Harold Thomas Cawley MP, circa 1910
Captain Harold Thomas Cawley (12 June 1878 – 23 September 1915)[1] was a British barrister, Liberal Party politician and soldier.
Background[]
Born at Crumpsall, he was the second son of Frederick Cawley, 1st Baron Cawley and his wife Elizabeth Smith, daughter of John Smith.[2] His younger brother was Oswald Cawley.[2] Cawley was educated at Rugby School and then at New College, Oxford, where he graduated with a Master of Arts.[3] He was called to the Bar by the Inner Temple in 1902 and went to the Northern Circuit, working in Lancashire.[3] Two years later he joined the 2nd Volunteer Battalion, Manchester Regiment.[4]
Career[]
Photograph of Harold Thomas Cawley, of the Bury and District Soldiers' Memorial Book, Section 1914-1915, published by the Bury Times
In 1910, Cawley entered the British House of Commons for Heywood,[1] and a year later he was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Home Secretary Reginald McKenna.[2] On the outbreak of World war I in 1914 he served with his Territorial Force battalion (now the 6th Battalion, Manchester Regiment and became aide de camp to Major-General William Douglas, the officer commanding 42nd (East Lancashire) Division.[4]
Death[]
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Original grave of Cawley at Gallipoli
The 42nd Division went to Gallipoli in 1915. During September the Turks exploded a series of mines in front of the British trench known as the 'Gridiron' and damaging its defences. Repairs after one mine on 22 September were covered by a bombing party of 1/6th Battalion Manchester Regiment who held the lip of the crater. The same day the Royal Engineers exploded a counter-mine and the Manchesters rushed the crater and built a barrier across it. Captain Cawley, serving with 1/6th Bn, was killed that night by a Turkish sniper, and the crater became known as 'Cawley's Crater'.[5][6] Before his death, he sent a letter to his father, at that time representative of Prestwich in the Parliament of the United Kingdom.[4] As a Member of Parliament the letter was not subject to military censorship, and it reported the mishandling of the Dardanelles campaign in some detail.[4] Cawley is buried at Lancashire Landing Cemetery in Gallipoli.[7]
Memorial to the Cawley brothers in St Peter and St Paul Church, Eye, Herefordshire
It was in memory of Harold and two other sons - Oswald and John - who died in the war that their father endowed a ward at Ancoats Hospital, Manchester, in 1919 at a cost of £10,000.[8] All three brothers are commemorated on the Parliamentary War Memorial in Westminster Hall. Harold and Oswald, on Panel 8, are among the 22 MPs that died during World War I to be named on that memorial. John, included on the memorial as the son of an MP, appears on Panel 2 of the memorial.[9][10][11] Harold Cawley is one of 19 MPs who fell in the war who are commemorated by heraldic shields in the Commons Chamber.[12] A further act of commemoration came with the unveiling in 1932 of a manuscript-style illuminated book of remembrance for the House of Commons, which includes short biographical accounts of the life and death of the Cawley brothers.[13][14]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Leigh Rayment - British House of Commons". http://www.leighrayment.com/commons/Hcommons3.htm. Retrieved 24 June 2009.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "ThePeerage - Captain Harold Thomas Cawley". http://thepeerage.com/p21216.htm#i212154. Retrieved 12 December 2006.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Who is Who 1914. London: Adam & Charles Black Ltd.. 1914. pp. 363.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 "Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives - Cawley, Harold Thomas". https://www.kcl.ac.uk/lhcma/summary/ca87-001.shtml. Retrieved 24 June 2009.
- ↑ Frederick E. Gibbon, The 42nd East Lancashire Division 1914–1918, London: Country Life, 1920/Uckfield: Naval & Military Press, 2003, ISBN 1-84342-642-0, p. 53.
- ↑ Debrett, John (1918). Arthur G. M. Hesilrige. ed. Debrett's House of Commons and Judicial Bench. London: Dean & Son. pp. XXIV.
- ↑ "Casualty Details: Cawley, Harold Thomas". Commonwealth War Graves Commission. http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/599662/.
- ↑ Brockbank, E. M., ed (1929). The Book of Manchester and Salford Written for the 97th Annual Meeting of the British Medical Association. Manchester: George Falkner. pp. 126–27.
- ↑ "Recording Angel memorial Panel 2". UK Parliament (www.parliament.uk). http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/building/cultural-collections/memorials/in-the-collection/world-war-i/wwi-angel-memorial/recording-angel-panel2/.
- ↑ "Recording Angel memorial Panel 8". UK Parliament (www.parliament.uk). http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/building/cultural-collections/memorials/in-the-collection/world-war-i/wwi-angel-memorial/recording-angel-panel8/.
- ↑ "List of names on the Recording Angel memorial, Westminster Hall" (pdf). UK Parliament (www.parliament.uk). http://www.parliament.uk/documents/War-Memorial-Lists/War-Memorial-Westminster-Hall-WW1.pdf.
- ↑ "Cawley, Harold". UK Parliament (www.parliament.uk). http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/building/cultural-collections/memorials/in-the-collection/world-war-i/wars-heraldic-shields/cawley-harold/.
- ↑ "Error: no
|title=specified when using {{Cite web}}". 6 February 1932. - ↑ Moss-Blundell, Edward Whitaker, ed (1931). The House of Commons Book of Remembrance 1914–1918. E. Mathews & Marrot.
External links[]
- Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Harold Cawley
- Church memorials
The original article can be found at Harold Cawley and the edit history here.