George Laurie - Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie

Brighton.

March 29th, 1915.

…We have not written to tell you how deeply we sympathize with you in your great sorrow, as I know letters are of no comfort in times of sadness, but to-day, in a letter we received, such words of admiration were written of Colonel Laurie that I felt I should like to write and repeat them: “Colonel Laurie handled his battalion to perfection during the attack on Neuve Chapelle, and his death is an irreparable loss to the 1st Battalion.”

We have always heard what a splendid soldier Colonel Laurie was, and our country does so need such leaders now in the army to bring victory….

May 4th, 1915.

Dear Mrs. Laurie,

I have such a deep admiration and respect for your late husband, for Col. Laurie was, as you know, in command of the 28th M.I. in the column I commanded in S. Africa, where I learnt to appreciate his value as a soldier and his many other sterling qualities. After the campaign we used to hear from one another on occasions of mutual congratulation and the like. His loss to the Service is a very great one, but one cannot imagine a more glorious ending to a fine career, falling at the head of the regiment he loved so well, and which he led with such skill and bravery. His name remains one held in honour for all time.

Yours sincerely,

J.N. Keir.

War Office.

April 2nd, 1915.

My dear Mrs. Laurie,

Only yesterday I was aware of your address. I write only a line to ask you to accept my deep and sincere sympathy in the loss you have sustained. You indeed have given to the Country of your best, and if there is any consolation it may be in the fact that my old friend died as every soldier would wish to, at the head of his battalion in a successful action.

Trusting you and the children are well.

Yours ever sincerely,

C.N. Macready.

Ossington,

Newark, Notts.

July 18th, 1915.

Dear Mrs. Laurie,

Thank you so much for sending me that nice photograph of Colonel Laurie. I think the likeness is excellent. I am so glad to possess it, and shall value it greatly always. I do think of him so constantly, every time I go by Carlton and see all the things there in which he took so great an interest, and the fields where one went shooting, and he was so keen about it all. There is a recollection for me at almost every gateway. He was indeed a most kind and sympathetic neighbour to us and a real friend. Thank you again and again for the photograph; it is most kind of you to have sent it to me.

Yours very sincerely,

W.F.E. Denison.

Thoresby Park,

Ollerton, Notts.

September 15th, 1915.

Dear Mrs. Laurie,

…I have never had the opportunity till now of telling you how we all felt Colonel Laurie’s death, nor how much his unfailing cheery and cheering presence in the hunting field has been and will again be missed by all who had the pleasure of knowing him, and everybody who hunted with him will always retain the very pleasantest memories of his kindness….

“The brilliant success which the troops of the 4th Corps have achieved in the capture of Neuve Chapelle is of the first importance to the Allied cause, especially at this period of the war. The heroism and gallantry of the regimental Officers and men, and the assistance afforded them by the artillery units, is deserving of the highest praise, and the Corps Commander desires to congratulate them on the severe defeat they have inflicted on the enemy, whose losses amount to not less than 4,000 men in killed and prisoners alone. The magnificent behaviour of the infantry units is deserving of the highest commendation, and in deploring the loss of those gallant comrades who have given their lives for their King and Country, Sir Henry Rawlinson hopes that all Officers and men fully realize that what they have accomplished, in breaking through the German line, is an achievement of which they should all feel justly proud.”

Sir,

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.

Colonel Laurie’s father, General J.W. Laurie, C.B., [13] Civil and Military. served with great distinction in the Crimea, where he was twice wounded; in the Indian Mutiny, and in the Transvaal. He was Honorary Colonel of the Royal Munster Fusiliers, and, having sat for some years in the Canadian House of Commons, was from 1895 till 1906 Unionist Member in the Imperial Parliament for the Pembroke Burghs, and a prime favourite with all sorts and conditions of men in the House of Commons. Colonel Laurie’s elder brother, Captain Haliburton Laurie, who was one of the most deservedly loved men of his generation, fell in the Boer War in 1901. If he had not been a great soldier, Colonel Laurie would have been a great historian. His knowledge of history, more especially of military history, was profound, and his memory was singularly retentive. He had, moreover, a very sound judgment in the marshalling of facts. He had written with a pen of light the history of his regiment, which he loved, and which loved him, and on which in life and in death he had shed additional lustre.