Veterans Day.
27 Jun 2006 09:41 pmToday is Veterans Day in Britain. Manxmen have fought in the British forces way back into the mists of time, and so if the British Forces are recalling their veterans today, ours will be amongst them.
For example Captain Quilliam was Nelson’s First Lieutenant on board ‘Victory’ at Trafalgar His house still stands in the square in Castletown, although the current owner appears to be trying to let it get into such a state of disrepair that he will be able to demolish it. Another famous officer of the Royal Navy from a Manx family was, of course, Fletcher Christian, of Bounty fame.
They turn up in the rolls for war after war – for example Colonel Quayle-Jones, who was in command of the Warwickshire regiment during the Boer war. No less prayed for by their families were the 60 – 70 others who were listed in the local Manx papers in 1900 as also serving in that field of conflict – down to Bugler Dunne, aged 16 who ‘appeared before Her Majesty the Queen for conspicuous bravery at Colenso’, and his father Sergeant Dunne, who served in the fifth Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers.
( Beneath the cut is one of my long family history bits )
For example Captain Quilliam was Nelson’s First Lieutenant on board ‘Victory’ at Trafalgar His house still stands in the square in Castletown, although the current owner appears to be trying to let it get into such a state of disrepair that he will be able to demolish it. Another famous officer of the Royal Navy from a Manx family was, of course, Fletcher Christian, of Bounty fame.
They turn up in the rolls for war after war – for example Colonel Quayle-Jones, who was in command of the Warwickshire regiment during the Boer war. No less prayed for by their families were the 60 – 70 others who were listed in the local Manx papers in 1900 as also serving in that field of conflict – down to Bugler Dunne, aged 16 who ‘appeared before Her Majesty the Queen for conspicuous bravery at Colenso’, and his father Sergeant Dunne, who served in the fifth Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers.