William J. Twaddell
William John Twaddell (1884 – 22 May 1922) was a Unionist politician from Belfast.
Twaddell was a draper from Belfast who was educated at a Belfast primary school.
He was a Member of Belfast City Council from 1910 and sat as an Ulster Unionist Party member. In November 1921, he and Robert Boyd organised the Ulster Imperial Guards as a paramilitary force of 21,000 men.[1] He was elected to the Parliament of Northern Ireland for Belfast West from the general election of 1921 until he was assassinated on 22 May 1922 by the Irish Republican Army. He was walking in Garfield Street off Royal Avenue, to his business, a short distance away, and had been followed closely by his assassins.[2]
His death precipitated a clamp-down on the IRA in
Twaddell was buried at Drumcree Church where his headstone says that he was 'foully murdered in Belfast'.[5]
References
- ^ BBC: Camp Twaddell: Who was the man behind the name?
- ^ Parkinson, Alan F. (2004), Belfast's Unholy War, Four Courts Press, p. 275, ISBN 1-85182-792-7
- ^ The Irish Civil War 1922–23, Peter Cottrell
- ISBN 1900960117.
- ^ "Grave reference". Archived from the original on 1 May 2007. Retrieved 12 March 2007.
- Stormont Biographies Archived 26 February 2019 at the Wayback Machine