Boyle Somerville

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Boyle Somerville
Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George
Spouse(s)
Helen Mabel Allen
​
(m. 1896)​
RelationsEdith Somerville (sister)

CMG (7 September 1863 – 24 March 1936) was an Irish naval officer who served in the Royal Navy and an author who wrote on maritime topics as well as ethnography and archaeology. Somerville was murdered by the Irish Republican Army
in 1936.

Early life and naval career

Canoe-prow ornament, collected by Somerville in the Solomon Islands[1]
Somervillle's map of Niuafo'ou, published in 1896
Admiralty Chart of the New Hebrides (Vanuatu), surveyed by HMS Dart

Boyle Somerville was born at Castletownshend, County Cork. His father was Thomas Henry Somerville and his mother was Adelaide Eliza Coghill.[2] Somerville joined the Royal Navy as a cadet in 1877. His first service was in South America in 1880, and then in the Anglo-Egyptian War in 1882. He then spent four years on the China Station.[3] He trained as a Hydrographic Surveyor, choosing this branch of the Navy because promotion prospects were good, and because it offered opportunities for a much freer existence than the "intolerable uniformity" that he saw as typical of much Navy life.[4]

As a lieutenant, Somerville worked on the surveys of the

Niuafo'ou, and published an early description of the island.[13]

Chart of magnetic variation in the Indian Ocean, from the Percy Sladen Trust Expedition of 1905
Admiralty Chart of Bearhaven, Ireland, Surveyed by Somerville in 1910
Somerville Sounding Gear[14]

Somerville was promoted to

First World War, Somerville developed a steam-operated sounding machine for determining ocean depth from a ship that was under way.[24][14]

Somerville's plan of the Callanish stones on the Isle of Lewis, Scotland[25]

In 1908, while surveying in British waters, Somerville read a book suggesting

standing stones might have astronomical significance. He thereafter devoted much of his time to surveying and in some cases excavating, such monuments in Britain, Ireland and elsewhere, and became a recognised expert in the field of archaeoastronomy. Among the sites he described were the Drombeg stone circle in County Cork,[26] a group of monuments near Lough Swilly in County Donegal,[27] and the Callanish standing stones in the Outer Hebrides.[25] He summarised his findings and ideas in two later articles.[28][29] A modern overview of his work has been provided by Lacey (2008)[30]

During the First World War Somerville served in the North Atlantic Patrol from 1914 to 1916, commanding

Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George "in recognition of valuable services during the war".[35]

Retirement and death

Somerville retired on 2 August 1919. After his retirement he returned to the family home at Castletownshend, near Cork in Ireland. During his retirement He continued to work for the Admiralty, in the Hydrographic Department and on the Tidal Committee,[3] and published several books including Ocean Passages for the World in 1923. He also published articles describing his surveying experiences in Blackwood's Magazine. He continued to be active in archaeology, publishing his last paper in 1931.[36]

Somerville was murdered on the evening of 24 March 1936 by the Irish Republican Army (IRA). He went to answer a knocking at the front door. "Are you Mr Somerville?"; "I am Admiral Somerville." He was then shot five times through the glass-panelled front door. A note was left saying that "This British agent has recruited 52 boys to the British Army in the past few months".[37]: 124 IRA chief of staff Tom Barry was involved in authorising the operation which murdered Somerville.[38][39] The family rejected the claim that he recruited for the armed forces, saying that he merely gave references to young people who called to the family door and asked for a reference. The mention of the British Army in the note led to suspicions that the target was in fact his Army brother who lived close by, and was more prominent and a much more likely target. The admiral was an Irish language speaker, and he was a "nationalist".[40] Somerville's killing was one of the events that led the de Valera government to ban the IRA (18 June 1936).[41] IRA leader Tom Barry stated in an interview in later years that the shooting was a mistake in that he was only meant to have been taken hostage.[42]

Somerville was the younger brother of the novelist and artist, Edith Somerville, who finished his biography of William Mariner for its posthumous publication. He is buried in St. Barrahane's Church in Castletownshend.[37]: 282 

Published works

  • Ocean Passages for the World. Published for Hydrographic Dept., Admiralty, by HMSO (1923). Full text of the second edition (1950) is available at the Internet Archive.
  • A series of articles published between 1919 and 1927 in Blackwood's Magazine, including surveying work in Queensland, New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) and New Caledonia and experiences in World War 1:
    • The Great Search, vol. 206, November 1919, pp. 690–699
    • The Ninth Cruiser Squadron, Parts I-III, vol. 207, January 1920, pp. 1–23
    • The Ninth Cruiser Squadron, Part IV, vol. 207, February 1920, pp. 153–168
    • A Secret Survey, Part I, vol. 207, June 1920, pp. 812–825
    • A Secret Survey, Part II, vol. 208, July 1920, pp. 88–97
    • The Chart-Makers, vol. 220, December 1926, pp. 814–851
    • The Chart-Makers, vol. 221, February 1927, pp. 243–266
    • The Chart-Makers, vol. 221, April 1927, pp. 501–524
    • The Deepest Depth, vol. 222, October 1927, pp. 550–565
  • The Chart-Makers. Blackwell & Sons (1928). A collection of some of the Blackwood's Magazine articles listed above.
  • Commodore Anson's Voyage into the South Seas and Around the World. Heinemann. (1934)
  • Will Mariner. Faber & Faber. (1936)
  • Records of the Somerville Family of Castlehaven & Drishane from 1174 to 1940 (with
    Edith Anna Somerville
    ). Published by Guy & Co, Cork, 1940

See also:

  • The Selected letters of Somerville and Ross edited by Gifford Lewis, Faber (1989)
  • MI6 The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909–1949, by
    Keith Jeffery
    , Bloomsbury (2010).

References

  1. ^
    JSTOR 2788349
    .
  2. ^ a b c d Long, Patrick. "Somerville, Henry Boyle Townshend". Dictionary of Irish Biography. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 19 July 2020.
  3. ^
    JSTOR 25513871
    .
  4. ^ Letter from Boyle to his sister Edith, 18 December 1890, cited in Waite, Deborah (2000). "Notes and Queries, Science, and 'Curios': Lieutenant Boyle Somerville's Ethnographic Collecting in the Solomon Islands, 1893--1895" (PDF). Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford. 31 (3): 277–308.
  5. ^ Somerville, Boyle (1928). The Chart Makers. Edinburgh: Blackwood.
  6. JSTOR 2842310
    .
  7. JSTOR 2842087
    .
  8. ^ Murray, John (1897). "Balfour Shoal: A submarine elevation in the Coral sea". Scottish Geographical Magazine. 13 (3): 120–134.
  9. ^ Somerville, Boyle (October 1927). "The Deepest Depth". Blackwood's Magazine. 222 (1344): 550–565.
  10. ^
    OCLC 1082894797
    .
  11. JSTOR 2842009
    .
  12. ^ Waite, Deborah (2000). "Notes and Queries, Science, and 'Curios': Lieutenant Boyle Somerville's Ethnographic Collecting in the Solomon Islands, 1893--1895" (PDF). Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford. 31 (3): 277–308.
  13. JSTOR 1773680
    .
  14. ^ a b Admiralty Manual of Hydrographic Surveying, Revised Edition. Hydrographic Department of the Admiralty. 1948. p. 213.
  15. ^ "No. 27393". The London Gazette. 3 January 1902. p. 3.
  16. ^ "Naval & Military intelligence". The Times. No. 36922. London. 11 November 1902. p. 5.
  17. ^ Somerville, Boyle (June 1920). "A Secret Survey, Part I". Blackwood's Magazine. 207 (1256): 812–825.
  18. ^ Somerville, Boyle (1920). "A Secret Survey, Part II". Blackwood's Magazine. 208 (1257): 88–97.
  19. ^ Somerville, Boyle T. (1908). "The submerged plateau surrounding Ceylon: some considerations regarding the formation of the coast line". Spolia Zeylanica. 5 (18): 69–79.
  20. doi:10.1111/j.1096-3642.1907.tb00507.x
    .
  21. doi:10.1111/j.1096-3642.1907.tb00074.x
    .
  22. doi:10.1111/j.1096-3642.1910.tb00520.x
    .
  23. ^ Ritchie, G.S. (1967). The Admiralty Chart. London: Hollis & Carter. p. 365.
  24. ^ Ritchie, Steve (G.S.) (2005). "Three hydrographic quantum leaps". The International Hydrographic Review. 6 (2): 6–8.
  25. ^ a b Somerville, Boyle (1912). "Prehistoric Monuments in the Outer Hebrides, and Their Astronomical Significance". The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. 42: 23–52.
  26. S2CID 3941018
    .
  27. ^ Somerville, H.Boyle (1909). "Ancient Stone Monuments near Lough Swilly, County Donegal, Ireland (in three parts)". The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland. 39: (2) 192–202, (3) 215–233, (4) 343–349.
  28. doi:10.1017/S026134090001033X
    .
  29. doi:10.1017/S0003598X00000041
    .
  30. JSTOR 27920493
    .
  31. ^ Somerville, Boyle (February 1920). "The Ninth Cruiser Squadron, Part IV". Blackwood's Magazine. 207 (1252): 153–168.
  32. ^ Somerville, Boyle (1920). "The Ninth Cruiser Squadron, Parts I-III". Bloakwood's Magazine. 207 (1251): 1–23.
  33. S2CID 221063238
    .
  34. ^ Somerville, Boyle (November 1919). "The Great Search". Blackwood's Magazine. 206 (1249): 690–699.
  35. ^ "No. 13403". The Edinburgh Gazette. 14 February 1919. p. 908.
  36. JSTOR 25513581
    .
  37. ^
    ISBN 1862072884
    .
  38. ^ "Vice-Admiral Shot Dead Outrage in County Cork". The Times. 25 March 1936.
  39. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/65835. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  40. ISBN 1-85182-863-X
    .
  41. ISBN 0-06-017121-9
    .
  42. ^ O'Neill, Joseph (10 February 2001). "Shaking the family tree". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 September 2014.

External links

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