) were smuggled into Persia in crates labelled “Mineral Water”, but they were never likely to have much impact and the intended uprising was badly supported. The attempt was defeated near Tehran on 5 September 1911 and Arthur rode to the scene and interviewed Arshad. He then witnessed the latter’s execution by firing squad.
On 26 August 1912 Arthur Moore set out from Tehran on a horse-back ride down the centre of Persia to gather information for articles for publication in The Times. He traversed eight hundred miles of difficult and often perilous terrain, resting in uncomfortable, flea-ridden caravanserai. Not all those whom he encountered were well-disposed and he was occasionally obliged to pay protection money to lawless bandits. There were, however, compensations. He visited the meidan (main square), Chehel Situn Palace, Friday mosque and bridges of Isfahan (many of which are now on the UNESCO world heritage list).
On the road to the southern city of Shiraz he passed the 2,500-year-old mausoleum of Cyrus the Great. He travelled on to the equally ancient site of Persepolis, destroyed in 330 BC in a drunken rage by Alexander the Great. Arthur rode his horse up the 111 entrance steps, as the ancient conqueror had done, and camped amongst the historic ruins.
En route to the coastal town of Bushire on the Persian Gulf, Arthur travelled via Tengi-Allahu-Akbar (the Pass of God is Great) to the enchanting but neglected city of Shiraz. He observed that the province of Fars (which had long since given its name to Persia) was disturbed by exceptional lawlessness. The British authorities in the south of the country proved unable to check the prevalent gun-running, and Arthur reported that the bazaars of Fars were crammed with Mausers, Martinis and other rifles and pistols, “and the most disquieting feature is that there is nowhere apparent a lack of ammunition”.
It was an irony that such circumstances were an echo of what was happening contemporaneously in his native Ulster. Guns had been arriving in Ulster since the introduction of the Home Rule bills in 1886 and 1893 – although one of the problems was that there was usually insufficient matching ammunition. Within three months of Arthur’s departure from the insufferably hot and humid Bushire, the Ulster Volunteer Force was formed (January 1913), and it became necessary to arm the paramilitary body. In April 1914 Fred Crawford imported 20,000 Mausers and other rifles which were quickly distributed – but the primary contrast with the circumstances in Persia was that Sir Edward Carson, Captain James Craig and Fred Crawford insisted upon – and obtained – the strictest control and discipline.
Travels
From Bushire he arrived on a cockroach-infested boat in Karachi (then in India), and travelled to the Red Forts of Delhi and Agra, where he also visited the Taj Mahal, and the
ruined Residency at Lucknow, destroyed during the India Mutiny (1857–1858). He dined with Lord Hardinge, the Viceroy of India – with a number of whose successors Arthur was to become familiar during his years (1924–1942) on the leading British newspaper in India, The Statesman of Calcutta. Also dining with the Viceroy was one of Arthur’s former Oxford University acquaintances, Lawrence Carey Shuttleworth, who was tutor to the Nawab of Bhopal. In 1914 Arthur produced a book detailing his journalist travels entitled The Orient Express, and dedicated it to Shuttleworth.
Despite the vastness of the Indian sub-continent, it was not uncommon for acquaintances to encounter one another. Five per cent (160) of pupils from Campbell College went to work in India in many capacities in the period leading up to the Second World War: the judiciary, the railways, tea planting, journalism, commerce, the police, and the prestigious Indian Civil Service. One of these was John William Kelly, son of the manager of the Provincial Bank (between February 1881 and August 1908) in Hill Street, Newry, who rejoiced in the name of Thaddeus O’Dowda Kelly. Arthur would have been very familiar with the Kelly family as they were parishioners at St Patrick’s Church and, upon his death in November 1908, Kelly senior was buried in the churchyard. He had four daughters, but John was his only son – and, had he lived long enough, as a banker he would have taken immense personal pride in John’s career. In 1910 the latter joined the Finance Department of the Government of India, and in 1926 became the Deputy Controller of Currency in Bombay (now Mumbai). Between 1932 and 1937 he was promoted as Controller of Currency in Calcutta (now Kolkata), and in this capacity his signature appeared on Indian rupee banknotes.
New Year 1913 found Arthur, during his return journey to England, in his old haunt of Salonika where he discovered that the enthusiastic expectations of his former visit in 1908 were taking longer than expected to enact; and, indeed, they had virtually evaporated. The engrained rivalries and tensions had resurfaced as all the parties struggled to obtain the principal advantages.
In October 1912 the Christian nations of the Balkans (such as Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia) had formed the Balkan League to attempt to drive out Turkish (Ottoman) rule. In 1908, following his own experience in the area, Arthur had written a novel (under the pseudonym Antrim Oriel) entitled The Miracle, which predicted the Balkan challenge to the Turks. In
this volume he set two decisive battles at Kirk Kilisse and Lule Bourgas – and he proved as surprised as anyone to learn that these were precisely the locations of the first two decisive battles of the First Balkan War in October 1912! Arthur was to have one child (Antony, born in Naples in 1918) who owned a copy of The Miracle, but it was lost when he moved house. During the 1980s Tony Moore visited the Scottish island of Iona and walked into a secondhand bookshop. On the shelves, to his astonishment he noticed a copy of his father’s book on the shelves – but was even more astounded to discover that it was the very copy which Arthur had given to his own parents (Rev. William and Marianne Moore) in Newry!
From the town of Drama (in north-eastern Greece), Arthur corresponded with his former colleagues on the Balkan Committee, revealing that its involvement in the current events was a fiasco, adding that the situation around the town was “in an appalling state”. Although the primary interest of the Committee had been for the Christian groups, Arthur’s previous visits had convinced him that the most vicious and murderous episodes had been perpetrated by the itinerant bands of bandits supported by the various Christian authorities (in such as Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria). He claimed that most of the charitable funding being sent out to the area was subject to massive fraud and misappropriation and that “it might as well be a fund for the purchase of headstones”. During February 1913 he also sent a number of spontaneous despatches about the War to The Times, who proved sufficiently impressed to publish them and to offer Arthur the prestigious post of Our Own Correspondent in St Petersburg, then the Russian capital and residence of the Tsars.
Russia
He arrived in May 1913 when the climate was still very inhospitable. He took a flat which overlooked the Moika Canal and shared an office adjacent to the Hermitage Museum and the Winter Palace. It was a city which shared similarities with Belfast. Although the latter did not grow at quite the alarming pace of St Petersburg, in the early twentieth century both of them had to accommodate rapidly expanding populations, and there was a marked contrast between those who enjoyed considerable prosperity and the abject poor. The Russian city was a noted cultural centre but, although no-one foresaw the reality, with the onset of the First World War it was to be last Tsarist social season before the Russian Revolution in 1917. Arthur noted that he occasionally saw Rasputin, “a very jaunty figure, dressed in blue breeches and high jack-boots”.
Although Arthur’s time in Russia proved abbreviated, he managed to engineer one scoop for The Times. He travelled to Kiev (now the Ukrainian capital) to observe the trial of Mendel Beiliss, a Jew accused of the ritual murder of a young Christian boy. Arthur proved most impressed by the modern city which, as he pointed out, proved an incongruous location to hold what was an anti-semitic trial of medieval nature. Everyone was aware of the real perpetrators of the crime and of the innocence of Beiliss, who enjoyed much public sympathy – and at the end of the trial he was pronounced innocent – but Arthur characterised it as a typical political rearguard action by the Tsarist authorities who had, for generations, been notoriously antisemitic. The courageous resilience of Jews in Kiev was ultimately to prove their downfall, when 33,000 were slaughtered one by one by the Nazis on 29 and 30 September 1941.
Although of a different nature, Belfast was not to be entirely remote from such issues at the time of the First World War. On the outbreak of the conflict there were about 40,000 German residents in the United Kingdom, the majority of whom were not naturalised. The brutal march of the Germans across Belgium and northern France engendered a national detestation of all Germans, who were quickly regarded as fifth columnists and spies. Partly as a consequence of their commercial and business background and success, all Jews were equated as being German. Daniel Jaffé had arrived in Belfast from Hamburg in 1858 and quickly established a successful and well-known linen company. Otto proved to be his most capable son and
expanded the international business and was acknowledged as one of the most able businessmen in the city. By the outbreak of the War he had been a city councillor for a quarter of a century and had been elected Lord Mayor twice (in 1899 and 1904), having been knighted for his service. His commitment to the city had been demonstrated by the opening of a new mill on the Newtownards Road as recently as 1910. He was an active member of the Ulster Unionist Council (UUC) which had organised the resistance against Home Rule, and his elder son and several nephews had taken commissions in the British Army on the declaration of war against Germany. Sir Otto Jaffé had not only adopted British naturalisation in 1888, he had simultaneously discarded his German citizenship – yet despite the fact that he was a British citizen, many people in Belfast preferred to believe that he was a German spy. Despite the fact that his letter was published in The Belfast News Letter on 17 May 1915 emphasising that he was a British citizen and condemned all that Germany had done in the War to that point, he found that life in Ulster became intolerable and was forced to leave for London in mid-1916.
Neither was Newry immune from such issues. On 8 August 1914 (within four days of the declaration of war on Germany) Rev. William Moore received a letter from David Abrahamson of the town’s Jewish community. Abrahamson had arrived in Newry at the very start of the century with a wife and three children and his fourth child, Solomon Michael, was born there in 1901. Originally, David was listed as draper, but by the time of the 1911 Census he had become a pawnbroker. The letter had asked the clergyman to make an appeal for respect from his pulpit but, to ensure wider coverage, Moore sent a letter to The Newry Reporter, which was published on 11 August, explaining that the businessman complained “of being annoyed and insulted and threatened with assault in Newry and Bessbrook by those who labour under the impression that all Jews are Germans”.
He revealed that Abrahamson, whom Moore described as a respected member of the community (and one of whose sons was at Trinity College in Dublin), could barely conduct his business. It is unclear as to where the Abrahamsons were born, as the 1901 Census specifies that they came from Germany, although that of 1911 – as do his naturalization papers of July 1904 - states that their country of birth was Russia. Moore pointed out that Abrahamson was Russian by birth and not German, and emphasised that he was a naturalised British citizen. Moore added: “the annoyance that Mr Abrahamson has been subjected to is in the highest degree reprehensible; it is a miserable expression of spurious patriotism, and”, he continued, “savours more of German than Irish manners”.
The primary purpose of Arthur’s appointment to St Petersburg was to report on military progress in Russia as the prospect of a European war gathered momentum. France and Russia bordered the western and eastern frontiers of Germany and were (along with Britain) members of the Triple Entente; to obviate a prospective war on two fronts, Germany devised the Schlieffen Plan whose fundamental objective was to incapacitate France quickly in order to enable German forces to focus primarily upon the huge armies which Russia could put into the field. In 1913 General Joffre led a French Military Mission to observe Russian manoeuvres; he wanted a revision of the entire plan for Russian mobilisation to offer greater protection to his own eastern border. Arthur covered the action in August and September for The Times, and reported that Joffre expressed satisfaction at the reorganisation. Arthur said that the French general was returning home convinced of the high standards of the Russian Army and its officers, but he added that – apart from the improvement in military communications –there were few concrete details available and, reading between the lines, there was still much to do, particularly with regard to the standard of officers.
Arthur’s period as ‘Our Own Correspondent’ in St Petersburg proved brief. The Times had employed a resident correspondent, Robert Wilton, for many years; he was responsible for producing the Russian Supplements – some of which appear by their titles (such as ‘Fire
Insurance in Russia’, ‘Cold Storage: an undeveloped industry’ and ‘The Cement Industry’) to have been ineffably tedious. The two men were requested to co-operate and not to interfere in the other’s orbit of responsibility, but the demarcation of duties was never defined, and they clashed constantly – even over such trivia as the location of office furniture. The most personal issue was that of Wilton’s treatment of his secretary, Eileen Maillet, which Arthur believed to be too unsympathetic. Although the resident journalist may never have realised it, Arthur’s concern was engendered by romantic considerations, for two years later Arthur married Eileen!
So vitriolic did the relationship become that eventually in December 1913 The Times sent out the company chairman to resolve the rupture. Although Arthur was to complain bitterly at the decision to send him home, his contract in St Petersburg was terminated, although he was compensated with a three-month extension from March 1914. It was evident, however, that the newspaper had no idea how to occupy its reporter during that period so he was given carte blanche to tour the Iberian peninsula. He travelled to such places as Toledo, Seville and Ronda (where he attended the bull-ring later popularised by Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles). The Times unenthusiastically published ten articles as they amounted more to a travelogue than a serious evaluation of the politics of Spain and Portugal. Nevertheless, it proved successful from a personal perspective, as he was joined by Eileen, and the romance of the peninsula worked its magic and they became engaged.
Durazzo
Arthur was concerned, however, that his contract was due to expire on 1 June. As he was so often to do, he followed his instinct and, without authorisation and out of contract, he travelled to the troubled and unstable former stamping ground of Albania. Since 1913 this had been governed by an International Commission and supervised by an international Gendarmerie. It was nominally ruled by a European head of state. Unlikely though it may seem, Arthur’s university friend, Aubrey Herbert, was twice offered the throne of Albania (once in 1913, and again in 1920), but wrote that “Any prince would be an ass to take it”. The fool who did was Prince Wilhelm von Wied (a historic German county), whom members of the Royal Navy sent to patrol the coast were wont to deride as “William the Weed”!
There had been an attempt in October 1913 to set up a separatist government, and the Gendarmerie had been obliged to intervene to assist the King at Durazzo, which was effectively the only place he controlled. Arthur arrived in mid-June, as he had done in Tabriz, just as a siege of the town began! Arthur was awoken on 15 June by gunfire and the rebels managed briefly to penetrate within half a mile of the palace. He commented, however, that Albanian bravery was mostly swagger, and they were easily beaten back. He said they had a fear of artillery and, like the Persians, regarded weapons as being effective in direct proportion to the amount of noise they made! Arthur was as resourceful as ever and managed to persuade the Foreign Office to send his despatches by radio via Malta, and The Times – despite its reservations and non-committal attitude towards him – did print his reports as from ‘Our Own Correspondent”.
Arthur’s sudden departure from Durazzo was engineered a fortnight after his arrival by events two hundred miles distant in Sarajevo. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand orchestrated the various declarations of war by the Powers of Europe. Arthur took a Lloyd’s steamer, noting that his last view of the Albanian coast was “of a sad-faced princess on the balcony above the sea”. Travelling via Corfu, Athens and eventually Marseilles, he arrived in Paris in mid-August and reported to G. J. Adam, The Times’ correspondent in the French capital. Here, unwittingly, he was to obtain probably the most notable scoop of his lengthy career as a journalist.
The Amiens Despatch
Arthur arrived in Paris in the early days of the war, soon after the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) had crossed the Channel to tackle the German advance. Reporting the action
was always going to prove challenging and, upon reflection in his final years, Arthur wrote: “Never before or since, I suppose, have correspondents been so muzzled and frustrated as in the early stages of the First World War”. After the military embarrassments of the Boer War (1899–1902), Lord Kitchener was determined that there should be no reporters at the front lines. Arrest was inevitable, and Arthur’s companion at this time – Hamilton Fyfe of The Daily Mail – later recalled that Kitchener “talked wildly about having reporters shot if they could be caught”. Additionally, the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) prohibited the publication of any information which revealed the details and location of any military forces.
The only material printed in the press were anodyne accounts – what Arthur was soon to characterise as ‘eyewash’ and ‘children’s prattle’ – prepared by a military figure and, when Arthur arrived in Paris, these simply recorded that the BEF was doing its job with a high degree of success. To adventurous reporters of Arthur’s calibre and experience, such restrictions were profoundly frustrating, and on their own initiative he and Fyfe set off on the morning of 28 August towards the front. About 7 pm they discovered a weary British soldier by the roadside, who told them they had been told to retreat from Amiens, but had been given no precise directions or instructions. This was confirmed by other hungry and exhausted troops they encountered, who indicated that – contrary to current reports published in the British press – the BEF was in ragged, disorderly retreat.
Both men spent the night in separate rooms in a hotel at Amiens composing a despatch for their respective employers. Arthur’s lengthy report, still held in the archive of The Times, was datelined ‘Amiens, AM Saturday 29 August’. [At 6 am they departed for Dieppe and
managed to persuade a complete stranger boarding a steamer to take their messages to the newspapers. The editorial staff at Printing House Square in London felt that the full text of Arthur’s report was unlikely to pass the Press Censor, F. E. Smith – who only the previous year had travelled to Belfast in support of the Ulster Unionist challenge to Home Rule, and had stayed at its headquarters, Craigavon House, only a mile from Campbell College – and so they edited it themselves quite extensively. To their astonishment, Smith restored a number of their deletions, and added his own footnote: “I beg you to use the parts of this article which I have passed to enforce the lesson – reinforcements and reinforcements at once”.
The publication of Arthur’s so-called Amiens Despatch in one of the occasional Sunday editions of The Times (30 August 1914) caused an enormous outcry, as the newspaper noted, “in public and in private, in Parliament and in the Press”. Although Arthur’s report did not disparage the courage of the British troops, banner headlines such as ‘Broken British Regiments’ and ‘Battling Against Odds’, and the revelation that the Germans were in relentless pursuit, caused consternation as it was a total contradiction of what had hitherto been published.
The Prime Minister, Asquith – accustomed to the deceptive trivia of Kitchener’s reports –was enraged; it was an irony that, as the Amiens Despatch was the first truthful report from the battlefield, he declared that “the public is entitled to prompt and authentic information of what has happened at the front”! Having been embarrassed only six months earlier by the success of Fred Crawford’s gun-running exercise, he would have been apoplectic if he had learned that the reporter was another Ulsterman! Other newspapers such as The Daily Telegraph, jealous of the scoop which The Times enjoyed, referred to “highly alarmist stories … not justified by the facts”, and the public, disturbed by the shocking realities proved equally critical and hostile. Despite the initial universal vituperation which it faced, The Times (although it never revealed his name) never questioned Arthur’s integrity and issued a statement saying that “the despatch was written … by a member of our staff who has known the horrors of war in many parts of the world and has often risked his life in the service of this journal. He is a trained journalist, accustomed to sift fact from fiction, and is specially fitted by experience for the duties which he is now undertaking” – which, in view of the efforts the paper had made to dispense with his services, was itself an irony.
The realisation that the Despatch reflected the truth of the situation in France deflected criticism on to the Press Bureau, and Smith felt constrained to resign. A contradictory statement was published in the press designed to cover its tracks, which was reproduced in The Newry Reporter on 1 September: “The Bureau have not thought it necessary to forbid the publication of messages sent by correspondents of newspapers dealing with the recent operations, provided that such messages neither gave away military information nor disclose the organisation or position of troops. These messages, however, should be received with extreme caution”. It continued somewhat bizarrely: “No correspondents are at the front, and their information, however honestly sent, is therefore derived at second or third hand from persons who are often in no condition to tell coherent stories … It is hoped that the statement issued tonight will dissipate any apprehension caused by such reports, and restore the necessary perspective to the recent operations”.
Arthur and Hamilton Fyfe took great delight in revealing the inaccuracy of this bulletin. The latter penned a detailed account of their adventures after Dieppe which was published in The Daily Mail and reproduced in The Newry Reporter on 8 September under the headline: “Newry Clergyman’s Son at the Front”. Fyfe discounted the assertion that there were no correspondents at the Front, joking that he and Arthur were actually ahead of the Front, and revealing of the Ulsterman that “His smiling coolness the whole time suggested that he was enjoying it all very much”. The two reporters, travelling in a Rolls Royce, headed
towards Beauvais and then to Clermont. They were intercepted by a patrol of eighteen Uhlans (German light cavalrymen), who discovered maps and a pistol in their possession. A sergeant seemed delighted at the prospect of shooting them, but the officer eventually let them pass –although they quickly discovered that Clermont was full of Germans and he had probably felt that someone else could have the bother of arresting them. Fyfe’s account covered only this short episode. Their luck eventually ran out and they were arrested by a British staff officer, which potentially involved being shot. They and other journalists were, however, put on a very slow and mind-numbingly tedious train to Tours and one colleague commented that Arthur “to judge from appearance, was lodged at the bottom of the well of the world’s misery”. A sympathetic guard ultimately let them return to Paris to collect personal possessions and they were then escorted out of the military zone.
The publication of the Amiens Despatch had important repercussions both nationally and locally for Ulster. One later historian believed that it had shaken British complacency, and Smith’s addendum to the original document, urging reinforcements, resulted in a rapid response from the public and Arthur proudly recalled that “none of my subsequent war service was half as useful as this article (written with F.E.’s help) in my civilian days”. In Ulster, however, the consequence was far more dramatic, and it is possible to argue that Arthur’s penmanship was directly responsible for the formation of the celebrated 36th (Ulster) Division.
After three years of uncompromisingly rancorous discord over the prospect of Home Rule, the declaration of war on Germany by the British Government created a strange, unpredictable accord amongst the principal political rivals. The early gestures were tentative, but effectively both the Ulster Unionists (under Sir Edward Carson) and the Irish Parliamentary Party (led by John Redmond) agreed to put their respective UVF and Irish National Volunteers (INV) at the disposal of the British Government for home defence – that is, for the protection of Ireland. This surprise development was motivated, on the part of both parties, by their aspirations with regard to Home Rule: the Unionists hoping that their contribution would help to exclude Ulster from its shackles, and the Nationalists cultivating the full implementation of the Home Rule bill.
Newry and the declaration of war
On 8 August Newry’s neighbouring nationalist newspaper, The Dundalk & Louth Advertiser, stated that, in the House of Commons, Redmond had placed the Irish Volunteers “at the disposal of the British Government for the protection of Ireland”. A week later another individual cautiously clarified the stance: Rev. Fr. O’Hare addressed the Newry branch of the Irish National Volunteers (INV) explained that Irish Volunteers would not become English Territorials, claiming that Redmond’s stance was not anti-German or pro-British – simply a declaration that the INV would defend their own country.
The columns of The Belfast News Letter revealed on 3 August that Carson offered much the same limited commitment, that is, “if the country should be in danger and the Volunteers (UVF) should be needed to assist in defence of the coast they would respond to the call with alacrity”. He sent a telegram to Mr Dawson Bates, secretary of the Ulster Unionist Council, urging that “All officers, NCOs and men who are enrolled in the UVF, and who are liable to be called out by His Majesty for service in the present crisis, are requested to answer IMMEDIATELY His Majesty’s call, as our first duty as loyal subjects to the King”. At that stage, however, conscription was unlikely, and the further statement “that Sir Edward Carson is at present in consultation with the War Office as to how the UVF can be used with the best advantage at present in the interests of the Empire” was a clear indication that he was still using it as a bargaining chip with the British Government for limited Home Rule for Ireland in his negotiations.
Nevertheless, those who wished to enlist in the British Army were not dissuaded, and it caused unique scenes on the streets of Newry in early August. Michael Lennon, a Catholic trainee butcher aged 21, had run off to Gosport to join the Army reserves. This seems to have been occasioned by the attitude of his father, William Lennon, a butcher in Cowan Street who had been charged by Sergeant Curran of the Royal Irish Constabulary (also a Catholic) with “alleged cruelty to his children by neglect”. The boy returned when the mother promised to give her husband a second chance, and John Ruddy, another Newry butcher in Kildare Street offered the young man a position.
The Newry Reporter depicted even more dramatic events. The order for mobilisation on 4 August “was the cause of remarkable scenes of enthusiasm” as local reservists entrained at Edward Street station for both English and Irish depots via Greenore (which was being fortified with siege guns and earthworks): “A week ago such a display of cordiality amongst the people of Ireland in this district would have been impossible, but last night the two opposing parties fraternised, and we had the unique spectacle of Ulster Volunteers lined up at the station in full marching order, whilst the men of the Irish National Volunteers entrained with members of the Ulster force to go and defend Britain’s right”. It continued: “The platforms were packed to suffocation”. There were several brass and flute bands and “The Ulster Volunteers outside were cheered to the echo and their band played God Save the King, their followers standing with bared heads. This was followed by Auld Lang Syne and the effort was seconded by thunderous cheering from the big Nationalist crowd”. The only sombre note was that the women were weeping: “The breadwinner was gone on the train to fight and they looked darkly on tomorrow”.
Other more practical domestic concerns and worries began to weigh upon local minds in the first month of the War. The local press reported that the price of some items such as butter and eggs had started to rise, but advised against panic buying. Coal has also risen by one shilling (5 new pence) a ton, but there was gratitude that “the merchants have not combined to extort high prices for fuel”. The Royal Army Service Corps, however, was looking for horses – the War Office purchased 50 horses at this time from the Belfast Co-operative Society for £2850 – and the Newry press reported local attempts at profiteering: “Many farmers are seeking exorbitant prices for quite ordinary animals”.
In mid-August it was claimed that local people had been worried by a plane flying overhead: “Country friends should remember that a district such as Newry does not possess such a strategic importance as would render it liable to initial attack. Some humourists, too, connected with the local quarries have developed the idea of exploding small charges of dynamite at night, to the terror of nearby dwellers”. It was such fears and apprehension which resulted in the announcement of the ‘United Service of Prayer for all the Protestant Churches of Newry in connection with the European War’ at St Mary’s Church on 19 August. The sermon was given by Arthur’s father who did not offer reassurance, pointing out that armies were being mobilised all over Europe and that “We cannot lull ourselves with the false hope that this will be a short or easy struggle … Never in the world’s history”, he continued, “have the shadows of war so deepened and darkened”.
On 6 September 1914 Moore’s sermon returned to this theme of God becoming a refuge in times of uncertainty and war. The nave of the oldest Protestant church in Ireland will have reverberated to the promise: “The storm of war rages around our barque, but we believe it will weather the storm because the God of hosts is with us”. The astonishing reality will only have dawned on the 65-year-old minister on the following Tuesday morning, when The Newry Reporter printed his sermon along with Fyfe’s account of his front line adventures with Arthur; that is, that the text of his homily had effectively been written by his son, as it is evident that
much of it was based upon the Amiens Despatch which had been published the previous Sunday in The Times. In terms redolent of the controversial report, Moore spoke of the ceaseless German march across Belgium and northern France. Content such as “The British Army, in particular, has fought a series of rearguard actions which will be memorable as long as history endures. With amazing speed the Germans are pushing forward to strike a blow at Paris” and “The very foundations of the Empire are threatened, all the resources of the Empire must be collected and concentrated, both of men and material, for the defence of our nation” could have been lifted verbatim from Arthur’s report.
More significantly, the other individual who responded to the publication of the Amiens Despatch was Sir Edward Carson. It was no coincidence that the UVF’s Special Order for Enlistment as a formally constituted body in the imperial forces was issued three days after the publication of Moore’s despatch, and the unit was quickly transformed into the 36th (Ulster) Division. On 4 September the Newry UVF assembled at the Drill Hall at Sugar Island and Captain Hall of Narrow Water took “the names of those willing to join the new force that is going to be raised to assist in defending the Empire”; the majority did so.
Also amongst those who enlisted will have been some of the 600 men who paraded at Rathfriland for the presentation of Colours to the 3rd Battalion South Down Regiment, as detailed in The Newry Reporter on 20 August. (Its second in command was Rev. Oswald Richardson, who had succeeded William Moore at Drumgooland, and who also sent his son to Campbell during the War while he departed to become a Forces’ Chaplain). The report described the turnout as impressive: “Two hours in the burning sun, with full regimentals and rifles, marching and counter-marching, forming squares, long line, companies, marching four deep, fixing bayonets and all the rest, with precision which would tire ordinary troops”. The rifles were from amongst those smuggled in six months earlier by Fred Crawford from Germany. Few can have missed the eventual irony that it was this training with such arms which ultimately enabled the 36th Division to achieve its much-heralded success on the first day of the Somme (1 July 1916) – against the Germans!
Arthur’s war
Retaining the favour of The Times, Arthur was despatched to Italy which – although a member of the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria – to that point had proved noncommittal about a declaration of war. Arthur spent several weeks in Venice where he was ensconced in the grand ducal suite of the celebrated Danieli Hotel (now one of the most expensive hotels in Europe). There were no tourists and on 8 October Arthur said there was little to report. Having learned the language he was transferred to Rome with letters of introduction to the Italian Prime Minister and Foreign Minister whom he interviewed. They confirmed the lack of Italian enthusiasm for conflict and Arthur asked to be sent to cover events in Russia. This was declined and, as he felt he was doing nothing worthwhile, he obtained a recommendation for an officer’s commission and returned to England.
In January 1901, as a member of a volunteer corps, he had helped to guard the funeral of Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle. He recalled that his position was such that, as the Kaiser (the Queen’s eldest grandson) passed “I could easily have kicked him. In 1914 I sometimes wished I had”. After training, Arthur was sent in May 1915 as a Second Lieutenant in the Rifle Brigade to Gallipoli before being transferred in October to the General Staff at his former haunt of Salonika. By coincidence, he was joined a few weeks later by his wife, Eileen (whom he had married in 1915), who was engaged in an administrative post. Salonika proved to be a tedious and futile operation and Arthur quickly “wearied of being a brass hat”.
He had become fascinated by flight after he caught sight of a plane above Salonika during the First Balkan War. Although, approaching the age of 37, he was well past the age considered suitable for learning to fly, an official interceded on his behalf and he was sent to Heliopolis in the Egyptian desert. He lived down to expectations and crashed five planes, but he succeeded in obtaining a transfer to England to complete his training. The approaching end of the war intervened to prevent a flying career but in September 1918 he was designated a ‘Major –flying’ and was sent back to the eastern Mediterranean. His thrill of flight is recorded in his memory of a flight he made towards the end of 1918:
Shortly after the Armistice I flew from Salonika to Constantinople. As my machine swung over the Straits I beheld a view that for breathless beauty and wonder was unmatched, and there was added the consciousness that since the beginning of Time few eyes, save those of soaring birds, had ever gazed upon it. Below me and open to my single enfolding glance the sail-winged Aegean, the twisting ribbon of the Straits, and the wide lake of the Marmora, Thrace … and the windy plains of Troy were in a single picture.
Arthur was then asked to deputise for Sir Tom Bridges in early 1919, and travelled to Bucharest to assist in welcoming the Romanian royal family back from exile. Arthur received three decorations as a result of his wartime service. On 3 June 1919 he was awarded an MBE ‘for valuable services rendered in connection with the War’; he was also decorated by the Greek Government in January 1918 with La Croix du Chevalier: the Order of the Redeemer (5th class), and by the Serbian Government with the Order of the White Eagle. Returning to England he was re-engaged by The Times as Special Correspondent for Middle Eastern Affairs.
Re-employment with The Times
As he was not due to travel to Persia until July, he spent some of the time visiting the Persian Delegation at the Paris Peace Conference, endeavouring to re-familiarise himself with Persian politics. He returned to London on 11 May entrusted with the first copy of the Draft Treaty of Versailles. He had clearly discussed with the Persians the possibility of creating an air postal concession, to which some individuals at the Foreign Office were sympathetic, but Arthur never had the financial resources to establish this. He left on 7 July for the Middle East; he was based in Tehran, but his brief was much wider, incorporating Iraq (Mesopotomia), Turkey, Egypt and Syria. He was soon joined by his wife and son Antony, who had been born in Naples in May 1918.
Some of the events which he covered during the next three years were the threat of Bolshevism and the attempts to establish an Anglo-Persian Agreement. His coverage, and opinions, of the latter antagonised the British Government so much (not for the last time) that it encouraged The Times (unsuccessfully) to sack its correspondent. The most significant development during this period was the bloodless coup, in February 1921, by the military figure, Reza Khan. This occurred while Arthur was out of Tehran and his wife gained credit for her deputising coverage of the changing political scene. Arthur became very friendly with Reza Khan, occupying a neighbouring villa in the Elburz mountains outside Tehran during the hot summer months, and his positive opinion towards the Persian (whom he congratulated in October 1925 when he declared himself the new Shah of Iran) caused the Foreign Office to describe the Ulsterman as “undoubtedly a mischievous person”.
In April 1921 Arthur asked for a renewal of his contract, but he became a victim of the stringent economies which The Times made in its foreign news department, and his contract ended on 6 October. Reza Khan came to say farewell to Arthur and his family when he left
Tehran on 8 November, and he returned to London in January 1922 via the appalling waste of southern Bolshevik Russia, and the Orient Express from Constantinople and Venice.
The Times and hard times
Arthur expected his association with Printing House Square to have ended but, unexpectedly, Lord Northcliffe (who owned The Times) specifically requested that Arthur be sent out to inform the British public of developments in India. The Editor, Henry Wickham Steed, had spent a long time trying to dispense with Arthur’s services, and would not have been pleased with the demand of the owner (who usually called Steed ‘Pinhead’!), but had to accept the situation. Arthur departed on 3 February 1922 on a six-month contract and met the Viceroy, Lord Reading. It proved a valuable insight in to the complex affairs of the subcontinent for the journalist for his future employment there. He witnessed the early stages of civil disobedience (known as satyagraha) fomented by Gandhi. He reported on the building of the dangerous Khyber Railway, and travelled by the Pass into Afghanistan.
Whilst at Simla, the British summer capital in India, he was informed that the newspaper had to make drastic reductions and could not renew his contract, and this spelled the end of his thirteen year relationship with The Times, during which time (despite the antagonism he could generate) he had earned much praise for his foresight, perspicacity and journalistic talent and had developed an instinct for a good story.
On his return to London he suffered, in his own words, “a precarious existence”. Despite personal poverty, he managed to purchase a journal called The New Age, which he edited – primarily to ridicule the short Conservative government (October 1922 – May 1923) of Andrew Bonar Law (whose family had close Presbyterian links with Ballymoney). The main object of his disdain was the Foreign Secretary, Lord Curzon. In January 1924, however, the fortunes of Arthur and his family improved when he was appointed Assistant Editor of the leading British newspaper in India, The Statesman of Calcutta.
India
Arthur travelled out with his family in February 1924, although his wife – who did not find India congenial – soon returned to England with their son. From 1926 to 1933 Arthur was also a European member of the Indian Legislative Assembly and often spoke out (to the annoyance of many fellow Britons) against the hardships suffered by the native population and criticised the exploitative policy of the British Government towards the sub-continent. In 1933 he was appointed Managing Editor of The Statesman and during the late 1930s alienated the Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, by using the columns of his newspaper to press for a greater role of Indians in their own affairs. He was also extremely critical of Hitler, but antagonised
the British Government by challenging its policy of appeasement. When the Second World War broke out he demanded a greater recognition for the part played by India and urged an acceleration towards Dominion Status. Although, privately, Linlithgow did not disagree with some of Arthur’s opinions, and indeed praised his talent as a journalist, he found him too outspoken and in August 1942 coerced The Statesman into dismissing Arthur. This cost the Ulsterman the knighthood he would probably have received.
Arthur was reluctant to return to England (and his family) and spent the next three years working with Lord Wavell on the Bengal Famine and Lord Mountbatten with the war effort in south-east Asia. He did not always accord with Gandhi’s ideas, but he became a close acquaintance of the Mahatma; when Gandhi ended his final fast, just before his assassination in January 1948, Arthur was the first person to whom he gave an interview, which Arthur reproduced in the first edition of a journal which he named Thought which he founded and edited. He was also very hostile to the division of India into the Hindu (India) and Moslem (Pakistan) states in 1948. Over forty years after he had first reported conflict in the Balkans, he covered events in the Korean War for papers such as The Hindustan Times
In 1952 he returned to live in London and, never having paid much interest to personal finances, lived in very poor circumstances in Chelsea, being obliged to take jobs such as hoovering the carpets at the Savoy Hotel. His wife died in 1957. His son, Tony, joined the Diplomatic Service and, amongst numerous postings, returned to his father’s former haunt of Tehran. He died in December 2000. Arthur Moore died in penury on 23 July 1962, and was buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave at North Sheen Cemetery in London. In recent years an admirer has furnished a headstone. [Insert image 12 here: the site of Arthur’s burial]
William Arthur Moore (1880–1962)
Appendix: Arthur Moore Genealogy
A. Parents
a. Rev. Dr William MOORE
Born 25 January 1849
Married Marianne FRIZELLE 19 August 1872 Died 4 August 1920
Son of William MOORE, a Liverpool engineer, connected with the Hydraulic Engineering Department of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Trust. Brother of George Moore (raised latter’s three children on George’s death).
Went to sea before adopting clerical profession. Ordained: deacon 1878; priest 21 December 1879 Curate, Glenavy (Co. Antrim) 1878–1884 Incumbent, Drumgooland, Ballyward (Co. Down) 1884–1892 - lived at Glebe House, Drumgooland Incumbent, St Patrick’s, Newry (Co Down) 1892–1920 - lived at St Patrick’s Parsonage, Canal Street, Newry 1894–1900 and 2 Corry Square, Newry 1901–1920
b. Marianne FRIZELLE
Died 24 February 1917 Eldest daughter of Thomas FRIZELLE (of Bridge – or Kilsellagh – House, Sligo)
B. Siblings
a. Florence BUCHANAN
Educated at Trinity College, Dublin Married (7 June 1899) Rev. Charles Henry Leslie BUCHANAN (Rector of Kilwaughter, Larne 1902–1939) Died 1948
3 children: Richard Moore BUCHANAN, George Henry Perrott BUCHANAN (noted journalist, author and poet), and Florence Mary KING-WOOD
b. Thomas Frizelle MOORE
Worked in Bank of Ireland in Newry, then (after what may have been an incident of theft at the bank) went to Liverpool (possibly to some of the Moore family there), and went to sea. Possibly died in penury. Still living in 1924.
c. Sarah Jane ALEXANDER
Married Yorkshire businessman 3 children (2 sons and daughter, Norah – a journalist)
William Arthur Moore (1880–1962)
d. Katherine (Kate) REDMOND
Lived in Warrenpoint
e.
William Arthur MOORE
C. Wife
Maud Eileen MAILLET
Died 5 February 1957 (obituary in The Times, 6 February 1957) Daughter of George Maillet She was a journalist, using the pseudonym Eve Adam.
D. Son
Antony Ross MOORE
Born 30 May 1918 (Naples) Served in the Diplomatic Service (see Who’s Who) Died 3 November 2000
William Arthur Moore (1880–1962)
