Abstract
During a period of liberal reform in Britain in the second half of the nineteenth century the army formed a strong link with the public schools, in order to preserve the exclusive ‘gentlemanly’ status of the officer corps. This developed into a public school monopoly of officer recruitment, which continued into the interwar period in spite of the apparent democratisation of the officer corps during the First World War, when a large proportion of army officers were commissioned from the ranks.1 Thus, expectations of a new social order in postwar Britain were dashed and the country’s political and business elites continued to be recruited predominantly from families that could afford expensive public school education for their sons.2 This all changed during the Second World War. In September 1939 the main recruitment channels for the British army’s regimental officer corps, the ‘gentlemen cadet’ colleges at Sandhurst and Woolwich, were closed and in their stead was put the Officer Cadet Training Units (OCTUs). This new system was an attempt to make officer selection less elitist and more meritocratic: all wartime recruits would have to serve a period in the ranks and only those recommended by their commanding officer could go forward to the selection board. As we have already seen, these reforms produced a significant social-levelling effect on officer recruitment, although public schoolboys continued to be over-represented.3
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Notes
C.B. Otley, ‘The educational background of British army officers’, Sociology 7, no. 2 (May 1973): 194.
Christopher M. Bell, ‘The King’s English and the security of the empire: class, social mobilisation and democratisation in the British naval officer corps, 1918–1939’, Journal of British Studies 48, no. 3 (July 2009): 695.
See Jeremy A. Crang, The British Army and the People’s War, 1939–1945 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), 21–39.
In Ireland, unlike in Britain, all secondary schools with the exception of the preparatory colleges were privately owned and fee-paying. State involvement was limited to providing a small number of scholarships, about 600 annually, and a capitation grant to schools following the Department of Education’s curriculum. In this context, all secondary students were part of an elite and it was only the level of fees that determined a school’s exclusiveness, and hence which strata it catered for. Here ‘elite’ schools refers to those charging the top rate; Seán Ó Catháin, Secondary Education in Ireland (Dublin: Talbot Press, 1958), 10, 14.
C.B. Otley, ‘Militarism and militarization in the public schools, 1900–1972’. British Journal of Sociology 29, no. 3 (September, 1978), 322.
Sir David Cole, Rough Road to Rome (London: Kimber, 1983), 19. Cole is not in the sample of southern Irish officers, as his father was born in Antrim and Cole himself seems to have been born in England.
Brian Inglis, West Briton (London: Faber & Faber, 1962), 36.
This book adheres to David Fitzpatrick’s definition of ‘militarism’ as ‘the spirit and tendencies characteristic of the professional soldier; the prevalence of military sentiments or ideals among a people’. See Fitzpatrick, ‘Militarism in Ireland, 1900–1922’ in A Military History of Ireland, ed. Thomas Bartlett and Keith Jeffery (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 498f.
Randal Sadleir, Tanzania: Journey to Republic (London: Radcliffe Press, 1999), 10.
H.L. Kirby and R.R. Walsh, The Seven V.C.s of Stonyhurst College (Blackburn: THCL Books, 1987), 106, 123. The two were Capt. Harold Marcus Ervine-Andrews, VC and Capt. James Joseph Bernard Jackman, VC, respectively.
Brian Gardner, The Public Schools: An Historical Survey (London: Hamilton, 1973), 183.
Imperial War Museum, anon., Eton and the First World War (Windsor: Eton College, 1992), 39.
Jonathan Bardon, The 1608 Royal Schools Celebrate 400 Years of History, 1608–2008 (Belfast: 1608 Royal Schools, 2007), 200.
MacFarland quoted in Keith Haines, To the Ends of the Earth: Campbellians at War (Belfast: Campbell College, 2002), 21–2.
Keith Haines, Campbell College (Stroud: Tempus, 2004), 8.
T.E. Muir, Stonyhurst (Cirencester: St Omer’s Press, 2007), 150.
Dom Lucius Graham, Downside and the War, 1914–1919 (London: Hudson & Kearns, 1925), 59.
S.J. Watson, Furnished with Ability: The Lives and Times of Wills Families (Salisbury: Michael Russell, 1991), 234.
G.K. White, History of St. Columba’s College, 1843–1974 (Dublin: Old Columban Society, 1980), 124.
Royal Air Force Museum, Dermot Boyle, My Life (London: RAF Benevolent Fund, 1990), 13.
Georgina Fitzpatrick, St. Andrew’s College 1894–1994 (Dublin: St Andrew’s College, 1994), 19–21.
See General Sir Frederick Pile, Ack-ack: Britain’s Defence against Air Attack during the Second World War (London: Harrap, 1949).
The following is taken from Maurice Digby Seymour, ‘On H.M.S. Barham’, St. Andrew’s College Annual, 1934, 17–18.
David Robertson, Deeds Not Words: Irish Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen in Two World Wars (Multyfarnham: David Robertson, 1998), 13, 63, 147.
C.S. Andrews, Dublin Made Me (Dublin: Mercier Press, 1979), 10–11.
Barry Coldrey, Faith and Fatherland: The Christian Brothers and the Development of Irish Nationalism, 1838–1921 (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1988), 73.
Senia Paseta, Before the Revolution: Nationalism, Social Change and Ireland’s Catholic Elite, 1879–1922 (Cork: Cork University Press, 1999), 40.
Oliver Murphy, The Cruel Clouds of War (Dublin: Belvedere Museum, 2003), 4.
Clongowes Wood College Archive, ‘Clongownians in the Great War’. 13 past pupils were listed as IRA members: Clongownian, 1922, 255–7.
James H. Murphy, Nos Autem: Castleknock College and Its Contribution (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1996), 107.
Alvin Jackson, Ireland 1798–1998: Politics and War (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), 276–8.
Dermot Keogh, Twentieth-Century Ireland: Nation and State (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1994), 37.
Patrick Heffernan, An Irish Doctor’s Memories (Dublin: Clonmore & Reynolds, 1958), 7.
See Chaz Bowyer, Eugene Esmonde VC, DSO (London: Kimber, 1983).
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© 2014 Steven O’Connor
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O’Connor, S. (2014). ‘A great training school for the army’: Irish Officers and the School Influence. In: Irish Officers in the British Forces, 1922–45. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137350862_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137350862_4
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