EARLS FAMILY CHRONICLES

© Christopher Earls Brennen

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE CHILDREN OF JOHN EARLS AND MARY ARNOLD

       
Left: John Earls and his wife Mary and their children Arnold, May, Irene and Muriel (c.1924).
Center: Three generations: Arnold, John and James Earls.    Right: Arnold and Biddy Earls.

Arnold Earls was born at 147 Clifton Park Avenue, Belfast on Aug.10, 1904. He first attended the National School adjoining Ballynafeigh Methodist Church where his great uncle John Mercer was the manager and a trustee. Then at the age of about ten he won a scholarship to The Methodist College, Belfast (the first from his school to do so) which he attended subsequently winning a scholarship to Queen's University, Belfast. There he studied electrical engineering, the classes for which were held in the Belfast Technical College. He was also very active in the social life of Queen's and became president of the popular Literific Society. After graduation he first worked on a college apprenticeship for Metropolitan Vickers (power stations, etc.) in Manchester, England. During this time he lived in Cheshire. After this apprenticeship he was employed by the Electricity Board in Northern Ireland and was stationed in Omagh, County Tyrone. Later he was transferred to Banbridge. On Jun. 12, 1931, he married Helen Maud Lucy Northridge at St. John's Church of Ireland in Malone, Belfast. Helen, who was always known as ``Biddy'', was born in Dublin on Apr.17, 1905, the second daughter of Rev. John Northridge and his wife Lydia (nee Ward) of Cherry Hill, Malone Road, Belfast. Arnold's next appointment was as Borough Engineer in charge of the generation and distribution of electrical power in Rothesay, Isle of Bute, Scotland. The younger two children were born in Rothesay where the family lived at ``Glenshira'', Crichton Road. When the North of Scotland Hydroelectric Board took over in 1951, Arnold applied for and was appointed Chief Engineer for electrical power production in Nigeria. There they lived in Ikoyi, Lagos where Biddy taught at the King's School. She was also quite ill for a time. After about four years Arnold became involved in a dispute with the Nigerian government over the appointment of a black Nigerian as the engineer in charge of one of their power stations. Arnold did not consider him qualified for the post. He resigned because of this dispute and returned to Northern Ireland. After legal proceedings he did receive compensation for the Nigerian affair. After a brief stay in Whitehead, County Antrim, Arnold and Biddy bought a house in Myrtlefield Park, Belfast. In 1959 Arnold bought an electrical supply business in partnership with his eldest son, John. A few years later they sold this business which was located in Cromac Street, Belfast. Arnold was a very literary man and a great reader. After their second son, Patrick, was tragically drowned Biddy taught science in Victoria College, Belfast. From 1975 to 1979 they lived in Australia to which their eldest son, John, had emigrated; they were accompanied by Biddy's unmarried sister, Vera Northridge. They even comtemplated emigration but decided against it. Biddy died in Bangor on Dec.14, 1984, and Arnold lived with her sister, Vera, in Belfast until Vera died in 1985. Arnold died on Apr.29, 1987, in the City Hospital, Belfast, and was buried in Knockbreda graveyard in Belfast.

Margaret Elizabeth May Earls was born at 111 Fitzroy Avenue, Belfast on May 4, 1906. She first attended the National School adjoining Ballynafeigh Methodist Church in Belfast where her great-uncle, John Mercer, was the manager and a trustee. At the age of about ten she went to Methodist College, Belfast and subsequently received a scholarship to Queen's University, Belfast where she studied English literature. She had a real literary bent and won the McMullen medal for her essays two years running; several articles she wrote were published in ``Punch''. She also became president of the Women's Student Hall and was active in the university Dramatic Society. Among other productions she appearred with Raymond Calvert in ``Magic'' by G.K.Chesterton on the stage of the famous Abbey Theatre in Dublin. After graduating with honours she taught at the Intermediate School in Lisburn and also taught part-time at the Belfast Technical College. On Apr.8, 1931, she was married to Hugh Gault Calwell at Carlisle Memorial Methodist Church, Belfast. Hugh Calwell was the eldest son of Dr. William Calwell of 100 York Street, Belfast. Hugh Calwell was born on Dec.13, 1901 in Duncairn Gardens, Belfast, and graduated from Queens University in both Ancient Classics (in 1924) and Medicine (in 1929). He then joined the Colonial Medical Service and served in Tanganyika, becoming a specialist in the control of Trypanonsomiasis. Much of his work was in the remote African bush. He and his wife Margaret enjoyed Africa and their two eldest children, John and Margaret, were born there. During the Second World War he served in the King's African Rifles, the East African Medical Corps, and in the Royal Army Medical Corps. The family's journey home in 1940 was a difficult one; Hugh was seriously ill with dysentry and their ship was part of a convoy in which three ships were sunk by German submarines. During the war they bought a small cottage near Newcastle, County Down. Their daughter, Margaret, owns this property today and is building a house there. In 1949 they bought a house on the sea front in Whitehead, County Antrim. After the Colonial Service Hugh worked for the Northern Ireland Tuberculosis Authority, retiring in 1966. Subsequently he wrote several books and articles on subjects related to the history of the Belfast Medical School and has been the honorary archivist to the Royal Victoria Hospital. For this work he was awarded an honorary D.Sc. by Queens University in 1984. Hugh died on Feb.28, 1986, at Marine Parade, Whitehead. Margaret died a short time later in Whiteabbey Hospital and is buried in Islandmagee. Hugh and May had three children:

  1. John Gault Calwell was born in Kibondo, Tanganyika in 1933. He attended the Royal Belfast Academical Institution in Belfast and went on to study law at Trinity College, Dublin. However he decided medicine was his avocation and transferred to Queen's University, Belfast, from which he qualified as a doctor. He was, incidentally, a contemporary of Patrick Earls at Q.U.B. After being a houseman at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, John trained in anaesthetics at Yale University, New Haven. He has lived in Michigan since 1966 where he began his career in Detroit as a cardio-thoracic anaesthesiologist at the Grace-Harper Hospital. He now works at Bon Secours Hospital in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. On Jul.17, 1964, John married Heather Elizabeth Greer of Newtonards, County Down. They were divorced and, in 1973, John married Darlene Hammermeister who comes from a German-American farming family in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Darlene is a registered nurse. John died in 2014.
  2. Margaret Mary Calwell was born in Tabora, Tanganyika on Sept.17, 1938. She attended Whitehead High School where she became Head Girl. She then went to Queen's University to study for a general arts degree. She stayed in the women's hostel, Riddell Hall. There she met Sam Burch who was studying for the ministry at Edgehill College, Belfast which is immediately adjacent to Riddell Hall. Sam had worked in business as a draughtsman before he decided to enter the ministry. Upon graduation they were married on Aug.8, 1963, in Whitehead, County Antrim. Sam served as a Methodist minister in Greenisland (County Antrim), Portadown (County Armagh) and in the Shankill Road area of Belfast. The latter being one of the poorer parts of Belfast they were deeply involved in community work. Sam is now a minister in Dundonald but hopes to be without pastoral charge for three years in order to work with an ecumenical community of which he is a founder member. He is also presently chaplain to the Ulster Hospital, Belfast. Margaret and Sam had two children.
  3. William Hugh Hamilton Calwell was born in Newcastle, County Down on Dec.19, 1941. After elementary school in Whitehead he attended the Royal Belfast Academical Institution in Belfast. Later he studied medicine at Queen's University, Belfast, graduating in 1966. After a pre-registration year at the Belfast City Hospital he decided to give in to his restlessness and desire to travel, particularly to see Africa about which he had heard so much as a child. Thus he and a school teacher contemporary fitted out a second hand Land Rover and, in early 1969, set out for Africa. After driving through Spain to Morocco and across the Sahara Desert to Nigeria they encountered their greatest problems in Zaire which had only just emerged from a bloody civil war. There was much fear and suspicion, especially of strange white men. Eventually they reached Uganda, a reasonably peaceful and prosperous country at that time. Having run out of money William worked as a Medical Officer in a small hospital outside Kampala in order to pay for his return to the U.K. Back in England he enrolled in the University of Liverpool, obtaining a Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. At this time he met his future wife, Doris Maria Therese Camilleri, the youngest daughter of Edward Camilleri. The Camilleri family had probably moved from Malta to Egypt in the 1870s during construction of the Suez Canal. Though culturally French they had British passports and Edward served in the British Army during the Second World War. The family had to leave Egypt during the 1957 Suez crisis and, after a time settled in Cheshire, near Liverpool. William and Doris were married on Sep.5, 1970, and immediately travelled by ship and train to Ndola, Zambia where William had taken on a three year contract as a government Medical Officer in a children's hospital. His duties included regular weekly outings with the Zambian Flying Doctor Service, crossing wilderness with frequent sightings of large herds of elephants, buffalo, zebra and giraffe. While in Zambia William and Doris travelled by Land Rover throughout Zambia; they also made a longer trip up through the Congo and across Lake Tanganyika to Tanzania and the village where his father had once been stationed. In 1974 they returned to the U.K. where, after passing the examination to become a Member of the Royal College of Physicians and other training posts, William took up a post as a consultant physician and clinical teacher in Bristol. William died in Bristol on Nov.24, 1989, and is buried beside his mother in Islandmagee. William and Doris had three children.

Wedding of Hugh Calwell and May Earls in 1931: Muriel Earls on left, Irene Earls to right of May.

     
Hugh, John and William Calwell.

Lilian Irene Mercer Earls, the primary author of this chronicle, was born on Feb.10, 1909, at 111 Fitzroy Avenue, Belfast. She first attended the National School adjoining Ballynafeigh Methodist Church, Belfast, and later Methodist College, Belfast (MCB). Leaving school at the age of 18 she worked for some years in various stores (among them, Riddel's), before going to Queen's University, Belfast in 1933 to read Economics and Philosophy. After graduating in 1936, she worked for her former headmaster at MCB, and helped in the compilation of the Methodist College Register. At the outbreak of war in 1939 she applied for and was subsequently appointed as Chief Welfare Officer in Northern Ireland, working as a civil servant, first in the Ministry of Home Affairs and later the Ministry of Health, to resettle refugees, including the large number evacuated from Gibraltar to Northern Ireland. She resigned in 1944 to contest at the wish of many friends and supporters a by-election for the Northern Ireland House of Commons, and was elected in 1945 at the General Election as an Independent. During her two terms, 1945-49 and 1949-53, she took a particular interest in the passage of badly needed social and welfare legislation. In 1950 she joined the Ulster Weaving Company, of which she became a Managing Director, building up their substantial institutional sales of sheets etc. to hospitals and other organizations. In 1964 she took up a new contract as Development Manager to Ostlanna Iompair Eireann, the hotel subsiduary of CIE (the Irish transport organization), retiring in 1970. In 1965-66 she became the first woman to be elected President of the Belfast Chamber of Commerce, the oldest such body outside the United States. Among her many other duties, she served for some thirteen years as a member of the Senate and Board of Curators of Queen's University, Belfast. She now lives at 219 Shanganagh Cliffs, Shankill, County Dublin. On Sept.7, 1934 in Carlisle Memorial Methodist Church, Belfast, Irene married Raymond Colville Calvert, the only son and second child of William Henderson Calvert (1865-1952) and Barbara (nee Williamson) (1865-1938). Raymond was born at Banchory House, Helen's Bay, County Down, on Oct.30, 1906 and was educated at Bangor Grammar School and Queen's University, Belfast, where he took his degree in English in 1927 at the age of 20. He was a leading member of the University Dramatic Society, and it was for a cast party in 1926 that he composed ``The Ballad of William Bloat'', which has so firmly become part of Irish folklore that some well-known literary critics have erroneously believed it to be a traditional ballad. It was first published in a collection called Brave Crack in 1950 and more recently in an illustrated edition by the Blackstaff Press; as a song it has been recorded in the United States by the Clancy Brothers. Raymond had hoped to take up a theatrical career, but after working at the Arts Theatre, Cambridge, and with Hylton Edwards and Michael MacLiammoir at the Gate Theatre, Dublin, had to return to Belfast to enter the family business, Taylor Calvert and Co., Royal Avenue, as a stockbroker. In the 1940s two radio plays of his, ``On the Cliff'' and ``I don't pretend to ...'', were produced in Belfast, as were several talks on Northern Ireland. He died suddenly of a long-standing heart condition on July 11, 1959, at Banchory House, and was buried in Bangor Cemetary. Raymond and Irene Calvert had one son:

  1. Peter Anthony Richard Calvert was born on November 19, 1936, at Dundressan, Islandmagee, County Antrim. At the time of the Belfast Blitz his parents were living at 11 Fitzwilliam Street, Belfast, and he remembers taking cover under the dining table while the anti-aircraft battery at Queen's University fired at the attackers without much success. He was educated at Campbell College, Belfast, and, after service in the British Armed Forces 1955-1957, when he was posted to Malaya, took his first degree in History at Queens' College, Cambridge, graduating in 1960. In 1960-61 he obtained a Fulbright Travel Grant and worked as a Teaching Fellow at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, (on Aug.25, 1960 he sailed from Southampton for New York on the "Queen Mary") returning to Cambridge to work for his doctorate, which was awarded in 1964. In that year he was appointed Lecturer in Politics at the University of Southampton, and, after a spell as a Visiting Fellow at Harvard in 1969-70 was promoted at Southampton to Senior Lecturer in 1971 and Reader in Politics in 1974. In 1984 he was given a Personal Chair in Politics with the title of Professor of Comparitive and International Politics. He has published extensively on the politics and international relations of the western hemisphere, as well as two books on political theory, ``Revolution'' (1970) and ``The Concept of Class'' (1982). His ``The Falklands Crisis: the Rights and Wrongs'' (1982) was the first scholarly study of the crisis to be published; other works since have been ``Politics, Power and Revolution'' (1983), ``Revolution and International Politics'' (1984) and ``Guatemala, a Nation in Turmoil'' (1985). He was married on September 4, 1962, at the Church of St. Mary the Great, Cambridge, to Diana Elizabeth Farrow, the only daughter of Arthur Robert Farrow (died 1968) and Florence May (nee Mills) (died 1966), of 5 Tennis Court Road, Cambridge. Peter and Diana had two children. They were separated in 1983 and divorced in 1988. In 1988, Peter married Susan Ann Milbank, who was Head of Sociology at Corfe Hills School, Wimborne, Dorset. Peter retired in 2002 but continued to work on the politics and international relations of the Western Hemisphere, and to co-edit the journal Democratization. He and his wife Sue collaborated on a short history of Latin America in the Twentieth Century (1990, 1993) as well as a study of Argentina and a book on environmental politics, and their Politics and Society in the Developing World (3rd edn. of Politics and Society in the Third World) was published early in 2007. Peter died on Jul.10, 2014.

   
Left: Muriel and Irene Earls about 1939. Center: Raymond Calvert about 1939. Right: Peter Calvert.

Muriel Maud Earls, the mother of CEB, was born at ``Earlsdale'', 31 Ravenhill Park, Belfast on March 8, 1914. She first attended Cooke Centenary School at the end of Park Road, Belfast and unlike her brother and sisters attended Victoria College, Belfast. There she excelled at sport, particularly track and field hockey. Indeed she played on the school hockey team for seven consecutive years, a record which still stands today. After her mother died in 1929 she lived only briefly with her father at ``Earlsdale'', 27 Lismoyne Park, Belfast before graduating from high school and entering Queen's University, Belfast. She then went to live with her aunt, Anne Earls, in the latter's house not far from the university. Muriel attended Queen's for only two years; her father's death in 1934 and her inability to pass Latin contributed to her decision to leave the university. About 1933 she went to work for McAlisters, a fashion store in Belfast, and worked there until her marriage in 1939. She began in the sales department and advanced to the organization of large weddings and other affairs. During the thirties Muriel continued to play hockey and represented Ulster on a number of occasions. On Dec.20, 1939 she married Wilfred Macauley Brennen at the Carlisle Memorial Methodist Church, Belfast. Wilfred Brennen was born on Oct.6, 1911, the oldest son and second child of Cecil and Anne Brennen of University Avenue, Belfast. He studied medicine at Queen's University where with the three Earls sisters, Raymond Calvert and Wilfred's sister, Dorothy, he was also active in the University Dramatic Society. After graduation he became a tutor in surgery and a registrar at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast. In 1944 Wilfred became the consultant surgeon at the Mid-Ulster Hospital in Magherafelt, County Derry; indeed he was largely responsible for the initial organizing of that hospital. At the same time Muriel and Wilfred and their two eldest sons bought an old Georgian manor house in Magherafelt which they called ``Cranagh Dhu''. In addition to presiding over the growth of the Mid-Ulster Hospital, Wilfred was very active in community and national affairs. He was a founder member and later chairman of the Northern Ireland Marriage Guidance Council. He was also a commander in the St. John's Ambulance Brigade. He was always interested in the Boy Scouts and eventually became the Chief Commissioner of Scouts for Northern Ireland. In recognition of all his services on behalf of the youth of Northern Ireland he was awarded the Order of the British Empire in the Queen's birthday honours list in 1971. As a result of their fourth child, Paula, having Down's syndrome, Muriel and Wilfred spent a great deal of time and effort in later life trying to improve the lot of mentally handicapped children. But they also found time to enjoy the sporting activities which they both loved. Muriel excelled at both tennis and, later, golf. She played tennis for County Derry and later won many local golf competitions. Wilfred also enjoyed golf and took the family on several skiing holidays in the Alps. He had a lifelong interest in painting and many of his paintings now hang in his son's houses. In 1959 they purchased a house called ``Silverbay'' on the coast just outside Portstewart and the family spent the summer at this house for many years thereafter. It had a beautiful view overlooking the ocean. After suffering several strokes, Wilfred died on Feb.26, 1987, and is buried next to the First Presbyterian Church in Magherafelt. Muriel died on Feb.23, 2007, and is buried beside him.

Christopher E. Brennen