RODDY OWEN DSO
The Regiment and the county of Lancashire got to know each other particularly
well in the winter of 1798-99, when the Twentieth had great success
in raising recruits in Preston. (Recruits had been raised there before,
and the Regiment had marched through the county on its way to Culloden.)
Although it was known at this time as the East Devonshire Regiment,
it began to rely more and more on getting its ranks filled from Lancashire,
so that when, in 1881, the Report of the Ellice Committee on Formation
of Territorial Regiments recommended the extensive re-allocation of
Line regiments to counties, a long established connection was openly
recognised in naming the Regiment the Lancashire Fusiliers.(Editors
note:- it should be pointed out here that the story of the Regiment
not being granted the "Royal" in their official title due
to some misdemeanor is a myth!-Joe.)
Another firm connection with Lancashire was already in being, for the
Regimental Depot had been moved from Exeter to Wellington Barracks,
Bury, in 1873, and those familiar buildings, which dated originally
from 1845, with many later additions, were to become well known indeed
to all the succeeding generations of Fusiliers. It remained the Regimental
Depot until 1961, when the final parade was held there on March 17:
it is still the Regimental Headquarters(Lancashire), and houses the
Regimental Museum.
Apart from the changes affecting the Regiment, there had been many important
innovations in the Army as a whole since the mismanagement of the Crimean
War had revealed the faults of the old system, and the growing military
power of Prussia began to alter the military balance of Europe. Cardwell's
reforms were carried out between 1868 and 1873, and included the abolition
of purchase by officers of commissions and steps in rank.(Not before
time !! But it would still be many many years before "working class"
applicants would be able to gain commissions-Joe-Editor)
Among the other changes was the introduction of a trained reserve, which
had to depend on a short-service army. Cardwell introduced enlistment
for six years with the colours, followed by six years in the reserve,
and he also assisted recruiting by abolishing flogging in peace time.
Another equally important step was to develop recruiting grounds and
to connect the regular Army with the militia by making it territorial
in its regimental title, assigning to each historic numbered infantry
regiment a local depot and a county name. The Twentieth already had
its second battalion, but it was made the rule that all regiments should
have two linked battalions-one of which would be on foreign service-associated
with its county militia and volunteers.
Although the name of the Regiment changed, a link with the West Country
still remained. A handsome memorial in Exeter Cathedral recalls those
members of the Regiment who fell in the Crimea. The old Twentieth had
to a large extent been officered by men from West Country families and
this link remained for some time. (Other ranks had long been recruited
mainly in Lancashire.)
The abolition of purchase did not show its full effects for some time
and as the pay of an officer was not very great, it was still necessary
for an officer to have some private means especially if he was to get
married. It was unusual for an officer to marry young and, therefore,
he was able to devote more of his time to regimental activities and
to becoming imbued with the regimental spirit. For a young officer fond
of sport and with the gift of friendship, life could be very pleasant
in an infantry regiment in the second half of the last century. Whether
his battalion was stationed in India, Ireland or at home, there was
always plenty of racing, shooting and dancing. The Regiment had a reputation
for its excellent cellars: s of Professor Saintsbury's scholarly wine-bibbing
was done with an officer of The Twentieth.*
Ilow one could make the most of this kind of life is exemplified in
the short, brilliant career of Roddy Owen, one of the 'characters' that
the British regimental system used to be able to accommodate and even
encourage-to the advantage of the system, and the Army as a whole. A
brilliant horseman and a good shot, Roddy Owen's courage went without
saying, but at the time of his death the quality of leadership that
went with it was also being revealed; his high sense of honour and duty
found its expression through a most original turn of mind. He was a
man of whom the Lancashire Fusiliers have always been proud.
* The late Maurice Healy, in his Stay Me Wit! Flagon (1941), recalled
a 1923 Les Musigny he had drunk in the 1st Battalion mess that was,
'all that good burgundy should be; and it lost nothing by being drunk
in such excellent and hospitable company'. He also wondered, in a
later chapter on beer, whether Lancashire ales had helped 'to make
the Lancashire Fusiliers what they arc: and what highs, praise could
be given?'
Edward Roderic Owen was born in 1856, the younger son of a Welsh
country gentleman. Adept in the saddle from his earliest days, he grew
up to be the outstanding gentleman-rider of his sports-loving generation,
bringing his Turf career to a splendid conclusion by winning the 1892
Grand National on `Father O'Flynn'. He left Eton in 1873, and entered
the Militia in 1875, a very common way into the Army in those days.
The next year he was commissioned into the Regiment. He joined the 1st
Battalion, then stationed in Canada, and almost at once began to make
his mark, both inside the Regiment, where he was a most popular young
officer, and outside it. After tours of duty in Cyprus and Malta, in
1884 he became successively A.D.C. to the Viceroy of India and the Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland. Between 1885 and 1891 in that country (then even
more of a horseman's paradise than it is today) and elsewhere, he raced
and rode his name into a legend. Innumerable stories are told of his
prowess on the Turf, his cavalier performances off it, and his never-failing
wit. Major-General G. Surtees, a former Colonel of the Regiment, has
given instances of all these in an article in the Army Quarterly:*
While out on training as A.D.C. to General Sir Evelyn Wood** at Aldershot,
Roddy's horse ran away with him, or so he said on return in apologetic
explanation to the general: `Would you believe it, sir, I never got
a pull at him for miles l' He omitted to mention having picked up racing-kit
from his servant at the station, taken a train to a nearby meeting,
and ridden a race. When this account was given to me by an old member
of my regiment and a contemporary of Roddy's, I had asked if he got
away with it.
'Oh, yes', was the reply. `He could talk his way in or out of anything.'
My informant went on with a story of Roddy at Quetta: `The whole garrison
was away on a field day, Roddy being stuck in barracks as Captain of
the Week. Bored with nothing to do, he rode out to us. Seeing the troops
lying down in position ready for the final assault, he galloped up waving
his sword and yelling, " Charge! "-which we all promptly did,
delighted to get the whole thing over so quickly.'
Roddy, of course, didn't wait for the trouble to come, and you can imagine
how damned angry the general was. Major Owen would get no leave for
a very long time and so on. Now comes the surprising bit. Roddy, on
being told of this while dressing for dinner, immediately ordered his
horse, saying, `We'll see about that', and went off to the general.
On return he announced his departure on leave. We never heard what transpired.
Roddy wouldn't say a word about anything like that.
* April 1961,
**Later Field-Marshal.
THE LANCASHIRE CONNECTION
Many similar stories of this part of Roddy Owen's life are told;
his sister, Mrs. Bovill, and G. R. Askwith, published the one that
follows in a memoir after his death:
He rode almost entirely across country and over hurdles, and would
travel from one end of the kingdom to another for a good meeting.
Many were the expedients necessary for working in leave, riding and
military duties. Dressing in the railway-carriage or waiting-rooms
and galloping across country to catch a train at branch stations were
but ordinary incidents of the racing season. He would arrive at Manchester,
for instance, in the early morning after a night in the train, get
into uniform, do his day's work, and be off again. There is a tale
that, just catching a train as it was leaving the station, Roddy found
himself in a carriage with one elderly lady, and due to ride immediately
on arrival. He slowly fitted up a railway rug from rack to rack, saying,
'Don't be alarmed, madam, at hearing a noise. I am subject to fits
of illness which soon, however, pass away. I always do this on such
occasions.' After some minutes of scrambling, the lady was frightened
out of her senses by seeing a brilliant yellow silk arm stretched
out behind the rug, but was reassured by the appearance of Roddy,
in a greatcoat, with his riding boots showing beneath, calmly remarking
that he was now quite in normal health.
Naturally, such a way of life required a considerable flair for handling
superior officers; at a regimental inspection, 'the General remarked
that he had not seen him before at previous inspections. Roddy had
been running all over the country to race meetings, but he only replied
with a deep bow, "Sir, the loss is mine".'
Many of Roddy Owen's close friends were aware of his wide reading
and his acute intelligence; many had noticed that under the gay and
handsome exterior lay the makings of a fine soldier. They, at any
rate, may not have been as surprised as the rest of the racing world
when it was learned that, four days after he had won the Grand National
in 1892 by twenty lengths, he was on his way out to the Jebu War in
West Africa. During the ten preceding years, The Sportsman records
812 mounts with 254 wins; in 1891 his percentage of wins was 46.6.
Now he was to make his name in other fields.
Africa, West and East, was to be the scene of his next exploits. Although
he distinguished himself and was wounded in the Jebu War, this did
not detain him long. The following year found him, now a brevet-major,
serving as a member of Sir Gerald Portal's commission to Uganda. The
rise of Mahdism in the Sudan after Gordon's death at Khartoum in 1885,
with the collapse of Egyptian power and the defeat of Abyssinia, had
thrown the whole of north-eastern Africa into ferment. Uganda was
an area of vital strategic importance, containing the head waters
of the Nile. During a period when Government policy was highly equivocal
and uncertain, the duty of securing British interests fell largely
upon relatively junior officers, carrying great responsibility in
outlying, isolated commands. Owen was such a one, working to procure
the allegiance of the agitated tribes of the interior, where the slave
trade was once again making destructive headway. He had to act as
a diplomat, an adviser, and at times as an arbiter between them.
Dogged by ill-health in that fever-stricken region, he nevertheless
succeeded in asserting British authority. It was as a result of his
efforts, and those of other men like him, in similar thankless situations,
that Uganda became a British Protectorate, and now forms part of the
British Commonwealth. Uganda's Owen Falls were named in his
his honour, close to the point where he first raised the Union Jack.
After a year and a half in East Africa, Owen was due for leave. Characteristically,
almost his last act before leaving Cairo was to wire home for tickets
to the Ascot enclosure. On January 5, 1895, he was gazetted D.S.O.,
and on the same day departed for Dublin to join a draft of the Lancashire
Fusiliers on their way to Bombay. Garrison duty held out little appeal
for him. For those who were lucky enough, there was action in plenty
on the North-West Frontier of India at this time, and Roddy Owen was
not the man to be left out of it. Intrigue and assassination in the
frontier state of Chitral had produced an anti-British movement, as
a result of which the British Agent found himself besieged with a
small and barely trustworthy garrison in Chitral Fort. A relief force
was assembled in March, and Owen obtained permission to accompany
it as the correspondent of the journal The Pioneer. (It was in a similar
capacity that Lieutenant Winston Churchill, 4th
Hussars) shortly afterwards attached himself to the Malakand Field
Force.) The expedition was soon on the move, forcing the Malakand
Pass in April, and pressing on to the Swat River. He joined in a charge
by the Cavalry of the Guides on April 4, and three days later charged
again with the Bengal Lancers. On May 14 Chitral Fort was relieved,
after tremendous marches through the snow of the high mountains, and
the immediate purpose of the expedition was at an end.
It was typical of Roddy Owen that he did not consider his labours
finished. He determined to visit all the localities connected with
the campaign, and to obtain first-hand accounts of them. He spent
twelve days riding over the mountains (sometimes with nothing to feed
on but tea and mulberries), was entertained by the local Rajahs (one
of whom believed himself to be descended from Alexander the Great),
and even entered Russian territory, returning finally to Quetta just
as his leave expired. During all this time, his interest in natural
history, geography, local customs, as well as grand strategy, received
full expression in his writing.
In camp at night the moon shone over the mountains, and I gazed on
the vast grandeur of the Himalayas. I have seen, and felt too, the
smallness of all one's interests, pleasures, and above all oneself,
as night draws near, seated round the camp fire in the great pine
forests of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia; have felt a void in one's
own soul in
contemplating the monotonous prairie of North America and plains of
Africa; but I know no spot where surroundings, though silent, are
so awe-inspiring as these mountain ranges, torn by the weather into
a thousand fantastic designs, of every colour, of every shape-some
a succession of spiral towers windowed by snow, others vast and solid,
rude in
their colossal stolidity, arrogant in their remorseless stare and
unquestioned individuality-unless where crowned by masses of snow
giving an air of lightness and life to their structure.
From the North-West Frontier, Owen returned to Egypt, where Sir Herbert
Kitchener was preparing the last stages of the advance which, two
years later, brought him and the Regiment to Khartoum. At Cairo, on
the anniversary of his Grand National win on `Father O'Flynn', Roddy
Owen won his last race. Then Kitchener wired for him to come to the
front; this meant a change of mount-to two camels which he bought
at Aswan, writing:
Goodness knows how I'm going to ride them, uncomfortable brutes, but
nevertheless, if all goes well, I could after this campaign leave
the service before my forty-first birthday, having accomplished the
dream of my life, to take an active part in securing the Nile for
England. But it was not to be.
In June, Owen was present at the Battle of Firkeh, where, after a
daring night march, Kitchener's Egyptian and Sudanese regiments won
a complete victory over the Dervishes-an omen of things to come. But
then all progress was temporarily stopped by a series of misfortunes.
Violent storms swept the desert, turning every gully into a torrent,
and tearing away miles of the precious railway. Worse still, cholera
struck the army, and the death rate began to rise steadily.
Roddy Owen, on detached duty, wrote
I am seated on a rock surrounded with desert, the only European
here, with seven cases of cholera on the 5th, 6th and 7th inst., but
I think we've tackled it. The quarantine has so upset arrangements
that it is within the bounds that we do not prosecute our journey
to Dongola as yet. But we must stick to Khartoum as an objective,
and, bar Euro pean complications, the dream of Cecil Rhodes looks
likely of accomplishment.
Shortly after writing this, Owen was himself smitten by cholera; he
died on July 11th, 1896, and his Arab followers buried him that night
in a desert grave beside the River Nile.
His memory is still cherished in the Regiment. He was not a typical
regimental officer-heaven knows what the Army would be like if all
officers were Roddy Owens !-but he was typical of generations of high-spirited,
audacious individualists whose contribution to the Army, and the nation,
has been invaluable.
And so the nation and the regiment lost a unique and supremely
different soldier.
He was proud to be in the XXth and the XXth were proud of having him
amongst them.
Joe Eastwood.
Omnia Audax XXth
Brevet-Major Edward Roderic OWEN, DSO - Lancashire Fusiliers (Attached
Egyptian Army) - died at Ambigol, 11th July 1896, commanding a Sudanese
Irregular corps. Born 4th May 1856 at Prestbury, Gloucestershire.
Son of Hugh Owen. A talented jockey, he rode 'Father O'Flynn' to victory
in the 1892 Liverpool Grand National horse race. Served in West Africa
1892 (wounded, DSO, MID, medal & clasp, Brilliant Star of Zanzibar).
Commandant Equatorial Provinces of Torn and Unyoro 1893-4. As Commandant
of Ambigol Wells he died of cholera.
Michael Murray
|
