Among the uncatalogued material at the WCML is a number of boxes labelled 'Shields' Papers'. The bequest was left to the library in 1992 after his widow's death. All that we currently know about Edward C. Shields is that in 1954 he was a member of the cultural group of the East Ham Communist Party, and was involved with the Workers' Music Association.
In 1965 Edward Shields began research on a songbook to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin. While working on the songbook he read about the events surrounding the murder of Francis Sheehy Skeffington by a British officer Sergeant Bowen-Colhurst. He became interested in the British officer who did most to bring Bowen-Colhurst to trial. His name was Major Sir Francis Fletcher Vane. In the late 1960s Ted Shields started work on a biography of Francis Vane. The project was never completed and the notes, typescripts and correspondence, make up the bulk of his papers. The rest of the papers include his work on the Irish songbook and notes towards a biography of Patrick Pearse.		Francis Fletcher Vane

An hereditary peer may seem an odd subject for this website, but Francis Vane was an odd character, with wide ranging and seemingly contradictory passions and interests. A democratic aristocrat with socialist and republican sympathies, a career soldier who spoke on antiwar platforms, a loyal imperialist who challenged jingoism and the demonising of the enemy, he was finally sacked from the army ("relegated to unemployment") for attempting to prevent a cover up of a number of military murders in Dublin during the Easter Rebellion in 1916.

He was not the first Vane to champion human liberties. His ancestor, Sir Henry Vane the younger, was the civilian leader of the Commonwealth bloc in Parliament during the English Civil War. In 1656 he published a tract entitled A Healing Question , affirming the doctrines of civil and religious liberty, and proposing a convention to create a constitution. He retired from politics rather than acknowledge Cromwell as Lord Protector. After the Restoration (of the Stuart monarchy) he was tried for treason and executed in 1662.

The life of Sir Francis Fletcher Vane

Archive Contents

Subjects

Captain Jack White/ Irish Citizens' Army

Francis Vane in Ireland

Francis Sheehy Skeffington

Portobello Barracks and the South Dublin Union

The Skeffington murder

Major General Maxwell

Dublin court martial of Bowen Colhurst

Reports from periodical 'Truth' edited by Henry Labouchere

Hansard 1916

Correspondence with Monk Gibbon

Correspondence with Monk Gibbon - 1933

Francis Vane and Boy Scout Movement

Francis Vane and Italian Boy Scouts

South Africa

Boer War

Associates of Vane

Residences

Army career

Literary works

Organisations supported

Observations, military, moral, philosophical and political

Excerpts from 'Tox, or Everyboy'

Scouting history

Letters on scouting and the Quakers from 'The Friend' 1930-31

Photocopy of 'The Boy Knight - Essays on the evolution of the Boy Scout Movement' - published by the National Peace Scouts, 1911(?)

The suffragette movement

Associated places and people (including Toynbee Hall)

Chertsey School of Handicrafts

Five volumes of correspondence

Photocopy of pamphlet - The War and One Year After

Also held by WCML are copies of The Other Illusions(1914) and Agin the Governments (1930) and Hanna Sheehy Skeffington's pamphlet British Militarism As I Have Known It.

Who in recent years has completely revolutionised our ancient British system, both in Diplomacy and in War, by eliminating the antiquated methods of courtesy in one and of chivalry in the other.

The great Minister who is chiefly responsible for a war in which some 60,000 lives and some 250 millions of treasure were lost, a war apparently waged for the purpose of showing the world, and especially South Africa, that they had been mistaken in believing in such quixotic ideals as are for instance, British honour, justice, and fair play, and replacing these by the more practical policy of "Commercial wiles and ancient craft."

The great Statesman who, more than any man, can claim to have created a living nationality in South Africa, opposed it is true to his commercially founded Empire, but determinately loyal to its own ideals; who moreover has shown such great patriotism for the country of his birth that he is now attempting to induce the poor and struggling of his land to show such reverence for his Commercial Empire, as to cause the 12 million Englishmen who live on the verge of starvation, to pay, out of a wage which in this Colony no Kaffir would accept, an additional sum levied on every article of domestic consumption.

The great Politician who, in the House of Commons, patriotically denied that farms had been burnt, natives armed, and enemies shot for wearing khaki, while at the time he possessed the evidence of British officers, clearly proving that all these things had been done by orders directly emanating from his Government, and against the wishes of the officers themselves.

The great Merchant who, by means of the company with which he and his family are connected, supplied in the most patriotic and the most businesslike manner, arms and ammunition for the troops, and with self-sacrificing energy refused to allow the male members of his family to have any part or share in the honours of the war, preferring that they should command a Kynoch rather than a Yeomanry Company.

Then as Minister, Statesman, Politician, and Merchant, while fearing that he may not succeed in converting his countrymen from their archaic convictions, respecting justice and fair play, while fearing no less that such exploded political theories as those of honour, of economic science, and of logic, may yet prevail in this unenlightened age and not yet be replaced by the newer and the more efficient commercial methods of bluff and swagger, yet in his noble attempt to achieve the impossible, I feel he is deserving of the reward which he assuredly will obtain.

'At bottom, the complete aristocrat is a potential socialist and a possible member of the Fabian Society while the Fabians are themselves potential aristocrats.......

.......During my election contest at Burton on Trent in 1906, I was once puzzled by a deputation of Trade Unionists who put the question to me; Was I in favour of land nationalisation? Now historically and personally, I am bound up with the principles of individual land-owning, my people possessed many thousands of acres for many hundreds of years. By a happy inspiration, I replied that as I was a believer in Feudalism, so necessarily I was in favour of nationalisation.......'

....Under feudalism it is clear that the ownership of wealth was sanctioned only for services to the state and if the service or responsibility thereby entailed was not acknowledged, some other fellow got it........

.....If I am correct in asserting that there is a natural sympathy between what we may call the aristocrats and the workers in that both classes are disgusted at the sight of unrestrained individualism (the bastard child of commercial governance) then the present time is a favourable one for these two sympathetic classes to join hands

The good man who has made money by cheating his customers and underpaying his employees would persuade us that his capital is more deserving of protection than ever he considered the estates of the landowners, while we know that both kinds of property were acquired by force. But there is more of the picturesque in taking the Saxon estates in war than ever can be in sweating women and children out of their share in the slums. For this good man forgets one rather important fact. He squeals because the 'predatory' County Council makes him fork out his pennies in the pound to support his indigent neighbours, while the feudal owner of the soil has been doing this thing through the centuries, not because he was forced but as a duty...........

.....There has recently arisen a question which might form a meeting point for both socialists and feudalists. This is the open sale of titles to undeserving persons through the medium of the Party Funds. To both of these cases the spectacle of a man who has no other recommendation than his wealth being promoted over the heads of his fellow men must be repugnant'

'Patriotism, namely the attempt to carry out the best traditions of your race must not be confounded with racial aggressiveness which is a crime against philosophy. It would be a dull world if everybody in it possessed British characteristics and traditions and it would also be an unprogressive world. I tremble to think of its pictures and its Sundays.

Internationalism is coming about through natural forces and increased facilities of transport, great interests are combining to help each other and the greatest of these is Labour. Patriotism in the proper sense is no more developed than that of the beasts of the field for it is based on the same principles of hatred and destruction of neighbours and it is not one bit more reputable when effected through the Stock Exchange than more simply by the teeth'.

'In a short speech I told them how the matter occured to me which I will repeat here and now because it is not by philosophers and statesmen or even by kings that peace will ensue but by the common people and by the soldiers that it will eventually be enforced. Therefore, the first business of those who know the truth is to make the people understand not the bloodiness of war but its futility.........

.....Now while modern methods of war are not more destructive to the combatants engaged there are other people who are destroyed far from the field of battle and innocent of all blood guiltiness and these are the little children of the working classes, those who live generally on the verge of insufficiency of nutriment but who, when the millions of the nation to which they belong have been spent on war are given less than will enable them to arrive at maturity. Consequently, they silently die with no military honours at their funerals but they are not one whit less, the victims of the war.....'

Correspondence From the February 1910 issue of the monthly journal of the Mens' League for Womens' Suffrage.
In possession of Fawcett Library

Extracts from letters from Vane to a Mr Clayton who passed them on for publication

5th January 1910

... I am sincerely in favour of it (Womens' Suffrage) because I believe womens' influence will do much to pacify and mollify politics, and I am not so much opposed to the active policy as some because I know enough of history to make it clear to me that no great cause is won without something being smashed whether it be corrupt nobles, inconvenient Houses of Parliament or plate glass windows. In fact, no cause is worth fighting for unless there are some enthusiasts self-sacrificing enough not only to become martyrs for it in the ordinary sense but that more difficult kind of martyrdom which is represented by what their enemies would call making fools of themselves for it............

.... It is commonly said by the proud father and mother 'We are sending our son to school (at say, ten years) to harden him, to make a man of him'. Now, with a varied and somewhat lengthy experience of the world especially in administration, I am convinced that men, let alone boys, require softening, humanising, rather than hardening. So it appears to me that what the parent says above is wrong fundamentally and in this respect, possessing a wide knowledge of the Continent, I am convinced that the hardening theory is but little known there. The mother's influence is in fact, a dominant one up to the boy's entrance into manhood but no one has ever been bold enough to say that an Englishman is a braver fighter or a harder worker or a more finished gentleman than a foreigner of similar rank - yet many who have known the foreigner well and intimately have found him a kindlier man than the average Englishman. If no better reason existed therefore for 'Votes For Women', I should be in favour of it because it may help to regain the mother's rights over the boys and thereby make our politics, national and international kindlier politics and our world a pleasanter place.

(signed) 'Francis Vane of Hutton'

The Other Illusions

Many have written, more especially Bloch and Norman Angell, exposing the economic illusions in respect to the advantages of even successful War, but I am convinced that these arguments are in themselves not enough. By these, it is true, you detach a certain number of persons of the upper and middle classes from the warlike policy which all countries have pursued. What we, who know the absurdity of War, have to do, it seems to me, is to show that the contests between nations are neither glorious, nor adventurous, nor ennobling. The intellectuals and the commercially interested may be affected by showing up the economic fallacies, but the mass of the people-the majority of a bellicose upper class bred up in traditions of War; the majority of the middle class who see an easy way out of international competition by it, who know that in spite of anything else at least for the moment War benefits many of their class, contractors and the like; and the vast majority of the nation, the manual workers, who think that a campaign against a national enemy is the easiest means of escaping from the grinding toil and dullness of life as they see it-all these will be hardly affected by economic arguments. What we have to do is to dispel the Illusions which picture War as a gay, a gallant, and a coloured adventure, while at the same time showing the old, and the young, that Peace can be made all these, if they have been taught to understand it.

We must show that the glamour which surrounds War is false, an illusion which has descended from past conflicts, some of which were those of principle; and we must make it clear that Peace is not necessarily commonplace and dull, but is only made so by the present egregious industrial system.

In this pamphlet these questions have been taken in the order of their importance.

(1) The Illusion of the romance of War and its glamour.

(2) The Illusion that War has an ennobling effect on nations and on individuals.

(3) The Illusion that conquering nations obtain what is called prestige by armaments.

(4) The Illusion that Peace is necessarily dull and commonplace.

Neither the schools nor the churches have attempted to teach these things; they have, as a rule, been hobbling long after modern thought, as equity hobbles after law. But it was President Wilson of the United States who changed an old lie into a modern truth, for he said that if "we want Peace we must prepare for Peace."

How are we really preparing for Peace? I am a Peace man, and have proved this in War and after a War, yet nothing has made me so despondent in this matter as attending Peace Congresses. There, while many noble-minded men and women attend them, a number of the delegates are old women-of both sexes. They are always quite nice old women, but not virile enough to carry through a manly peace policy. In this connection an experience of mine in a village school is recalled.

A gentleman had offered to give a lecture on the beauty of Peace to the school there, and these wretched youngsters were kept in on a hot day to listen to it. When the writer arrived he found a stout and perspiring gentleman preaching of the commercial attractions of the commonplace existence to an audience, part of whom were asleep and the remainder clearly in revolt against the lecturer's propositions. In fact, he spoke without knowledge of the working of the child mind, for while he knew something of Peace, he knew nothing whatever of War, and, moreover, he certainly did not recognise that lie could not succeed in his excellent work until he had uprooted from the minds of the youngsters the false teachings that had been planted there as to what War really is. At the end of the lecture I whispered to the headmaster that this excellent person had probably made more warriors than pacifists. I think he agreed with me.

In an eccentric electioneering campaign in 1906, while in no wise pretending to reject the ordinary joys of life, I found myself opposed to all the solid wealth which beer creates.
Then they asked me what was my political faith, and I propounded these truths
I am a Peaceman because I am a soldier.
I support Votes for Women because I am a Peaceman.
I am a Radical because I am an Aristocrat.
The effect of this declaration was amusing, because they scratched their collective heads and went murmuring:
Peaceman and Soldier. What does it mean? Suffragist and Peaceman. Where is the connection?
Radical and Aristocrat. How funny?

Yet these propositions were neither funny nor contradictory-but the late Mr. Walter McLaren, M.P., who was with me, begged me to explain to my confused audience.

This was done in the simplest possible manner as now, and I am reminded of the explanation while dedicating this pamphlet to the three noble women mentioned above.

PEACEMAN BECAUSE A SOLDIER.

A Soldier who has eyes to see, a heart to feel, a soul to judge, must be a Pacifist.

VOTES FOR WOMEN AND PEACEMAN.

Women, as I know to my cost, will fight to the last ditch for their homes and their children- did I not witness the capture of a fair Boer maiden in whose hands was an ugly looking rifle ?-but they are opposed to Foreign Burglary which is called Conquest. They prevented their men from seriously invading Cape Colony, and, in fact, prevented them from capturing Mafeking because it was outside their limit.
Boer officers have told me that they were held by the coat tails by their wives.

RADICAL AND ARISTOCRAT.

If Chivalry means anything except archaic pageantry, which it does, it means the defence of the weak as against the strong, which in politics is Liberalism, some would say Socialism. The defence of the downtrodden, the slum dwellers, the starveling poor, the workers who by sinew, blood, bone, and life itself supply us with what we are pleased to call the necessaries of life-and even of death (a friend of mine, a Carrara marble miner, has just been killed, leaving his family destitute)-surely this is real Chivalry.

Yet often in politics we are looked upon as eccentric, and sometimes "disloyal," to our class if we fight against things which Knights and Nobles were erected to combat.

The three great women, to whom as homage this work against war is dedicated, were all among those who sacrificed much to attempt to teach stupid people their own stupid businesses-they were of those who suffered much and yet were kind. Having known them all I mention first that true Pacifist yet strenuous fighter for the downtrodden of the sex, the late Josephine Butler. No woman was more abused in her time by the vulgar minded and self interested, while she struggled for the noblest cause in the world, for the White Slaves, the victims of cruelty and lust.

Then Emily Hobhouse, who, in spite of calumny, vulgar music-hall abuse, personal violence, and Martial Law, went out to help, went out to War to help her sisters, the Boer women in the Camps. To my certain knowledge she did it effectively, and it was my lot to sit next to General Botha when he said. " What will bind us to the British Empire, we who are Dutch, is not its Navy, nor its Army, but the fact that a refined English lady came out to save our women and our little children, and saved 20,000 of them." A strenuous fighter for Peace-a chivalrous woman!

Then we have the Baroness von Suttner, who, in a militant Empire, had the courage of a brave soldier to fight for Peace when there was no Peace. She published her great work, "Lay Down Your Arms," at a time and in a place when anything but War seemed impossible, though by God's good grace it is more possible now.

To these three strenuous fighters for Peace and Justice and Humanity homage is due from all those who respect what is chivalrous and courageous.

This pamphlet has been written on the sands by the sea, where children are dancing in the sunshine. They have inspired my work as the friendship of the three noble women initiated it.

For on these sands also a great lesson of Peace is taught for those who can see. War, cruel enough to the combatants, is doubly so to those children now playing in the sunshine.

It is not the men who are killed and maimed in War who only deserve our sympathy, but to the casualty list of every battle should be added the thousand of little ones who are starved out of existence by the expenditure of a Nation's Capital.

Here also these children teach us another lesson. They are of all races and of all classes, and they play without a vestige of race or class prejudice. They are the natural Pacifists, yet sometimes one hears a harsh voice of a grown-up crying '' Olga,'' or '' Pio,'' or '' Jack, I don't want you to play with those nasty children," and then, in a moment, the golden sands and the blue sea are eclipsed by the vulgarity of man.

The child, if left to himself, will settle this question of racial vulgarity which we call War, but, alas, they will not leave him, and so he is prejudiced by out-of-date jealousy and suspicion. Some day it will be reckoned a mortal sin to vulgarise the minds of the young.

But Josephine Butler, Emily Hobhouse, and Bertha von Suttner are doing their work, and the children, playing in the sunshine, are backing it up. So to these great women and to these little children this pamphlet is dedicated, which was written surrounded by the young of the world.

FRANCIS VANE OF HUTTON.

From Theodore Roosevelt

My Dear Sir Francis Vane,

I have just seen Mrs Skeffington, whose husband was killed in Dublin last year. The story she tells me has caused me concern, and she informs me that if I write to you, you will give me the facts I will, according to your wishes, treat any information you give me, either as confidential, or as a matter which I can use in any public writing, or speeches, provided that I become convinced that such publication will do good, and when I think it will do good.

This may not be until the Peace, for I do not intend to act in any way against the Allies while the War is on, for even if all that is alleged as to English action in regard to the uprising in Ireland be true, the conduct of the Germans in Belgium, and also in Poland and Servia, and the conduct of their Turkish allies as regards the Armenian and Syrian Christians, has literally been a thousand times worse, and to aid them in any way in this war is a crime against civilisation.

Moreover, I regard Germany as having made war on the United States, with her submarines, and I am ashamed and indignant at the cowardly conduct of the American Government, and the sluggish indifference of the American people in this matter. I have always been a strong well-wisher of the British Empire. I strongly reprobated the rising in Ireland, occurring as it did in the middle of a war in which the British Empire was fighting for civilisation, a war in which I believe that all Irishmen should have followed substantially in the lead of Mr. Redmond. I am equally a believer in Home Rule for Ireland. In short I am an American pure and simple, who in each crisis judges every foreign nation, as far as possible, purely on that nation's conduct in that crisis.

This I say merely by way of introduction.

Mrs. Skeffington states that on April 25th last (1916), her husband, F. Sheehy Skeffington, a pacifist, who had never taken part in any form of violence, or encouraged in any way the uprising, and who had done his best to stop the looting of shops, was arrested while returning, alone and unarmed, to his house in Dublin. At midnight he was removed from the guard room by Captain Bowen Colthurst, and was taken as a hostage, with his hands bound behind him, on a bombing party to Alderman James Kelly's house (all this is according to the statement of Mrs. Skeffington. I know nothing of the facts personally). Captain Colthurst ordered him to be shot, if there was any sniping at the party. On the way Skeffington was the witness of two murders committed by Captain Colthurst and his party, on unarmed civilians. The report of the Royal Commission, presided over by Sir John Simon in the Parliamentary Report, issued September last, is alleged to verify these facts, stating that there was more than one case of shooting by the party, and that there was no evidence of justification for the shooting of at least one of the persons, a boy. It is stated that the above incident was entirely suppressed at the Court Martial of Captain Colthurst in June.

Mrs. Skeffington asserts that Captain Colthurst was under the impression that Alderman Kelly (whose house was bombed) was in sympathy with the insurgents, but, as a matter of fact, the house belonged to a totally different Alderman Kelly who is an ardent British sympathiser. Two loyalist editors, named McIntyre and Dickson, were found in the house, and were suspected of being nationalist editors. On April 26th, under Captain Colthurst's direction, they were, it is alleged, shot at the same time that Mr. Skeffington was shot, as they walked from their cells, by a firing party of seven men, without a word of warning.

It is alleged that Captain Colthurst had to have another body of men finish off Mr. Skeffington as he lay dying on the ground. The bodies were taken to the dead house and no surgeon was called to testify death. They were buried in the yard sewn in sacks. Mrs. Skeffington says that she has never been notified of the death and burial of her husband, and has been opposed by the authorities at every step in her attempts at investigation. Colthurst continued for a number of days in charge of troops and raiding parties. On the 26th he shot a Councillor, Mr. O'Carroll, who had surrendered, and who had refused to give certain information. On April 28th the sisters of Mrs. Skeffington-Mrs. Kettle (whose husband, Lieutenant Kettle, was then on service with the British Army in France and who was afterwards killed in battle} and Mrs. Culpane-went to the barracks to enquire about Skeffington. They were put under arrest by Captain Colthurst, who announced that they would be deported, until Mrs. Kettle established her identity as the wife of Lieutenant Kettle of the Dublins. That night Captain Colthurst and a party raided Mrs. Skeffington's house. They fired a volley into the house, burst in the windows, and put Mrs. Skeffington and her little boy of seven under guard, while they searched the house, taking all papers, private letters, manuscripts, etc., most of which have never been returned. Sir John Simon has given the details of this case in his report, severely commenting upon what had been done, but no move has been made to hold to account those responsible for the outrages. (Let me repeat that all these are the allegations of Mrs. Skeffington.)

Mrs. Skeffington further alleges that on May 1st Captain Colthurst was given the post of second in command at Portobello, and that you, who were then Major, were displaced from command. She alleges that you reported the murderers to Colonel Kinnard, to General French and to Major Price, but nothing was done to restrain Colthurst. She further alleges that you crossed to London and at your own instance Lord Kitchener sent a telegram that Colthurst was to be put under arrest. She further states that on May 1st he was put under open arrest, but that Mr. Tennant, on May 9th, stated in the House of Commons, that 'no prisoner had been shot in Dublin without a trial.' She alleges that you, in consequence of your efforts in this matter, were relegated to unemployment and deprived of your rank as a Major.

Mrs. Skeffington states that on June 6th Captain Colthurst was tried by Court Martial and pleaded insanity, the court finding accordingly. She alleges that at this Court Martial many of the worst facts were suppressed, and that Mr. Asquith was pressed in Parliament to fulfil the promise he had made on May 1st to Mr. Dillon for a full public inquiry. Mrs. Skeffington says that Mr. Asquith proposed to her that she should be compensated for what had happened in lieu of an inquiry, but she refused. On August 23rd Mr. Asquith appointed a Royal Commission whose report contained most of the above facts. She states that this report cast grave doubts upon Colthurst's insanity. She further states that except for the mild action taken about Captain Colthurst, the only officer or soldier who has been punished is yourself-whereas those who committed the murders and outrages were let off; and that you were punished as above. Mrs. Skeffington further alleges that many murders were committed, and the evidence concerning them and concerning the soldiers who had committed them, was produced, but that General Maxwell refused all inquiry into the matters. She alleges further, that the Lord Mayor, and Dublin City Council, at the bar of the House of Commons, requested an inquiry into some of the atrocities, but that their request was refused.

I write you upon the assurance of Mrs. Skeffington that you are willing to give the facts. I have no personal interest whatever in the matter. But I have unhesitatingly condemned the Germans for the atrocities they have committed; I have always announced that I would just as strongly condemn atrocities of like character committed by the Allies; I do not feel at liberty to refuse Mrs. Skeffington's request that I satisfy myself as to the truth of her statement.

With great respect,
Very sincerely yours
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

The Principles of Military Art

In studying the scores of books, the knowledge in which is supposed to be assimilated by our officers, an unprejudiced reader will notice two peculiarities..........it will be found that principles are seldom touched on and secondly, there is no single spark of humour in the whole lot, we feel in reading them that the authors were very earnest men to whom the writing art was unfamiliar and that they labouriously put into their books experience or the result of their studies but that they had not mentally collated into fundamental principles. To give one example of my meaning. It will be clear to any thinking person that all tactics and strategy depend on the human heart, the spirit of the soldiers, the enthusiasm by which they move to conquest or defeat, yet I cannot recall.........any reference to this all-important subject. The men are treated as if they were so many machines which move about without any reference to their motive power..........Then, as to the lack of humour displayed, someone said in the papers the other day that the War Office should employ some popular writer, a Rudyard Kipling or a Bernard Shaw to make their text books readable and I think this is a very good idea.

It is difficult as we have seen lately, to light a consuming fire of patriotic enthusiasm in the breast of a man who has no real and visible stake in his country, whose home is a crowded arid baby-ridden room hired by the week from a merciless landlord and who realises but too acutely that all the country does for him is to make him work as much as it can for the smallest wage possible. If he be not an absolute fool he will grasp the truth that he only becomes really interesting to his government when it is in some crisis.