CONSCRIPTION

[USA President; Ireland: Conscription Crisis of 1918.] Two printed items by O’Neill, Lord Mayor of Dublin, as Chairman of the Mansion House Conference, protesting British actions, one to the American President, the other to the American Ambassador.

Author: 
Laurence O’Neill (1864-1943), Lord Mayor of Dublin, Chairman of the Mansion House Conference, 1918; Irish Independent, Dublin; J. R. N. MacPhail [James Robert Nicolson MacPhail] (1858-1933)
Publication details: 
Both items dated from the Mansion House, Dublin, the first (to the president) on 11 June 1918, and the second (to the US ambassador) on 18 June 1918. [Irish Independent, Dublin.]
£450.00

Although large numbers of Irishmen had willingly signed up to fight for the British cause in the First World War, by April 1918 a shortage of troops moved the British government to propose conscription in Ireland. This was violently opposed by republicans, and O’Neill convened an Irish Anti-Conscription Committee which met at the Mansion House in Dublin. Strikes and protests followed, and although a law was passed, conscription was never implemented in Ireland. These two items are now extremely scarce.

[World War One.] Handbill with ornate coloured decorative border, headed ‘ROLL OF HONOUR’, intended for ‘A Record of Friends and Relatives who answered the call of King and Country in the Great War: 1914-1915.’

Author: 
[World War One] Geo. Newnes Limited, London; Hudson & Kearns Limited, lithographic printers
Publication details: 
Circa 1915 or 1916. ‘Published by Geo. Newnes Ltd., Southampton St. Strand [London]’. Printer: ‘Hudson & Kearns, Ltd., London, Litho, London, S.E.’
£100.00

A nice piece of First World War ephemera, from the period of transition from volunteering to conscription. Newnes was a leading British publisher of the period, and the present item may have been inserted in one of its periodicals, which included ‘The Strand Magazine’, ‘Women’s Own’ and ‘John O’London’s Weekly’. It is printed on a leaf of good quality cream 4to wove paper, and was intended for completion. In fair condition, lightly aged, with light wear and creasing to extremities.

[ First World War: proposed British Parliamentary legislation. ] Typescript of 'Skeleton Draft of a Bill prepared in August 1914.', proposing to 'organise and make fully effective the services which every subject of the Realm is bound to render'.

Author: 
[ First World War, compulsory service on the Home Front: proposed British Parliamentary legislation, 1914; the Houses of Parliament ]
Publication details: 
[ London? Circa August 1914. ]
£320.00

An anonymous document, clearly the work of a member of the British Parliament. Typescript of 12pp., folio. With retrospective title page in neat manuscript, reading: 'Skeleton Draft of a Bill prepared in August 1914. | How many troubles and disasters might have been saved if some such scheme had been carried out.' A few minor emendations in the same hand. On 'British Loan' Britannia wove paper. In good condition, with light signs of age and wear.

Autograph Letter Signed ('John F. Dillon') from Sir John Fox Dillon of Lismullen to 'My dear Mary', criticising the 'queer state' of Irish politics, First World War 'shirkers', and describing what he claims as the first tractor in Ireland.

Author: 
Sir John Fox Dillon (1843-1925) of Lismullen, Navan, County Meath, Baron of the Holy Roman Empire
Publication details: 
On letterhead of Lismullen, Navan, County Meath [Ireland; Eire]. 20 December 1917.
£220.00

4pp., 12mo. Bifolium. 61 lines, closely written in a crabbed, difficult hand. Good, on lightly-aged paper. He begins by thanking her for a book, before commenting: 'Things are in such a queer state in this country that it is hard to know what will happen. This Government is enough to drive one mad. They are afraid to do a thing until the Convention has come to some sort of compromise (which no party will accept). The Sin [sic] Feins will do their best to upset any recommendation the Convention may come to. You must remember there are the Ulster men (Royalists) Royalists [sic] from all parts.

[Printed magazine.] The first issue of 'The 18-30 Review', March 1949, devoted to conscription ('National Service'), with main article 'The Lost Opportunity' by Basil Henriques.

Author: 
[The 18-30 Review; The 18-30 Conference, 26 Bedford Square, London; Conscription; National Service; Sir Basil Lucas Quixano Henriques (1890-1961)]
Publication details: 
No. 1. March 1949. The Editor, 26 Bedford Square, WC1 [London]. [Printed by Latimer, Trend & Co., Limited, Plymouth.]
£120.00

8pp., 4to. Stapled and unbound. In fair condition on aged paper. On the first page the 'object of this Review' is described as 'to provide a forum for discussion in which the organisations represented on the 18-30 Conference and their individual members can express their views on subject of common interest'. On the last page the 18-30 Conference is described as 'a consultative body', inaugurated in November 1946, 'established in recognition of the need to provide a forum for discussion on the interests of young citizens in the manifold activities of national life'.

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