6. A Southern Unionist Businessman: Adam Findlater (1855‒1911)

Adam was born on 25 January 1855, the eldest son of John and Mary. He attended High School, then situated at the top of Harcourt Street. In 1872 he entered Trinity College and graduated in 1876 with a first class honours degree in Logic and Ethics. He got his MA in 1889 and was called to the Bar in 1906.

When he died, a friend wrote of Adam:

To the Dublin public he was more than the managing director of the great business which bears his name, and which was founded by his forefathers in the early years of the last century. That was but one of the many commercial and industrial interests with which he was directly connected. Nor was the esteem in which he was held based upon his rare personal qualities or upon his conspicuous service to the public. It was the combination of exceptional qualities of head and heart in one commanding personality that rendered him a notable figure in the Irish capital. For instance, while pursuing his studies in Trinity College he was also learning in his father’s counting-house the principles of commerce and their application to every-day work. He made himself thoroughly acquainted with economics, science, and equally with modern business methods. By the time he took his degree of MA he was already prominent in the mercantile community.

The wholesale business of the firm, covering all Ireland, and the branch establishments in the townships adjoining Dublin, such as Howth, Rathmines, Kingstown, Dalkey, Bray and Foxrock, would have sufficed to engross the attention of any ordinary merchant. Their administration and direction formed but one of his many activities. As chairman of the Kingstown Commissioners he rendered invaluable service to that prosperous township, which in a few years was transformed by his enterprise and ability. During one term of his tenure of office there occurred the disaster in Dublin Bay, when the entire crew of the Kingstown lifeboat, attempting to rescue Russian sailors from a wreck were drowned outside the harbour. Within six hours Adam had organised a relief fund for the families of the lost men, and in a fortnight had raised a sum amply sufficient to satisfy the needs of all their dependants.

In a similar spirit, when the licensed trade was threatened some years ago by novel extractions under a valuation scheme at the instance of the Treasury, Adam aroused public opinion on the subject, led the opposition, gave evidence before a Select Committee of the House of Commons dealing with the subject, and defeated the hostile project. About the same time he drafted, promoted, and obtained the passing into law of the General Dealers’ (Ireland) Act—usually referred to in the law courts as Findlater’s Act—by which an effectual check was put on the operations of receivers of stolen goods, especially goods handled in the licensed and allied trades.¹

Adam and Agatha (Agatha in fancy dress)

As an index of his prominence in the day, Adam drew mentions in both Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, more so the latter, which was not finally published until 1939, nearly thirty years after Adam’s death.

In 1881 Adam married Agatha McCurdy; she was the only daughter of John McCurdy of Chesterfield House, Blackrock, a well-known architect. McCurdy himself was married to Lucy Heinekey, aunt to Adam’s sister-in-law Lucie, brother Willie’s wife. Among other buildings, John McCurdy designed the Shelbourne Hotel (1865), the Masonic Girls’ School (1882), now Bewleys Hotel on the Merrion Road, the Royal Marine Hotel in Dún Laoghaire (1863/6), the Salthill Hotel at Seapoint (now demolished), St Helen’s in Stillorgan (1863), now the Radisson Hotel and All Saints Church of Ireland in Carysfort Avenue, Blackrock. He was also architect to Trinity College. He died in 1885 at the age of sixty-one and is buried in Dean’s Grange.²

Adam and Agatha had a son Seaton and a daughter Wanda, both of whom eventually settled in England. Seaton was sent to school at Harrow. Wanda pursued a career on stage and married in England. I quote from The Lady of the House of January 1912:

Tory Government’s Local Government Ac

‘Agatha was a prolific writer of children’s stories many of which were published in The Lady of the House

Wanda is the young Irish lady who has made such a success as a dancer at the Victoria Palace, London. She is the first pupil of M. Mordkin, who took London by storm in the Russian Ballet. ‘Wanda’ otherwise Miss Findlater, dances a suite of dances arranged for her by Miss Rosina Filippi and Miss Eileen Allen. Her ‘Amazon’ and ‘Autumn’, danced to the music of Schubert and Sibelius, aroused great enthusiasm. Wanda was again and again recalled and left the stage laden with floral trophies.

Agatha, her mother, died in 1927 aged sixty-nine and is buried in her father’s plot in Dean’s Grange. Her mother, Wanda’s grandmother, died one year later, aged ninety-two and is also buried in this plot.

Despite the wide range of interests mentioned by his friend’s encomium, Adam was first of all the managing director of Findlaters, with a tight grip on trading realities. In 1896, for instance, Adam entered into a ten-year contract with the powerful Mazawattee Tea Company, London, which appointed Findlaters their sole agent in the city and county of Dublin for packet and tins of tea. He agreed to purchase at least 500 chests during the first year, and during the remainder of the agency a minimum of 1,000 chests each year, some for the Findlater blends. In seconding the motion at the 1903 AGM of Mazawattee

In 1900 Mazawattee claimed a new world record duty cheque of £85,862 and if the cups and saucers were put side by side they would reach 30 times around the world!

in London Adam mused that he thought he had ‘the largest power of distribution in the trade in Ireland’ and reported that in the first year of his agreement his tea turnover almost doubled to a level equivalent to just under €1.6m in year-2013 values. Adam’s careful choice of words reflected that at the time Baker Wardell & Co. and Adam Millar & Co. were No. 1 and No. 2 tea wholesalers in the country.

To finance the Boer War (1899-1902) the duty on tea was raised to 8d. However this was followed by a spirited Anti-Tea-Duty campaign which succeeded in persuading the Chancellor to take first 2d and then a further 1d off. In an interview he gave to a journalist of the Evening Telegraph on 1 May 1906, Adam expressed his disappointment at the size of this last reduction:

‘Then, the penny reduction is a disappointment to the trade?’

Mr Findlater: ‘Undoubtedly it is. So small a reduction as a penny is most unsatisfactory. And for this reason: in sales of a quarter of a lb. the consumer can get a farthing reduction; but look at the countless purchases made of tea in ounces and two ounces by the poorer classes in our towns and all over the country, and how can they get a proportionate benefit or reduction? The retailer simply cannot do it.’

‘Then, the small shopkeeper would reap all the benefit in that case—that is what you mean?’

Mr Findlater: ‘Yes, the shopkeeper would have the advantage in that case. But the consumer may get an indirect benefit in this way. He may be enabled to get a better tea at 1s a pound (or 1d an ounce) than he does at present; but, on the other hand, if the consumption of 1s 4d tea increased, the tea growers might endeavour to absorb a portion of the penny by increasing the price to the market.’

‘I suppose the largest trade is done in teas about 1s 4d per pound?’

Mr Findlater: ‘Yes, in teas ranging from 1s 4d to 2s a pound.’

‘Summing up the question, what do you think the effect of the remission will be to the poorer people?’

Mr Findlater: ‘On the whole I am satisfied that the poorer classes will benefit by the remission of the taxes even though it may not be apparent in their purchases of small packages. And while on that subject I would like to say that it is a great pity the poorer classes don’t always recognise the fact that a higher priced tea is really more economical than the lower priced article.’

‘That is a most interesting statement, Mr Findlater, so interesting that I would like

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you to enlarge upon it,’ said our representative.

Mr Findlater: ‘The reason of that is that the higher priced tea goes further, the resultant brew is much more refreshing, and for my part I don’t know anything more refreshing than a good cup of tea. Hence I say that teas from 1s. 10d to 2s 4d a pound are really more economical than the lower priced article.’

‘I suppose your trade is to a great extent in the higher priced teas?’

Mr Findlater: ‘Yes, our business is largely in the latter class of teas.’

‘I would assume that China tea has now but a slight sale?’

Tea prices in 1905

Mr Findlater: ‘Yes, the sale of China tea is small, indeed. Indian and Ceylon teas are those in great demand for some-time past. I would also like to say a word or two in conclusion, and to this effect. I am glad to see that there is a growing inclination among the better class of people to recognise the value of fine teas. In the old days I have known men who would not give you a bad glass of wine or anything but the finest whiskey in the way of refreshment, but very often if you sat down to have tea at these men’s tables you would get anything but a good cup of tea. Now, at 5 o’clock teas you will get a really fine tea, and, as I have already said, a good cup of tea is a great luxury—an excellent thing.’

However, as well as his responsibilities as managing director, Adam was chairman of two theatres, the Star in Dublin, from 1897 known as the Empire Palace Theatre, and the Empire Theatre of Varieties in Belfast, both of which he took over from Dan Lowrey. He was chairman of the ailing Dublin City and Banagher Distillery. He was also involved in hotels, with interests in the St Lawrence in Howth and the Royal Hotels in Bray and Howth. He was an active member of both the Dublin Port and Docks Board and the Dublin Chamber of Commerce. He was chairman of the Commercial Travellers’ Benevolent Institute and raised considerable funds for those who had fallen on hard times. But perhaps his most interesting role was as a vocal proponent of the views of liberal Southern unionists in Dublin, particularly when he was speaking of things he himself knew from his personal or business experience.

The election which saw Billy bowing out of parliament in 1885 marked a turning point in Irish politics. It was in this year that a formal unionist organisation began to emerge as a counter-weight to the increasingly well-organised Home Rule party. A more representative franchise, combined with Gladstone’s first Home Rule Bill (1886), meant that the unionists had plenty of work to do. In the early years, unionism was dominated by Southern unionists—typically landed

Tea packs designed early in the 20th century. These designs were used until the mid 1960s. The actual packs were strong silver foil which ensured a perfectly fresh and aromatic cuppa.

A prototype label based on Findlater’s proximity to the Parnell monument erected in 1911 and showing that grandfather had no qualms in associating the firm with the great Irish nationalist.

and Anglican. However, between 1881 and 1907 a series of Land Acts eroded their power base and unionism became more and more a Northern phenomenon, as it is today.

Very little is now spoken of Southern unionism. It is as if the word unionist is a soiled word, and one which refers exclusively to the uncompromising wing of Northern unionism. Yet my great-uncle Adam was a Southern unionist businessman and was highly regarded by, and on good terms with, the moderate nationalists. As well as running a thriving wine, spirit and grocery business, with (as his speech to the 1902 staff conference has shown) a very detailed and hands on control, Adam was also a political activist. He fought for reforms in local government, land law, as well as financial and fiscal reforms–in fact he concerned himself in most facets of the economy. Happily, his political activities did not affect the popularity of his businesses which relied on the custom of a large cross-section of the population.

The Kingstown Programme

Adam Findlater’s first appearance on the political stage was the occasion of the presentation of an address to the Lord Lieutenant by the town commissioners of Kingstown. Adam was chairman of what was then a separate local authority, completely independent of Dublin Corporation. There were seven such townships, as they were called, in the Dublin area: Kingstown being established in 1834, Rathmines 1847, Blackrock 1860, Pembroke 1863, Dalkey 1867, Clontarf 1869 and Drumcondra in 1879. After Adam was elected chairman of the

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Kingstown Commissioners in 1895 he used the position to involve himself in both local and national issues and to campaign for legal and social reforms. He did this by addresses, speeches, booklets, letters and lobbying of MPs at Westminster, although he never actually stood for parliament.

When Lord Cadogan, the incoming Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, landed at Kingstown on 22 August 1895, Adam, then chairman of the Kingstown Board, and his colleagues on the Commission, presented an address of welcome. The contemporary commentator Michael J. McCarthy described this address as ‘breaking through the silly veil which is supposed to hedge in vice-royalty from the realities of Irish life.^* The town commissioners, led by Adam, laid down a programme of ‘wants’ in simple and straightforward language:

Many matters that are absolutely necessary to stimulate industry and produce peace, prosperity and contentment among our people, will demand the immediate consideration of Parliament.

A system of Local Government, similar to that now enjoyed by the people of Great Britain; an extension of the principle of the Land Purchase Acts, so as to spread amongst us the conserving influences of peasant proprietorship; an Act to provide for leaseholders in towns that security which is at present possessed by agricultural tenants; the re-adjustment of the financial relations between the two Islands, so that Ireland will not be compelled to contribute more than her fair proportion to the Imperial revenues; an Act to facilitate Private Bill legislation, so as to obviate the necessity for the excessive expenditure which, under existing circumstances, must be incurred in inquiries on the other side of the Channel before any useful improvement requiring the sanction of Parliament can be effected; are all measures so indispensable to a good condition of affairs here, that they may be considered as outside the range of party politics. We have, therefore, no hesitation in pressing them upon the attention of your Excellency and, through you, upon the attention of Her Majesty’s Government.³

In the heated political atmosphere of the day, even unionist Kingstown had nationalists on the Commission, and they ‘decline[d] to join in the presentation of any address to or any public demonstration in honour of Earl Cadogan or any other Viceroy, until an adequate measure of Home Rule has been passed for this country, and evidence has been given of improvement in the disposition of the English people by the restoration of the evicted tenants to their homes, and of the political prisoners to freedom.’⁴

^* The Lord Lieutenant was the representative of the Queen, and strictly speaking not a political appointment, though in practice the appointment had political overtones. The senior political figure was the Chief Secretary who was a cabinet member. The ‘silly veil’ comment is from Michael McCarthy Five Years in Ireland 1895-1900 Dublin: Hodges Figgis 7th ed 1902 p 51. R. B. McDowell writes in Crisis and Decline (Dublin: Lilliput Press 1997 p 42): ‘Protestant antagonism to Irish Catholicism was nourished by the writings of discontented Catholics, such as Priests and People in Ireland by M. J. E. McCarthy and Father Ralph by G. O’Donovan, which depicted Catholic ecclesiastics as domineering, intellectually unprogressive and oppressive, determined to control as much of Irish life as they could and excessively eager to obtain financial support for Church purposes’. See also T. West Horace Plunkett: Co-operation and Politics Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe p 72.

December 1906: Even by today’s standards these are very large stocks

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Despite nationalist rejection, the address gained public attention, with The Freeman’s Journal commenting sadly: ‘There is, we fear, little hope of the Kingstown Programme [as the address was referred to] from the present Government’.⁵ But Adam did not leave things there: he wrote a magisterial letter (of 3,000 words!) to the London Times (12 October 1897) entitled ‘Ireland under Unionist Government’ arguing the case for the reforms. On the subject of local government he wrote:

The system of county government in Ireland is an anachronism. It is entirely in the hands of a body called the grand jury, selected (except in the county of Dublin) by the sheriff by a tortuous method . . . It is hardly possible to over-estimate the benefits conferred upon any community by the establishment in its midst of a peasant proprietary. Experience all the world over has shown that there is no greater guarantee for the maintenance of law and order, that it promotes thrift and industry among the working classes, fosters a spirit of true nationality, and diffuses among the masses a sense of freedom and independence.

As McCarthy notes, ‘it had not been heralded by any series of promises or by any flourish of trumpets whatsoever’, but three years after their accession to power the government, ‘having no doubt, by inquiry and investigation, thoroughly satisfied themselves that the time for action had arrived’,⁶ passed the Local Government Act 1898. This new Act replaced the abolished grand jury system, (in so far as it was responsible for the administration of local government), and transferred all the fiscal and administrative business of the counties to county councils, whose members were elected on the parliamentary franchise. In general, nationalists and moderate unionists welcomed the new Act, though the dying landlord class quite clearly saw the Act as yet another nail in their collective coffin—and this verdict has been confirmed by historians. As Conor Cruise O’Brien put it: ‘the Southern unionists were of course mainly, though not exclusively, Protestant. Their decline from what was once a position of exclusive domination may date from the Tory Government's Local Government Act of 1898.’⁷ By 1911 it was reported that of 707 county councillors in the three Southern provinces only 15 were unionists.

Land Acts

Over a period of a quarter of a century, from 1881 to 1907, the Land Acts transformed landholding in Ireland. By the end of that period, the old landed ascendancy had been bought out, in effect by the government, and a local small farmer proprietorship had been put in its place. (Ironically, the triumphs of the 19th century caused one of the worst headaches of the 20th, as the resulting fragmented structure made the modernising of Irish agriculture very difficult.) The process was in its early stages in 1896, when Adam and his fellow commissioners, though without land or pretensions to land themselves, were in favour of the change. In the address to the incoming Lord Lieutenant they requested an extension of the principle of the Land Purchase Act, ‘so as to spread amongst the peo

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ple the conserving influence of a peasant proprietorship’. In his great letter to the London Times, he is critical of the efforts of the present government save the introduction of ‘several clauses intended to render somewhat easier the annual instalments payable by tenants who have been fortunate enough to buy out the interests of their landlords and root themselves permanently in the possession of their holdings’.

Agriculture

On the question of agriculture Adam wrote in the London Times: ‘The staple, and indeed almost the only, industry in Ireland is agriculture, and the backward state of that industry is but too well known.’ He commented that the Recess Committee, a body composed of Unionists, Gladstonites (Liberal Home Rulers), and Parnellites had strongly urged the appointment of a Board of Agriculture and Industries for Ireland. Just as it seemed the labours of the committee were about to bear fruit, the Chief Secretary announced his intention to bring in the necessary Bill, and the subject was quietly withdrawn. Adam concluded that there should be ‘some central department to collect statistics, afford information to the local bodies, and superintend the working of the various Acts of Parliament relating to agriculture and kindred subjects. The Privy Council, in which most of these powers are at present vested, has proved wholly inadequate to this work’. As it happened, the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland was established two years later, in 1899. This resulted mainly from the efforts of Horace Plunkett, pioneer of the agricultural co-operative movement in Ireland, with Father T. A. Finlay, George Russell (Æ) and R. A. Anderson.^*

On 21 November 1903 Adam wrote to The Irish Times, supporting Plunkett generally, and revealing the rapid shifts of political allegiances of those days, and the distance of his own views from the standard conservative unionist line:

Sir, As one who was until three years ago—until after the last election in South County Dublin—a fairly active member of the Council of the Unionist Registration Association, I must candidly say that I rejoice at the action of the Right Hon. Jonathan Hogg, P.D., Sir John Nutting, Mr Hamilton Drummond, Mr Elrington Ball, and others in severing their connection with that body . . . For my part, I trust that this decisive action of the influential gentlemen who have seceded from the Association indicates the opening of a new era in Irish public affairs, when there will be a better understanding amongst us all who find that we can agree upon questions that affect the material interests of the country. It is hopeful from another point of view. Without recalling errors of judgement in the past I do not think I am unkind in

^* Plunkett, a Unionist MP for South Dublin in 1892, was the first president of the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, in 1894. He subsequently became an adherent to home rule and founded the Irish Dominion League to keep Ireland united within the British Commonwealth. He was appointed to the new Irish Senate in 1922. His house Kilteragh in Foxrock was a centre where people of all creeds and political persuasions used to meet and discuss the new emerging Ireland. He also acquired 90 acres around Kilteragh, which he used for practical agricultural instruction, but his spirit was broken when the house was burnt down during the Civil War in 1923, and many fine records, pictures and furniture lost.

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saying that some, at least, of these gentlemen strove hard to procure the defeat of Sir Horace Plunkett (as he is now) in South Dublin. I can readily understand that they now regret the disastrous success of their labours.

Their ostensible reason for driving that hard working, practical, patriotic Irishman from Parliament and the Ministry was his avowed liberality of thought, and among other matters, regarding the University question.^* I am sure that Mr McCann’s views are not more illiberal. Therefore I assume that we may congratulate ourselves upon this unexpected proof that even Conservatives may be progressive. It is not the least interesting of latter-day developments in Irish politics.

Yours etc. A. S. Findlater, Primrose Hill, Kingstown. 20th November, 1903.

The overtaxation of Ireland

One of the great controversies of the late 1890s was the question of the relative tax burdens of England and Ireland. Towards the middle of the 19th century successive British chancellors had adopted the view that a policy of ‘fiscal equality’ between the two countries should be adopted. Gladstone initiated this policy in the 1850s. He imposed income tax on Ireland, and equalised excise duties, declaring that he could not see how the rights of man demanded that ‘an Irishman should get drunk more cheaply than an Englishman’. Nationalists argued strongly that, given the relative national incomes, this was unfair. It was regularly pointed out that Ireland contributed one-eleventh of the imperial revenue, when her capacity was believed to be about one-twentieth. In 1896 a Financial Relations Commission established by the Liberal government substantially supported their view. In the furore that followed, the standard unionist view was that since at least three-quarters of the tax paid was excise on tobacco and whiskey, a remedy for any apparent injustice was clearly in the Irish people’s own hands. Adam, with other progressive unionists, took the other view.

In his letter to the Times he wrote:

A Commission composed of men of the highest repute, all of them possessing considerable ability, some of them experts, representing every interest and every shade of political opinion, came, after patiently hearing the evidence of witnesses most likely to give full, reliable, and impartial information on the subject, to the conclusion that, for the purpose of taxation, Ireland was entitled to be treated as a separate entity; that the Act of Union had imposed upon her a burden which, as events turned out, she was unable to bear; and that during the forty years from 1853 to 1893 she had been compelled to contribute much more than her fair proportion to the Imperial revenues.

^* The university question was one of the most sensitive and intractable problems of post- Famine Ireland. The core of the problem was that the Roman Catholic hierarchy, following papal guidelines, insisted that nothing less than a fully-Catholic, state-financed university was adequate to meet the spiritual and intellectual needs of the country. The (Protestant-backed) British government were reluctant to endorse that. Caught in between were the rising Catholic middle class, wanting their sons to receive third-level education, and yet anxious to respond to their bishops’ views. Complicating the issue was the fact that since the 1850s the Catholic hierarchy had forbidden their flock to attend Trinity without specific permission from the bishop—which, at least until John Charles McQuaid’s time, was normally granted.

1902—Whiskey bottling in our Sackville Street cellars

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Adam referred to the Act of Union as ‘a system of taxation under which the poorer country is unfairly treated and further impoverished.’ Indeed, he stated that ‘The members of the present government have, however, refused to hold out any hope of redress. Nay, we know, and, what is worse, we feel, that under the provisions of the Finance Acts passed since 1894 the injustice to Ireland has been immensely aggravated.’ He put his finger on the major defect of the Commission’s report—it had pointed out a grievance, but had suggested no remedy. It did not take much imagination for home rulers, and others, to think their way through that problem.

The issue was also confused with the great debate on free trade going on in Britain, in which Joseph Chamberlain was one of the most public protagonists.^* Adam was very much in favour of the use of fiscal means to protect Irish industries. On 20 November 1903 he took the chair at the inaugural meeting of the Irish Tariff Reform (Central) Association in the Gresham Hotel. Adam explained to those present that the meeting was in the nature of an informal conference and that they came there to put their heads together, to think out the question of whether they should not take advantage of the present movement in England to promote the interests of Ireland. He pointed out that this was one of the questions upon which Irishmen of all classes and creeds were agreed and that the purpose of the meeting was to consider what was the best for Ireland and Irishmen. He was also keen to clarify that this association would be an Irish association, independent of any English organisation.

During the meeting the members passed the following resolution: ‘That the object of this association shall be to support the reform and modification of the present Fiscal system by the imposition of tariffs directed to the assistance of agriculture, the development of existing industries, and the creation of others, for which this country is suited, and thus, by enabling our population to live and thrive at home, to turn backwards the flow of emigration that menaces every material interest of Ireland.’

Adam followed up this meeting with a letter to The Irish Times published on 28 November 1903:

Sir, . . . I, for one, believe that Protection would help what industries we have, would enable others to be started, and thus by opening up sources of employment check the dreadful flow of emigration. With the tariff utilised only as a bond between the Colonies and Great Britain, Irishmen cannot grow enthusiastic, but on the question of protective tariffs as beneficially affecting Ireland, as well as the Colonies, we can all consider the economic question from an Irish standpoint. If we cannot agree as to the respective merits of Protection and Free Trade, we can discuss it in an atmosphere free from disturbing elements.

That in certain circumstances Protection as a national policy is not an economic heresy, but an economic truth, is admitted by all thoughtful men, who have studied the science of political economy . . .

Yours etc. A. S. Findlater.

^* Chamberlain, who had been a Liberal under Gladstone and was now a Conservative, was an early advocate of a partial return to policies of protection.

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On the same day the Pall Mall Gazette carried an interview with Adam, as President of the Irish Tariff Reform Association:

The first thing that he told me was that the association will work entirely on Irish lines. It has nothing to do with Mr Chamberlain’s association, and will be run exclusively from Dublin, and exclusively in the interests of Ireland and of Irishmen. It was a mistake, he said, to think as some people thought that the cases of Ireland and of Great Britain were the same.

He pointed out that Ireland is a separate entity, not merely from the point of view of administration and legislation, but also from that of taxation.

In fact Chamberlain specifically declined to become involved in the Irish situation. He wrote to Adam on 11 December 1903: ‘I have said all along that my own personal feeling was in favour of an entirely independent and National committee in Ireland on the fiscal question . . . there are so many complications in the politics of Ireland that I do not feel justified in offering advice or suggestions.’⁸

In the same year, 1903, in the mood of the time, the first Industrial Development Association was established in Cork, followed immediately after by similar bodies in Limerick, Dublin, Belfast, Galway and Londonderry. Its aim was the advancement of Irish industries and in particular the defence of the Irish market from increasingly predatory British manufacturers. Between 1841 and 1901, while the population declined by 46 per cent the number employed in manufacturing industry fell by 60 per cent. The new association set about organising direct shipping facilities between Ireland and the countries abroad as well as assisting in finding foreign markets for Irish goods. It also devised an Irish national trade mark, the first instituted by any country in the world, to help identify for the consumer goods of Irish manufacture. To be licensed to display the symbol the cost of labour had to represent more than 50 per cent of the total production cost of the article.

The association was fortunate to have as its chairman for its first fifteen years George Crosbie of the Cork Examiner family. It was due to his interest and assistance that the movement progressed so rapidly in its early days. He exerted his influence with the owners and editors of the other leading newspapers.^*

Adam clearly identified Findlaters with the movement and at the staff meeting of 1903 said: ‘We are only too anxious to encourage Irish manufacture as much as possible, and give it our preference, as we feel that living in Ireland and making our living here, we are bound to do what we can in this direction’. He

^* E. J. O’Riordan (first Secretary of the Irish Development Association) Modern Irish Trade and Industry, with an introduction by George O’Brien Litt.D. MRIA London: Methuen 1920 pp 265-279. It is interesting to see how the theme of Free Trade crops up again and again: John wrote his paper discussing it, Adam chaired meetings about it, Willie took it up at the time of the Treaty, and Dermot expressed different views, during the Economic War and then in the post-Emergency period.

1902—Note the ‘season’ at the bottom of the bottle. 3s 9d is the equivalent of £14.25 in 2000 money, not so very different from today’s price. The content however was 75cl at 25o under proof compared with 7ocl at 30o under-proof today. Eight-year-old was a Findlater speciality; most other bonders sold Jameson at seven or ten years of age.

Labels in use in 19th and early 20th centuries

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did, nevertheless, caution that quality and value had to be the equal of the alternative product. We shall see Willie and Dermot identifying with the Association in subsequent chapters.

Findlater’s Act

The fifth item on the Kingstown Programme called for ‘an Act to facilitate Private Bill legislation, so as to obviate the necessity for the excessive expenditure which under existing circumstances, must be incurred in inquiries on the other side of the Channel before any useful improvement requiring the sanction of Parliament can be effected.’ Adam explained that

the procedure with respect to Irish Private Bill Legislation is most fitly described by the word ‘disgraceful’: The house fees alone are prohibitive; but when to these are added enormous fees to English counsel, or, worse, the cost of bringing over to Westminster Irish counsel, fees to English experts, fees to Parliamentary agents, fees to solicitors, and expenses of witnesses, one cannot wonder at the excessive cost furnished for the promotion of even unopposed and unimportant Bills. Then, after all these have been incurred, the Bill is often brought before a committee not a single member of which has any knowledge of the locality or the interests affected by it, has ever been in Ireland, or even learned to pronounce the names of the places or the persons that will be mentioned in the course of the evidence.

On top of this, English parliamentarians were complaining ‘of the unreasonable extent to which the attention of that Parliament is monopolised by the inevitable Irish problem.’ Adam refutes this by pointing out the small amount of Irish legislation passed into law. However, I presume the campaign was successful as we find Adam promoting a Bill in 1903.

In 1903 Adam took the initiative to draft and promote the General Dealers’ (Ireland) Act—usually referred to in the law courts as Findlater’s Act—by which an effectual check was put on the operations of receivers of stolen goods, especially second-hand metal goods and ‘bottles, syphons, tools, bags, packing cases, boxes, articles of pottery or glass’. (These were also known as ‘Marine Stores’.) Among the provisions was one prohibiting such a ‘general dealer’ from buying from or selling to ‘any person apparently under the age of fourteen years’. Findlaters may have had a problem with returnable cases, bottles and syphons finding their way into unauthorised hands, but the problem was deeper than that and required legislation.

On Wednesday 3 June 1903 Adam presided over a meeting of the Dublin Merchants’ Committee held at the Gresham Hotel to consider the Bill. Four months later, The Irish Times reported on the importance of this act:

At the recent Criminal Sessions a case was heard which brought out very conspicuously some of the good points of the Marine Store Dealers Act, which will come into operation on the first day of next year. The Act, which in the language of the official draughtsman is entitled ‘An Act for regulating the business of Marine Stores Dealers and Dealers in Second-hand Goods in Ireland,’ was rechristened by Sir Frederick

1902—German wine: ‘For intellectual gaiety’!

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Falkiner [the Recorder of Dublin] ‘Findlater’s Act,’ which is at once handy as a title and a very excellent recognition of the part which was taken by Mr Adam Findlater in carrying it through Parliament. He initiated the movement which gave birth to the measure, and in the most indefatigable manner forced members and Ministers to legislate in the direction which he advocated.

The case which inspired the Recorder to supply the ‘short title’ was typical of the class of cases which the measure is designed to meet. An unoccupied house was raided by a number of youths. They pulled down iron fittings, lead piping, a kitchen range, and other fixtures, and sold some of them to a marine store dealer. The price paid by the latter was altogether out of proportion to the value of the goods, and was of itself sufficient to indicate that he, at all events, strongly suspected that the articles had not been come by honestly. He asked one of the boys who brought him the goods where they had been got, and was content with the reply that they had been found in a field at Ringsend. Of course the transaction was, on the part of the buyer, dishonest from the beginning. He must have known that such goods are not picked up by boys in fields on the outskirts of the city, and that he was certain that they were the outcome of a fraudulent enterprise was quite apparent from the fact that he acquired them immediately for fourpence.

The police inspector in charge of the case mentioned that there was no record of the transaction in the books of the dealer, and it is in that connection that the Recorder referred to the Act which he will have to administer after the first of next January. The Act makes it an offence for marine store dealers not to register such transactions in books kept for the purpose. The section is very precise—‘Every general dealer shall enter in a book, to be kept by him on his premises, the particulars of each transaction in his business, including (a) a proper and distinctive description of each article purchased or received by him; (b) the name and place of abode of the person from whom he purchased or received the article; (c) the date and hour of the day of each transaction; and (d) the price paid, or agreed to be paid, for the article.’ Nothing could be more complete in the way of drastic legislation; but when the ever-recurring frauds of the class which the Recorder had to investigate last Monday are taken into account it cannot be considered by any means too severe.

The section will not press hardly upon honest traders, and it will facilitate the police and the Courts in dealing with those dishonestly inclined. The Act, however, contains other provisions which are eminently calculated to reduce the possibility of the disposal of stolen goods, and for that purpose the licensing provisions will probably be found most effective. Some of the sections are exceedingly strong; for instance, those limiting the hours of business and prescribing the age of customers; but it can scarcely be denied that a vast deal of the minor crime of Dublin has resulted owing to the nonexistence of some such safeguards.⁹

The Irish Figaro commented:

The Marine Store Dealers’ Act will come into force in a little while, and the ‘rag and bones man’ will be pulled up on a short halter. Mr Adam Findlater has rendered the public many big services; but I question if he ever did a better stroke than when he

1902—Note the emphasis on Findlater’s bottling

ADAM FINDLATER 1855–1911

started the subject and conceived and drafted that Act. Meanwhile, let us feel thankful that the Recorder has determined to make the punishment fit the crime at last.¹⁰

Of course, Adam did not claim to have done this by himself. In a letter to The Irish Times (16 December 1903), complaining that he, a private citizen, had to get this Act to check the receiving and disposal of stolen goods, not to mention ‘the infinitely worse trade of the Fagin-like training of young thieves’, he freely acknowledges the help given by friends such as J. P. Nannetti, MP for College Green and John Atkinson KC, the Attorney General for Ireland, in formulating the Act.

Adam v. Dublin Corporation

The Kingstown Programme had sought redress for the position of the urban tenants, a matter in which, as a large property holder throughout the town, Adam had a close interest. In 1899 he came into direct conflict with the Corporation in respect of the rent of the shop in South Great George’s Street. The kernel of the problem was that the lease had fallen in, and the Corporation proposed to charge eight times what the previous rent had been. In an aggressive pamphlet called A Tale of Municipal Landlordism,¹¹ Adam described this as ‘rackrenting a tenant on his own improvements’, and a ‘monstrous extraction’. After vigorous representation by the firm, the Corporation’s finance committee eventually reduced the proposed rent to £7.80 per foot lineal frontage. Not appeased, Adam pointed out that the large department store Pim’s, next door, had just been granted a similar lease for £4 per foot. Failing acceptance of this final rent, the company had to face eviction.

Adam complained bitterly about this conduct, which he described (rather melodramatically) as ‘a deliberate policy of rackrenting and eviction which could not be paralleled in the woeful history of the relations between landlord and tenant in Ireland’. It was ‘an exemplification of the truth of the proverb that a Corporation had neither a body to be kicked, nor a soul to be damned’. He alluded to the fact that the family had owned the house for over fifty years. ‘In that house, 67 South Great George’s Street, my father, now a man of seventy-two years of age, played as a child; and there in my turn, I learned as an apprentice, working behind the counter, what knowledge I possess of my business.’ Adam declared (in print) his determination ‘to permit the severance of cherished ties, and to allow the evicting corporation to do its work rather than endure to the end of my days the humiliating consciousness of having weakly yielded to the extravagant extortion—not to call it blackmail—which the Corporation of the City of Dublin would levy upon me as the price of peaceful enjoyment’. As the firm remained in South Great George’s Street for another seventy years, it is likely that the finance committee made some concession.

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The valuation of licensed premises

We have seen that the Local Government Act of 1898 gave new powers to the Irish boroughs; among these was the right to demand a revaluation of their districts. Both the Belfast and the Dublin Corporations applied for revaluation, but as Belfast had applied first the commissioner for revaluation, Sir John Barton, began work on that city. At the same time, Barton introduced for the first time into Ireland the English principle of valuing the licenses attached to public houses as well as the properties themselves. Previously, the sale of a public house would fetch much more than a non-licensed house and Barton did not see why both should be valued at the same amount.

When Adam heard of this move, he was alarmed because it was obvious that the same principle would be applied in Dublin. Taxation and licensed duties would be increased by a large amount.

His first step was to organise a meeting in February in the Mansion House with the Lord Mayor in the chair The Evening Telegraph stated that ‘Mr Adam Findlater opened with a stirring speech, and gave his views in lucid fashion’. The speech of Mr A. S. Findlater JP, it stated, ‘is well worthy of careful perusal. It does not profess to give an exhaustive explanation of the economic problems involved in the revaluation of Ireland, but it is pregnant with suggestions and facts, and is calculated to enlighten the public regarding the dangers of revaluation and the effects that would follow if the principles enunciated by Sir John Barton before the Select Committee of the House of Commons were adopted’.¹² The meeting was very representative, the largest ratepayers in the city being present. However, not everyone was on Adam’s side. The aggressively nationalist political weekly The Leader attacked Adam and the other ‘Mr Bungs’ in this entertaining article.^*

Mr Bung, of course, was indignant, for his taxation and licence duties were very largely increased under the new principle. Of course, too, when Mr Bung in Dublin saw what had happened to Mr Bung in Belfast he began to grow mightily alarmed, knowing that in the revaluation of Dublin, for which the Corporation had applied, the same principle would be introduced. All unconscious of the fate in store for him, he had allowed the Corporation to take this fatal step, but, at all cost, he made up his mind to try and avert from himself the disaster that had befallen his brother Bung up in the Black North.

So he cast about him for a means. He rushed across to London and bitterly complained to the Parliamentary Committee that was enquiring into this subject of valuation. He roundly abused Sir John Barton. He sought to raise a great outcry about increased Imperial Taxation. Then a brilliant idea occurred to him. He would get the

^* The Leader, edited by D. P. Moran (1871-1936) had a great influence in drawing people into the national movement in the first decade of the 20th century. It deployed an aggressive, name-calling rhetoric to great effect—Plunkett was called Sir Horace Shallow, and Protestant unionists were called Sourfaces. ‘Mr Bung’ was the favourite expression the teetotal Moran used to express his contempt for the powerful liquor trade. In this article the author (Richard Hazleton, also a total abstainer) comes perilously close to identifying Adam as the Mr Bung.

Ales and Porters, 1903

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Lord Mayor to call a ‘citizens’ meeting of protest in the Mansion House, and, having packed this meeting, he would get it to appoint a ‘citizens’ committee to oppose Sir John’s proposals before Parliament. And so a requisition was got up and presented to the Lord Mayor. Mr Bung kept himself in the background, and tried to hide the real meaning of this move, with the result that many unsuspecting citizens put their names to the requisition. However, out of over 300 names on this document nearly 150 were those of Bungs.

Things went merrily on. The meeting was boomed in the Press, and Mr Bung cocked himself up in the happy belief that everything was so cleverly managed that he was going to have a complete walk over. Indeed, so sure was he of this that he wrote up to Belfast, and imparted the good news to his brother Bungs of the Belfast and Ulster Vintners’ Association, for in the report of the monthly meeting of that great body it was officially stated that ‘it was learned from a letter from Dublin that steps were been taken to hold a great meeting of merchants in the Mansion House with the view to arousing the country to the danger which Sir John Barton’s proposals threatened.’

But alas for poor Mr Bung’s hopes! All the time there were those who were silently watching this secret intrigue to subvert the interests of the citizens to those of the licensed trade.

On Thursday last the ‘great’ meeting was held. The Lord Mayor presided, and from all sides of the city, and from outlying districts, such as Kingstown and Blackrock, Bungs of every description swarmed to the Mansion House. There were Bungs on the platform; Bungs to the right, Bungs to the left; Bungs in front, and Bungs behind. Never was seen such an array of Bungs. Aldermen, Councillors, P.L.G.’s–the Great Ones of Dublin were there. There, too, were the lesser Bungs, and Bungs in embryo, down even to the very pot-boys. And as Mr AI Findlater [AI was a much publicised Findlater whiskey brand] rose in his might and smote Sir John Barton, and drivelled on and on for more than one mortal hour, they rubbed their greedy hands together and thought what a fine meeting it was, to be sure. The resolution which Mr AI Findlater proposed was a clever one—exceedingly clever. In fact, it was too clever, for, as The Irish Times remarked next morning, it was too obviously framed in the interests of the licensed trade, winding up, as it did, by declaring that what Dublin wanted was readjustment ‘without any introduction of any new principles of valuation hitherto unknown in Ireland.’

Then a thing happened that gave the Bungs their first fright. Mr T. W. Russell, MP, was seen to get up, take off his coat, and step on to the platform to address the meeting. Worse still, he got a good reception. Would he open out on them? Would he expose the intrigue? At first he agreed with some remarks of Mr AI Findlater; then he went on to differ from him, but he did not attack ‘the Trade.’ The Bungs heaved a sigh of relief as he sat down. The worst was over, thought they. But, horror of horrors, here was another Temperance crank getting up who dared to face them at their own meeting. It was Mr John Gore. In a speech of great force, clear, ringing, and eloquent, he put the case forward for the new system of valuing publicans’ licenses, and declared, in concluding, that he would divide the meeting on the last part of Mr AI Findlater’s res-

1902—Clarets for summer drinking

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olution. His attack was as effective as it was utterly unexpected. Bung was aghast. The seriousness of the position was at once realised, for Mr Gore’s speech had created a profound impression upon the disinterested section of the audience, which, however, was but too small. A hasty and anxious consultation was held near the door by the big Bungs, who, taken by surprise, were utterly unprepared for this opposition, and did not know how to meet it; but before they had time to decide upon any course of action an appalling catastrophe occurred on the platform. Mr T. W. Russell intervened, and Mr AI Findlater surrendered unconditionally! Absolutely and unreservedly he withdrew his carefully-prepared resolution—the resolution that the meeting was called together to pass; in its place he accepted a resolution drafted by Mr T. W. Russell approving of the introduction of the English system of valuation! This resolution was seconded by Mr Gore, put to the meeting, and carried unanimously! So ‘flabbergasted’ were the Bungs that they had not enough spirit left in them to say ‘No.’

The citizens of Dublin have reason to congratulate themselves on this signal defeat of the publicans. It will probably mean a substantial reduction in their burden of local taxation, as they have all along been paying rates for ‘the Trade.’ The defeat, also, has its moral for the citizens, because it proves that the publicans have only to be faced boldly in order to be put in their proper place. With over thirty of their number members of the Corporation they think that they own the city of Dublin, and can use the citizens, the Council, and the Mansion House for any selfish purpose they like. But they may yet find that they have gone too far, and that a reaction may set in which will sweep them and their hangers-on from the position of power which they have abused and degraded.¹³

Despite this defeat, Adam pressed on and four months later, on 22 June 1903, gave evidence to a Select Committee of the House of Commons agreeing with a revival of the revaluation of Dublin, but calling for great care to be taken so as not to hamper enterprises or local improvements.

Robert Gardner, JP, of Craig Gardner and Co., accountants, Dublin, was asked about the question of valuing licensed premises.

From his experience he was able to state most positively that in Ireland there was nothing in the profits accruing from the carrying on of the licensed trade to justify exceptional treatment. On the contrary the profits in many other businesses were greater. For the information of the Committee he had carefully gone into the accounts of firms carrying on various businesses, and had found the following percentages of profit: drapers, 8¼; cabinetmakers, 9⅓; ironmongers, 9⅓; iron merchants, 7; carriage builders, 22½; manure merchants, 6⅞; seed merchants, 5; corn merchants 18; chemists 8⅔; maltsters, 13; bakers, 10; confectioners, 5¼; printers and paper merchants, 8; mineral water manufacturers, 10; bottle manufacturers, ¹⁴⅓.14 [There is unfortunately no record of vintners’ earnings.]

Adam continued to press the issue, as can be seen from a 1905 article in the Irish People entitled ‘Plea for combined action: Views of a Prominent Unionist’:

Mr Findlater strongly believes that the policy which has taken greatest hold of the Irish public at the present day is that of seeking points of agreement, and, while

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engaged on practical beneficial work, forgetting that differences exist on other matters. For instance, the re-valuation question, which is being investigated by a Committee at present, may, according to the evidence cited by Mr Findlater before the Committee, lead to an increase of £28,000 [€4.1m] of Imperial taxation on the City of Dublin alone. That is a matter which affects all classes alike, and in order to resist successfully the imposition of a fresh burden of this kind, there should be hearty co-operation among all Irishmen.¹⁵

Although Adam’s efforts were successful in this case, there was a sting in the tail when an extra licence duty was imposed not long after.

Temperance magistrates, May 1903

In 1903 Findlaters came into conflict with various magistrates, claiming that they had been refused a licence as a result of the judges being members of the temperance association. Findlaters appealed, as the Grocer and Vintner reported on 29 June: ‘Seldom has there been such an array of eminent counsel engaged in connection with the one case as was seen in the King’s Bench No. 2 of the Four Courts’.

Temperance societies and organisations in Ireland had struggled since the 1820s to reduce the consumption of whiskey, particularly illicit whiskey and poteen. The sterner type of nationalist promoted temperance with the slogan ‘Ireland sober is Ireland free’. For others the temperance movement was part of a wider attempt to discipline and control the working class; one of its early triumphs had been the abolition of Donnybrook Fair in the 1850s. In 1898 the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association of the Sacred Heart was established by Father James Cullen.¹⁶ Initially the association was an elitist devotional organisation, not a populist crusade. It did not aspire to a mass following nor did it aim to reclaim drunkards. The Pioneers were to be small bands of devoted

Medals from trade fairs were an important marketing tool then as now.

Findlaters’ Kingstown shop, pre–1900

Catholics, setting an example of piety and asceticism for others. However, it was the right instrument for an increasingly puritanical and Roman Catholic society. Its success exceeded all expectations. By the 1920s it had some 300,000 members and in 1999 celebrated its centenary with a gathering of some 40,000 in Croke Park.

The group that confronted Adam in 1903 was the Irish Association for the Prevention of Intemperance, established in 1878, and dominated by Quakers, Presbyterians and members of the Church of Ireland. One prominent member, Charles Eason, chairman of Eason’s booksellers, insisted that the Association had no axe to grind, and stated, conforming to traditional Protestant thinking, that they merely wanted to see the country ‘sober, industrious and happy’. Their membership was not large, but it was influential.

In 1903, a gentleman named Moynihan purchased a public house next door to the Roman Catholic church at Kingstown for a sum of £1,900 [€281,000]. However, this public house was considered an eyesore in Kingstown, so much so that the community jointly subscribed a sum of £900 [€133,000] to extinguish it. Findlaters agreed to contribute a sum of £500 [€75,000], making £1,400 [€208,000], and Mr Moynihan was public-spirited enough to agree to sacrifice the balance in the general interest of the people of Kingstown, he himself being a county councillor.

Findlaters had agreed to give the sum of £500 on condition they were allowed to extend the existing licence they had in Lower George’s Street, Kingstown, a few doors round the corner, a house, which was really a grocery, but which had

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a licence attached to it. It was not used at all on Sundays, and on ordinary days the house closed at six o’clock. Findlaters wanted to add the house next door to their existing premises, and, therefore, there was an application by them for a new licence. The licence was refused, and Adam, believing that members of the temperance association had affected the result, appealed.

The Legal Terms

The various parties were represented by the following: Messrs Ignatius O’Brien KC, A. F. Blood KC and J. M. McAuley (instructed by Mr Gerald Byrne) appeared for Findlaters. Mr O’Shaughnessy KC, and Mr A. M. Sullivan (instructed by Mr H. J. McCormick) appeared for Mr Henry J. Allen JP. Mr D. S. Henry KC and Mr Michael J. Dunn (instructed by Mr H. J. McCormick) appeared for the Rev. C. S. Laird and Rev. T. Guy Rogers, objectors in the lower court. Mr J. O. Wylie KC, and Mr James Henry (instructed by Messrs D. and T. Fitzgerald) appeared for Messrs Eason, Booth, Jacob and Wallace, Justices of the Peace. Serjeant Dodd and Mr W. A. Fitzhenry (instructed by Mr W. Geoghegan) appeared for Professor Barrett JP. Messrs. John Wakely KC and Cecil Atkinson (instructed by Sir Patrick Coll, CB, Chief Crown Solicitor) appeared for the Crown.^*

The Irish Times outlined the court case, in which so many big legal guns were involved on both sides:

^* lgnatius O’Brien was subsequently Solicitor General 1911, Attorney General 1912-13, Privy Councillor Ireland 1912, Lord Chancellor of Ireland from 1913 to 1918, when he retired and was created Lord Shandon. O’Shaughnessy KC subsequently became Recorder of Dublin and was sworn a Privy Councillor in 1912. In 1924 he was appointed a judge of the High Court of the Free State and was knighted following his retirement in 1926. A. M. Sullivan subsequently became a Serjeant at Law. He defended Roger Casement and later practised in England. He was the last of the Irish Serjeants, the order being abolished on independence. He was the author of two books, Old Ireland and The Last Serjeant. Henry KC was elected MP for South Londonderry in 1916 in the Unionist interest, although a Catholic; he became Attorney General in 1918 before being appointed upon partition, under the Government of Ireland Act, as the first Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland. James Owens Wylie was the uncle of Judge William Evelyn Wylie (Chairman RDS etc). J. O. W. was a liberal and became Land Judge, a position which he held from 1906, being succeeded by his nephew in 1920. Sergeant Dodd was also a liberal who failed to win Londonderry South in 1895 but was subsequently elected for North Tyrone in 1906. He never served as Attorney General but was appointed to the Bench in 1907. He was created a Privy Councillor in 1913 and served on the Bench until 1924 when, being eighty, he was not reappointed on the establishment of the Free State Courts. John Wakely became a County Court Judge and was re-appointed in 1924 to the Circuit Court. Cecil Atkinson was the second son of Lord Atkinson who had served the Tory administration of 1892 and 1895 to 1905 as Attorney General in Ireland. He was appointed as Lord of Appeal in ordinary in 1905, shortly before the fall of the Tory government. The Chief Crown Solicitor instructed the Attorney General’s son as junior counsel to represent the Crown. Cecil Atkinson died in 1919.

There have been four Hibernia’s from the first which started in 1764 to the most recent which closed in 1980. This version began in 1882 and was edited by Count Plunkett whose son Joseph was one of the leaders of the 1916 Rising. Findlater’s vigorous support of the early edition must have been most welcome.

ADAM FINDLATER 1855–1911

Yesterday, June 17th 1903, in the King’s Bench Division No. 2, before the Lord Chief Baron (Christopher Palles), Mr Justice Johnson, Mr Justice Barton and Mr Justice Wright, the case of the King (Findlater) v. the Recorder of Dublin came on for hearing.

Mr Ignatius O’Brien said this was a very important case. The affidavit of Mr Gerald Byrne, solicitor for Mr Findlater, stated that when it was announced by the Clerk of the Crown that the licensing application list was about to be called on behalf of his client, Mr Findlater, he (Mr Byrne) called the attention of the Recorder, who was chairman on the Bench, to the fact that several of the magistrates were subscribers to the Irish Association for the Prevention of Intemperance, which had for its object the diminution in the number of licensed houses, and that this association paid out of its funds and instructed their solicitor, Mr McCormick, to appear at the licensing sessions to oppose all applications for new licences, and he objected to these magistrates taking any part in adjudicating upon the several licensing cases about to be called; and he produced a copy of the annual report of the society with the names of the magistrates then present as subscribers, and some of them members of the Executive Committee.

Professor Barrett took a very active part in the proceedings on the bench in opposition to the applications, and so did Messrs. Eason, JP; Allen, JP; Booth, JP; Jacob, JP and Wallace JP.* He was informed that the secretary of the association sent circulars to the magistrates who subscribed to the association informing them of the applications for hearing and requesting their attendance on the bench. Notwithstanding his objection that those magistrates were disqualified to act they did act, and the applications were refused. He charged that the bench of magistrates was biased, and that their decision should not be upheld.

Mr Wallace, JP, made an affidavit stating that he was not a subscriber to the association, but that he had this year learned that his firm subscribed 10s. to it. He was not aware that the firm had so subscribed until his attention was drawn to the fact at the licensing sessions. There were no grounds on which he could be charged with bias.

Mr Moriarty, secretary of the association, made an affidavit, in which he stated that meetings of the executive council took place before each licensing sessions with a view to making suggestions as to licensing business. They did not oppose all licences. It was the Rev. Caleb Laird and Rev. T. Guy Rogers that communicated with him to oppose the licences. The magistrates impugned also made affidavits stating that they were in no way biased, and only acted according to their judgement.

Mr O’Shaughnessy said he proposed to argue that it would be necessary to prove real bias, not the mere suspicion of bias regarding the decision given under these conditions. ¹⁷

A few months later Findlaters were back in the licensing court. The Evening Telegraph reported on 29 September:

Messrs. Findlater applied for a new six-day licence for No. 84 Lower George’s Street, Kingstown, being premises attached to the present licensed premises, 85 Lower

^* These were all prominent businessmen in the city and members of the Chamber of Commerce, as was Adam.

⅛ohn 1870s

19th century wine labels—the branches named enable us to date the labels to within a year or two.

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George’s street, in order to render the licence more suitable for the business.

Mr T. W. Russell, MP, one of the magistrates, said it was an extraordinary thing to ask for at a time when a great reduction in the number of public houses was recommended. Were the premises to be used as a public house?

Mr Healy–No; Lord De Vesci and Lord Longford had refused to renew the leases if the premises were to be used for the purpose.

Mr O’Shaughnessy said his client owned a large public house in Kingstown, and had paid a large fine; but he was not anxious to continue his opposition to the present application, the object of which was to turn the whole place into one shop. But his client desired that an undertaking should be embodied in the lease.

The case was eventually resolved. After argument Mr Adam Findlater gave an undertaking to surrender the seven-day licence of No. 85, and to apply for a six-day licence for it and the adjoining premises. Both premises to be used as one shop, with one licence for the business of a family grocery heretofore carried on at No. 85, the business of an ordinary public house not to be carried on therein. Only on these terms was the licence granted.

The importance of the first case can be seen from the line-up of lawyers: interestingly, save for Crown Counsel they are all Liberals. For some reason the unionists kept their heads down, with the exceptions of Cecil Atkinson and D. S. Henry KC, who appeared for the Rev. Laird. The Licensing Act, 1902, which still stands as a key piece of the licensing law of Ireland, became law shortly before the case. The policy of the Act was to reduce the number of licenses, which were then more prolific than today. Obviously, given the interest of the Findlaters, they were anxious to establish the parameters of the new legislation and not to find the off-licence trade restricted in the same way as public houses.

The Irish temperance associations did not propose Prohibition, but there was a precedent in the State of Maine which had been ‘dry’ since the 1850s, and the trade kept a wary eye on such movements. Years later, Findlater Mackie Todd put stickers on their correspondence warning that ‘the indifference of the public resulted in America going dry; use your vote and influence against “local option” which is the thin end of the wedge of Prohibition’.

After all this trouble, Findlaters eventually managed to expand their Kingstown branch, one of the oldest in the chain. The press celebrated the new premises:

The Kingstown house, which has been under the management of Mr Edward Snow, a gentleman of great experience, for the past 27 years, is situated in Lower George’s Street. New premises have just been built beside the old establishment so as to enable the management to cope with the large and growing business with which they are favoured. The old establishment has been in the hands of the Findlaters since 1839, and was formerly known as the ‘Irish and Scotch Whiskey Stores’, there being a large bar attached.

During the last 25 years the business has increased considerably under the managing directorship of Mr Adam S. Findlater. The firm has got no less than twelve establish-

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ments in the city and surrounding towns, and of these that at Kingstown may be said to be the most important of all the branches, as it is favoured with the patronage of a big percentage of the leading residents of South Dublin. Needless to state that everything in the way of high-class groceries can be supplied at Findlater’s without delay, and all orders received by post have the immediate attention of the management.

Mr Findlater pays particular care to the selection of the goods he supplies, believing as he does that the genuine article is the best at any cost.

In connection with the opening of the new premises it is the intention of the firm to have the confectionery department considerably enlarged, and to have a special counter for provisions, of which they are making a speciality. They have now a special department devoted to vegetables, fruits, and flowers, an innovation which is sure to find favour with many of the customers. From this branch all the customers residing in Kingstown, Monkstown, Killiney, Cabinteely, Foxrock, Carrickmines, Shankill, etc., are supplied, vans being sent to each place daily.¹⁸

General Election 1906

In 1905 Adam presided over a citizens’ testimonial banquet and presentation to J. P. Nannetti MP for the College Green division of Dublin, and Lord Mayor of Dublin 1906-7. The evening was reported in the Freeman’s Journal on 3 May 1905, and reveals something of how Adam was regarded by others in the political arena.

Last night, Mr J. P. Nannetti, MP for the College Green Division of Dublin, was the recipient of a handsome presentation at the hands of his fellow-citizens as a token of the esteem and regard in which he is held, and as a recognition of his services to Dublin, both in his capacity as a member of Parliament and the Corporation. Mr Adam Findlater, J.P., presided.

Mr Nannetti, MP, on rising to reply, said—I am wholly unable to express my thanks for the kindness of which this night’s proceedings are the culmination (applause). My political convictions are to serve my fellow workers, to serve Dublin—to serve all Dublin, without regard to distinction of class or creed or political conviction—within the measure of my ability, while steadfastly faithful to my own opinions and my own party, was my ambition (applause).

Mr Chairman, you [Adam Findlater] by your presence here tonight and by your most kind and encouraging words have given a character to this presentation and this compliment that they would not otherwise possess. The casual observer might think that you, Mr Chairman, and I could never have established such a relationship as your presence indicates. You are a respected representative of the commercial interests of the city; your political convictions are not mine—between the Unionist merchant and the Nationalist Labour member there might seem a gulf that could not be bridged. But we have found a bridge in common devotion to the well-being of the city, and I venture to add, to the well-being of the nation (applause). We cannot all be of one view—I doubt whether it would be good for Dublin, or good for Ireland, if we were all of one view. The discussion, the consideration, the forethought that are compelled by differ

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ADAM FINDLATER 1855–1911

I imagine the three–in–hand was used for long distance deliveries deep into the Kildare and Meath countryside.

Blackrock branch in the late nineteenth century, before the days of window displays.

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Adam caricatured (Ireland August 1905)

ences of opinion are good things and necessary to the well-being of every community (applause). They are only bad when we allow them to prevent united action for common interests when these are in danger or have to be promoted. You are one who has recognised that there are such interests, and you have not feared to trespass beyond the party hedges in order to promote common action (hear, hear). You will agree that there is need of it in Dublin, not merely in reference to industrial and commercial matters that lie outside the province of Government, but in semi-political matters also (hear, hear).

You, Mr Chairman, have also been busy on a question that is beset with difficulty— the valuation question—a problem in the solution of which we may suffer severely if we do not unite to secure that revaluation shall take place under proper safeguards (applause). I merely indicate these as matters that deserve our attention. There are many more. They affect us all,

commercial men and non-commercial men, employers and employed. It should be our aim to develop a union of good and patriotic citizens in reference to such matters; and should I be attaching too much meaning to this occasion if I said it showed in its own way the possibility of such a union (applause).

The chairman then proposed the toast of ‘Our Native Land’, which was honoured.¹⁹

In 1906 this regard was very nearly translated into a seat in parliament for Adam. In those days the process of an election lasted two weeks. This meant that a candidate defeated in one constituency had a chance, if he moved quickly, of standing in another. This happened to Walter Long, Chief Secretary, the cabinet member with responsibility for Irish affairs, who was defeated in South Bristol, and now presented himself as unionist candidate for Adam’s home base of Kingstown. Many nationalists felt that they had little or no chance of a seat in the solidly unionist constituency of South Dublin, even against a British candidate hunting for a safe seat. Walter Long was identified with uncompromising unionism, and so was doubly unwelcome to the nationalists, as an English carpet-bagger and as a unionist. The idea was floated by the influential leader of the United Irish League, Michael Davitt^*, that Adam, as a sympathetic Liberal unionist, should stand and combine the nationalist and the moderate unionist votes against Long. However, the established nationalist candidate, Richard

^* Michael Davitt (1846-1906) founded the Land League in 1879 with Charles Stewart Parnell. The League’s agitation was a crucial element in persuading Gladstone to introduce the 1881 Land Act. Davitt died in May 1906.

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Hazleton—a devoted abstainer, and author of the ‘Mr Bung’ article in The Leader—and his supporters insisted that they should fight the seat, expecting that the strongly nationalist spirit of the day would carry them through (in the event this was the only non-university seat outside Ulster to elect a unionist). Davitt wrote sadly to Adam:

Private to Adam Findlater

United Irish League

39, Upper O'Connell Street, Dublin

            Jan. 17th 1906

Dear Mr Findlater,

I find that the Nationalist candidate, Mr Hazleton and his friends, are not inclined to any compromise, and as H. is to go forward, I could not dream of asking you to stand merely to reduce Long’s majority.

It appears that our leaders here were committed to the Hazleton candidature before they had known of my proposition about yourself. I regret this decision, as I think it a foolish one. I am satisfied that you would win if you went forward.

Yours very truly, Michael Davitt

Despite his disappointment, Adam took a prominent part in the election debate, which spanned eight days. He proved a determined foe, with his moderate unionist views being seen by all sides as a kind of middle ground. It is interesting to see how the anti-home rule parties were at this stage no more united than the pro-home rulers, a situation that was to change as the issues became more tightly defined. The style of debate is typical of a time when set-piece speeches rather than soundbites were the order of the day.

Monday

22 January 1906 Irish Independent

Mr Long’s entrance into the arena in South Dublin has not been acclaimed with much enthusiasm by the Unionist electors of the constituency. The letter from Mr Adam Findlater which we publish today gives utterance to an opinion widely held that it is ‘a terrible admission of their own incapacity’ on the part of Unionist Irishmen and Mr Long has been shoved forward for this position over the head of an Irishman who had, at all events, an intimate knowledge of our country and its needs.

‘UNIONIST DISCONTENT. PROTEST BY MR FINDLATER’

We have received the following letter for publication:

Sir, The Freeman’s Journal of today rightly prints my name as one of those attending Mr Hazleton’s meeting at Kingstown last evening, but in such a way as to make it appear that I had formally identified myself with the Nationalist cause. As a matter of fact, I was at that meeting as an ordinary listener in the body of the hall, anxious to make myself acquainted with Mr Hazleton’s capabilities and views, and also to hear what Mr Redmond had to say after the extraordinary electoral revolution which has taken place all over the Three Kingdoms. I hold that it is the duty, as well as the right, of every voter to listen to both sides, and then to judge between them. I have not ceased to be a Unionist, as I understand the term. I believe that separation from

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                                     1902—The bottling vats in the whiskey house

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ADAM FINDLATER 1855–1911

England is undesirable in our own interests, and most level-headed men, I am persuaded, share my view.

But I confess that I am profoundly discontented with the legislation, and particularly with the administration of the Unionist Government in this country during the last twenty years . . .

A. S. Findlater

22 January 1906 Freeman’s Journal

The possibility that Mr Walter Long, the rejected of Wiltshire, Liverpool, and Bristol may, as the result of the industrious manufacture of bogus votes in the constituency, be foisted upon South Dublin as its representative, is proving so humiliating to the electorate that the feeling of the people of the constituency has been thoroughly aroused. The sense of humiliation seems to be spreading from Nationalists to Unionists. We welcome the letter which we publish today from Mr Adam Findlater, though it is written to correct the impression that he had become a Home Ruler and had made up his mind to vote for Mr Hazleton. He has taken no definite resolution; but wants to hear both sides before deciding.

This state of open-mindedness on the part of intelligent Unionists is all that the opponents of Mr Long should desire. For they may safely leave it to Mr Long himself to determine in the right way the judgement of the open and liberal-minded Unionists, especially commercial men like Mr Findlater, whose interests are identified with the prosperity of their country and of the people among whom they live . . . Mr Findlater was one of the Unionists who joined with the late patriotic Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, Lord Plunket, and with the former Conservative member for the County of Dublin, Lord Holmpatrick, in the remarkable protest against the overtaxation of Ireland when the Financial Relations Commission’s Report had revealed the facts . . . how are they going to swallow Mr Long’s declaration that ‘the less said about the three millions over-taxation the better,’ and that ‘the advantage which Ireland derived from her share in the Imperial Exchequer was a very real advantage.’

Again, Mr Findlater is a business man. He believes in getting value for his money and in the principle of a fair day’s work for a fair day’s wage. Does he think that Ireland gets value for the money spent upon the Irish establishments? Take the police. Lord Welby, a former Secretary of the British Treasury, has pointed out that though Ireland is freer from crime than Great Britain the police in Ireland cost £700,000 a year more, relatively to the population. Mr Arnold White has just been pointing out to the readers of the ‘Daily Chronicle’ that while in 1903 there were only 1,169 convictions in Ireland for serious offences, there were 2,114 in Scotland; yet the cost to Ireland of her police is £1,569,214 a year, while Scotland, with twice as many criminals, pays only £539,196. Mr Wyndham recognised the extravagance, and proposed to save £250,000 a year to provide part of the bonus to the Irish landlords.

Now what has Mr Long told the Unionist businessmen of Dublin? ‘There had,’ he said, ‘been a reduction in the police force, which he regretted. He had stopped it, and he hoped that no man would be so unwise as to again attempt the reduction of the force.’ Now we put it to Mr Findlater as a sensible business man that such a perfor

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      1902—Burgundy and Port listings. Note the use of screw-stopped flagons for Burgundy

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mance is not merely fatal to the cause of public economy, but that it is making hash of the true interests of the Unionist Party in Ireland. There is Unionism and Unionism. And surely if the Unionist cause is to thrive it ought not to permit itself to be identified with the cause of over-taxation, and gross and wasteful expenditure. Surely Ireland wants that extra million now spent upon an idle police force, and can find uses for it more advantageous to every man in Ireland, Unionist or Nationalist, than supporting an unnecessary army of strapping men in enforced idleness?

Tuesday

23 January 1906 Freeman’s Journal

For a ‘bluff, straightforward, honest Englishman’ Mr Walter Long has developed with surprising rapidity a serpentine facility of wriggling. He found himself at Kingstown last night among a community whose progress has been paralysed by the exactions and confiscations of urban landlordism . . . The apparition of Mr Findlater has convinced Mr Long that those Irish Unionists who are Financial Reformers are not to be put off with ‘bluff ’ of this transparent character. Mr Walter Long, we venture to say, never opened the Report in question, any more than his leader, Mr Balfour, before he denounced its conclusions in 1896 . . .

We print as a supplement to the report of the Kingstown meeting the questions to which Mr Adam Findlater seeks an answer. They are a suggestive catechism; and are a valuable indication of the questions that are troubling the Unionist business men of Dublin just now. Mr Findlater wants an explanation of the contemptuous treatment of the Financial Relations Report by the late Government. He will not receive the explanation we venture to prophesy. He seeks light as to the refusal of the Government to enable the Irish local authorities to save the people whom they represent from having their Imperial Taxation increased by the very simple device of using the Castle Valuation Department to increase the valuation of Irish property upon every opportunity, without regard to circumstances. The oracle is so far silent on that question. ‘Does Mr Long,’ asks Mr Findlater, ‘consider that the general government of Ireland, as a whole, should continue to be in the hands of the bureaucracy of many Boards nominally presided over by the Chief Secretary, and appointed haphazard by successive Governments?’ The answer is that he does, for he assured the Rathmines Unionists of the fact. Mr Findlater wants Mr Long’s attack upon Lord Dudley supplemented by a statement of his own Irish policy . . .

Mr Findlater is evidently nettled by the application of the word ‘traitors’ to those Irish Unionists who refuse to be made pawns of in the place-hunters’ game which brought Mr Long to Ireland. He should change the form of his question on that point, and ask Mr Long why he wrote to the electors of Greenwich to knife the son of his old leader, Lord Salisbury, who was the official Unionist candidate, with the result that a Home Ruler was elected owing to the divided Unionist vote. Who is the greater ‘traitor’ to his Party and his cause? The Unionist who refuses to allow his cause to be identified with a policy of pure negation and stagnation, or the cabinet Minister that turns on the son of the man who appointed him, and assists a dissentient Unionist to defeat that cause in an English constituency?

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1908—Note the ubiquitous ‘medical’ note—‘what Bordeaux is to the blood, that is Burgundy to the nerves’!

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23 January 1906 Dublin Daily Express

ENTHUSIASTIC MEETING AT KINGSTOWN

Long: ‘Some of the things which have been told about me are very remarkable’ (laughter) . . . It is alleged that people interested in temperance should not vote for me because I am the chairman of a brewery company. I hope that those people interested in temperance will not think that I am unworthy of their support when I am obliged to confess with profound regret that I am not the chairman of a brewery company, or anything like that (laughter). I don’t know much about the position of chairman of companies . . .’

Wednesday

24 January 1906 The Irish Times

From A. S. Findlater, St Albans, Albany Avenue, Monkstown.

Dear Mr Long I think it only fair and courteous on my part that, before your meeting commences, I should hand you the questions I would like to ask. If you deal with them in the course of your speech it may save me the unpleasantness of having to more directly invite your reply.

Yours faithfully, A. S. Findlater

Walter Long: Well, now gentlemen . . . the writer of that letter was present close to me on the right of the platform during the whole of the meeting. He was there at the end. I had his letter in my hand and his questions, and I expected he would ask one or two or three of them. He never asked me one of them.

(A Voice—‘He was frightened.’) . . .

But, gentlemen, what an interesting reflection there is to be drawn from this. I am not worthy to be the member for Dublin South because it is alleged that I am chairman of a brewery company, while the candidate who stands against me is a professed and, I believe, an earnest abstainer. Now, gentlemen, do not let us whisper even to ourselves this horrible suggestion. Is it conceivable that this earnest, devoted, life-long abstainer is going to receive political assistance from one who is even remotely connected with an industry which, though not actually brewing, is first cousin to it? (Laughter and applause). Why, gentlemen, wherever I go about the City and County of Dublin I see magnificent pictures which invite me to partake of whiskey which bears a particular name, pronounced ‘A one’, Findlater’s leading brand of whiskey. But by what curious methods are some results achieved! (Laughter)

The Nationalist candidate is apparently to receive the co-operation of one who, amid many other calls, finds time to devote himself to the manufacture and production of a very excellent and valuable article of consumption, provided it is not consumed unduly. (Laughter) This gentleman is not ashamed to take advantage of this assistance, and he is to be helped by questions addressed to me, it is said, but which have never reached me, except in the form that I have described to you. Gentlemen, do you know the meaning of the word ‘farce?’ because if you do, I say this is a solemn farce. (Hear, hear, and a Voice—‘A contemptible farce.’) I say a conspiracy of this kind is one which ought to be exposed, and I am here tonight to say what I said last night

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          Our Findlater’s A1 whiskey label, we believe, pre-dates the very similar Guinness label.

in Kingstown—you can elect me if you will; you can, if you like, elect somebody else; but one thing I declare to you, as I declared last night at Kingstown—that if I can help it you shall never elect me on false pretences . . .

24 January 1906 Freeman’s Journal

On the subject of needful reforms, Mr Long is tricky and evasive. Of the injustice done to Ireland by over-taxation, he thinks the less said the better. He wants no change. The financial system which provided him monthly with a fat cheque is good enough for him. He has contrived so far to evade the searching questions put to him by Mr Adam Findlater, but any person who has studied Mr Long’s political career can supply the answers for himself. He is a reactionary of the reactionaries, opposed to all reforms. One fact he cannot evade. He voted against the Irish Town Tenants Bill, which even the Orangemen supported. It shows courage of a kind in Mr Long, with this achievement to his credit, to demand the votes of a constituency where the town tenants question is with so many a question of reform or ruin.

24 January 1906 Freeman’s Journal

By Special Wire, From our own correspondent London, Wednesday morning

The agents of Mr Walter Long appear to be in a bad funk over the prospects of his election for South Dublin. They have sent a circular to the editors of the London Tory papers appealing for their aid in rounding up the outvoters of the constituency who are resident here in order that they should go over and record their votes for the rejected of South Bristol on Friday next. In this delightful document, Mr W. W. Seddall, in whose name it is issued, writes: ‘There are a very considerable number of people residing in various parts of England who have leasehold or freehold votes in the South

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1911—The relative prices of champagne brands are much as today. Veuve Clicquot vintage 1904, at 10s a bottle, is the equivalent of £35, more or less in line with today’s price.

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County division of Dublin, and it is of the utmost importance that every pressure should be brought to bear on them to come to Dublin on the 26th inst. (the polling day) to record their votes, as I need hardly point out the very great importance to the Unionist Party of winning this seat. I have been requested by Mr Walter Long to write to you and request you to be good enough to publish in your columns an appeal to such electors to be sure to attend to register their votes, as we have no doubt that this would have a very good effect.’

Thursday

25 January 1906 The Irish Times

It is said that speeches have little effect on the results of elections. Even if this statement be generally true, we confidently make an exception of the series of speeches which Mr Walter Long brought to a conclusion last night at Dalkey. Unlike the Russellite candidates who are now being swept out of Ulster, Mr Long does not woo the Nationalist vote. He appeals to the unionist electors of South Dublin on the straight issue of the Union versus Separation.

25 January 1906 Freeman’s Journal

AN OVERFLOWING MEETING IN RATHMINES

Last evening a splendid meeting of the supporters of Mr R. Hazleton was held in the Boys’ Brigade Hall, Richmond Hill, which, owing to the refusal of the Rathmines Commissioners, was the only building in that Division at the disposal of the Nationalists. The action, however, of the Commissioners led to a most remarkable outburst of National feeling, for while the Hall was filled to its utmost capacity, a huge crowd assembled outside, and had to be addressed by several speakers, so that instead of one meeting there were two going on contemporaneously.

A few persons usually regarded as of the student class turned up with the evident intention of creating a disturbance. They marched into the hall armed with sticks, and with their caps well pulled down over their foreheads, and, lining up, they looked daggers and, pantomime fashion, their visages all seemed to proclaim, ‘Beware! We are the Trinity Desperadoes.’ The chaps were quickly recognised, and the crowd laughed them out of the place. Inside the Hall the meeting commenced at eight o’clock sharp, when, on the motion of Mr Sheehy Skeffington, the chair was taken by Mr D. J. Gibnew, CE . . .

Mr Skeffington, MA, who was received with loud cheers, said they were fighting against overwhelming odds, but the fight was nevertheless an inspiring one. The spirit and earnestness of the people were putting their opponents in a blue funk (cheers). He was opposed to Unionism in any shape and form; but the policy of Mr Long could not command the approval of any intelligent unionist (cheers). It was a policy that would not command the support of any intelligent unionist, from Mr T. W. Russell to Mr Adam Findlater (applause).

Mr Hazleton: What was Long but a bird of passage, a brief stay in Wiltshire, a still briefer stay in Liverpool, a brief stay in Bristol, and no stay at all in South County Dublin (loud applause). Why had he not answered Mr Findlater’s questions? Mr

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1908—‘Any medical man who declined to sanction a goblet of sherry would incur very grave responsibility’

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Findlater was an Irishman who worked for the welfare and progress of Ireland, and he was not prepared to see South County Dublin made a dustbin for the rubbish of Irish politics. Why did Mr Long only take a single ticket from Bristol to Dublin; was it not because he knew that returned empties always had to go back carriage paid (loud laughter).

25 January 1906 Irish Independent

MR FINDLATER AND MR LONG: STRAIGHT ANSWERS DEMANDED

We have received the appended letter from Mr A. S. Findlater:

Dear Sir, As Mr Long has thought it proper to give his Blackrock audience of last night my letter of Monday evening, covering certain questions on matters of high public importance to the electors in general that I wished him to answer at his Kingstown meeting, my tongue is loosed as regards some of what preceded the writing of that brief and not very important note. His suggestion that he got the covering letter, but not the contents, I dismiss with the remark that here in Ireland, even in times of election excitement, such mistakes rarely occur. The letter and its contents were brought by my secretary to the Shelbourne Hotel at six o’clock on Monday evening, and there delivered personally to Mr Long’s private secretary. I did not wish to take Mr Long at a disadvantage.

Now for a few facts:

On Monday morning last, the morning of the Kingstown meeting, Mr Long, in company with Mr Arthur Samuels, KC, and Mr Percy Bernard, called upon me, and I think almost the first word that was spoken between us was my assurance that I was quite as good a Unionist as either Mr Samuels, Mr Bernard, or himself. But I went on to explain to him that I thought many Unionists were, as I had stated publicly, discontented with the action of the Conservative Government when they were in power. I explained to him also that his attitude with regard to the Town Tenants Bill would alienate a considerable number of votes from him unless he stated straight-forwardly what his opinions were.

Mr Long told me that he had not clearly understood, until he came to Ireland, the position of the town tenants, and that he quite saw that, whatever the merits might be in England, Ireland has a very much stronger case. I also stated to him that I thought his remarks on the Financial Relations question at Earlsfort Skating Rink might be interpreted adversely to himself, to which he replied that what he meant to convey was that the question was asked him as to the £3,000,000 over-taxation very late in the evening, and there was not time to go into the question; but he promised that he would make his view clear on both the Town Tenants and the Financial Revelations questions at the meeting in the evening—that is to say, the Kingstown meeting.

We then discussed Mr Long’s own Valuation Bill as regards England and the Irish law, and I urged him to say that he would be prepared to give the same legislation to Ireland that he had proposed for England, Scotland and Wales. I am satisfied that in advocating equal legislation for all parts of the United Kingdom I was taking a stronger Unionist position than Mr Long. At the end of the interview Mr Long assured me that he would deal with the Irish question in his speeches in a more constructive manner, and he left, thanking me for my suggestions. Those who were present can deny or

ADAM FINDLATER 1855–1911

FINDLATERS

1908—Nelson’s fleet, based in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, during the Napoleonic war, took to Marsala in place of Sherry.

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affirm the accuracy of this account of our interview.

Mr Samuels came back and asked me would I give a list of my questions to him in the afternoon. It so happened that I was unable to formulate them before 6 o’clock in the evening, but at that hour my secretary, as I have already said, drove to the Shelbourne Hotel and brought a full list of my questions to Mr Long. I sent an absolutely identical copy to the Press. What was wrong in that? This is a matter of public interest. My object really was that every chance of disunion or ‘heckling’ should be eliminated from the Kingstown meeting. I observe that Mr Long and his friends think that I should have created a disturbance. Well, I think better of my Party than to take such lessons from even its leaders.

At that meeting Mr Long was not quite candid. He told us what he had done for Wicklow Harbour—a matter of spending some thousands of pounds to repair the former blunders of an Irish Government Department, and he talked of the Belmullet Railway. But he passed over, and he has carefully avoided in his subsequent meetings, the more important matter of the £3,000,000 per annum by which admittedly Ireland was over-taxed ten years ago, a sum that has increased substantially in the interval. Why not state that he considered this a rank injustice to Ireland? Instead, at the Kingstown meeting and since then, he has simply said ‘it is a subject for investigation.’ The subject has been investigated, and a verdict formed by a jury not selected for partiality to this country.

Had Mr Long taken my questions and answered them straightforwardly, which he has not done up to this, he possibly would have induced a large number of Unionists who are doubtful at the present moment, to vote in his favour. These questions were honestly meant, and should have received explicit answers. They dealt with matters that trouble betimes the conscience of the Irish Unionist who asks himself whether his politics are for or against the best material interests of the country. They referred mainly to the excessive cost and the inefficiency of the Irish administration. Surely we are all concerned with these matters, and we are entitled to know where stands the representative of South Dublin in regard to them. It is not my fault if Mr Long and the Unionist Press agree between them that ignoring these questions will get rid of the feeling that is behind them in the minds of thousands.

I refrain, for the good of the Unionist cause, from criticising Mr Long’s pronouncements, but let me say that I believe if he does not even now abandon his claim that South Dublin should take him on trust merely as an Englishman and a Unionist, he will be beaten at the poll. Let him, before Friday, give a straightforward answer to my questions, or it will be taken that he and his friends are unable to do so.

Yours faithfully, A. S. Findlater.

PS Talking of the Town Tenants’ question: it is interesting to find Mr Long speaking soft words of sympathy to the holders of terminable leases in South Dublin while his active election agent, Mr Seddall, solicitor, is busily engaged in whipping up the South Dublin voters who possess the franchise as lessors and who, after the manner of their kind, live in England.

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1903—Inflation adjusted, whiskey is about the same price as today, gin cheaper and liqueurs a bit dearer. A shilling in 1903 = £4 to-day.

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25 January 1906 Irish Independent

All other topics relating to the elections, however, are dwarfed in interest by the controversy which Mr Long’s candidature for South Dublin has provoked. Indeed, a straight answer to a plain question is the last thing that is expected from him. Mr Findlater’s exposure of Mr Long’s hedging and doubling is damning in its completeness. Decidedly Mr Long is not a man to be taken on trust.

His explanation of his reasons for abolishing the extra fees for the teaching of Irish in the National schools, too, was as disingenuous as anything of which he is accused by Mr Findlater. Mr Long was in quite a merry mood last night over what he chose to regard as the complete discomfiture of the Irish Reform Association. He may possibly find that he has been a little previous in his exultation.

25 January 1906 Evening Telegraph

Last night Mr Long, at his Dalkey meeting, referred to South Dublin as ‘South Bristol’. It was a slip of the tongue, to be sure, but as a straw shows how the wind blows, it is a most illuminating flashlight on the mental attitude of the man towards Ireland and Irish matters. Mr Long is not only a stranger in South Dublin personally; he is a stranger politically. He told Mr Adam Findlater as we find from that gentleman’s excellent letter published this morning, that he did not understand the question of Town Tenants ‘until he came to Ireland,’ and that he now ‘quite saw that, whatever the merits might be in England, Ireland had a very much stronger case.’ This is the gentleman who has asked the electors of South Dublin to take him on trust!

THE CANDOUR OF MR LONG

‘I am not chairman of a brewery company or anything like that.’–Mr Long, Kingstown, January 22, 1905.

‘I am chairman of the Bath Brewery and receive my fees as such. I believe the statement as to the tied houses (that 90 such houses are in the possession of the Bath Brewery) to be correct.’–Mr Long, in the House of Commons on June 20, 1900.

Friday

26 January 1906 The Irish People

The useful intervention of Mr Adam Findlater and Mr Lindsay Crawford in resenting the self-degradation of Irish Unionists who are crawling to the feet of Mr Walter Long to beseech him to become their leader, are a pleasant reminder how much ground has been travelled since a few months ago.

Monday

29 January 1906 Freeman’s Journal

MR LONG ELECTED

The result of the poll for South Dublin was declared in the Courthouse, Kingstown, shortly after one o’clock on Saturday. The counting took place in the Town Hall. It commenced at half-past eleven, and occupied about an hour and a half. For a considerable time before the figures were announced a large crowd had assembled in the

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                     1908— Findlater’s China Tea ‘without an atom of foreign hurtfulness in it’!

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street outside, and the result was awaited with intense interest. Before the actual result was announced it became known that Mr Long had received a big majority of the votes, and the anxiety of the people manifested itself in a desire to learn the exact figures. When the news reached the crowd of the return of Mr Long there was cheering and counter-cheering. A large number also assembled in the Courthouse, and awaited the declaration of the poll there for a considerable time. Among those who were present at the counting of the votes, and who rendered valuable assistance to Mr Hazleton in his candidature were Mr William Redmond, MP; Mr Redmond, jun.; Mr J. M. McDowell, solicitor^*; Mr T. M. Kettle, and Mr Sheehy-Skeffington.^†

The High Sheriff announced the result as follows:

Mr LONG (C.)       5,269       Mr HAZLETON (N.) 3,926

Majority for Mr Long 1,343

The announcement of the result was received with cheers and boos. Mr Hazleton, speaking from an outside car, said: We have won a moral victory (cheers)–and I am not discouraged (cheers). I say that even if we were beaten by a greater majority than 1,343, we would not be discouraged here today. We know that it is due to the neglect of registration, and that there is no change in the opinions of the people of South Dublin.

Mr William Redmond, MP, who was loudly cheered, said–We can afford to discount the result of this election, because we know perfectly well that the votes cast do not represent the majority of the people of South Dublin (cheers). I was yesterday in the Rathmines Town Hall, and saw the people who were coming to vote, and I can upon my word of honour declare that numbers of the young men could not possibly have been twenty-one years of age, and during the last hour the Town Hall was like a railway station, because of the hundreds of men from across the channel who came up with their trunks and baggage to vote for Mr Long. There is no doubt we are partly to blame ourselves, because we neglected the register. We will never do that again (cheers), and we will do what Sir Thomas Esmonde did when he was a member for South Dublin. We will win this constituency by 2,000 votes for the National cause (cheers). I don’t know what the Liberal Government is going to do, but if they are true to their word the Liberal Government must alter the registration law and give every honest man a vote (cheers). . . .

We beat them in Belfast (cheers for Devlin); we beat them in Stephen’s Green (cheers), we beat them all over Ireland (cheers), we have beaten them in England, and if we lost one seat here today, I say it will not be long until we have Home Rule for our country (cheers). Some said this was a fight about religion. It was no such thing

^* Grandfather of Michael McDowell, Attorney General at the time of going to press.

^† William Redmond was the party leader’s brother. With the rank of Major, he was killed at Messines in 1917. Francis Sheehy Skeffington was assassinated in Portobello Barracks in 1916 by a demented British officer named Bowen-Colthurst. Skeffington’s brother-in-law Tom Kettle was called to the Bar in 1905. In 1906 he was elected to Westminster via a by-election in East Tyrone with the paper-thin majority of sixteen. He was re-elected in 1910 with a greatly increased majority of 118. In 1909 he became Professor of Economics in the National University. In the same year he married Mary Sheehy. Tom Kettle was killed by a sniper’s bullet at Ginchy in France on 8 September.

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1907—The large casks in front are waiting to be trundled into the duty-paid sector of the cellar (The Whiskey House)

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(cheers). All we want is fair play for all. We want no ascendancy of Protestant or Catholic (cheers).

At this stage a van belonging to the firm of Findlater and Co. passed through the crowd.

Mr Redmond–You might as well give a cheer for old Findlater now (loud cheers). I am glad that this election has shown that there are plenty of liberal-minded Protestants—men like Mr Crosbie and Mr Crawford and Mr Findlater (cheers). It has shown that the day is soon coming when, with God’s help, we will all be united for freedom and fair play in Ireland (cheers). I say that Richard Hazleton (loud cheers) has fought a noble battle. He is entitled to the thanks of all Ireland for the struggle he has made (loud cheers).^*

Long’s biographer tells us that he did not stay long in the hectic atmosphere of Irish politics, but soon retreated; ‘On 2 February 1908 Long resigned as chairman of the Irish Unionist Party and began actively searching for a seat in the London area from which he could safely wage the fight for the union while playing his part in Westminster politics. Long knew that South County Dublin was a marginal seat for the unionists. If he stood for it again there was a grave risk he would be beaten. Thus, in early June, after much backroom negotiation, Long was adopted as a candidate for the Strand, a safe London seat. He wrote immediately to the South Dublin association informing its members of the decision’. ²⁰ In his letter of resignation Long declared that he was not of course abandoning his unionist principles.

A few years later John Redmond^† was invited into the Findlater boardroom after he unveiled the monument in Sackville Street erected in honour of Charles Stewart Parnell on 1 October 1911. The event was attended by a truly enormous crowd from all over Ireland. After a cheerful lunch Willie (since Adam’s death ten months before, managing director of the company) invited Redmond to sign his name on the chair on which he sat, which he did. The chair, with his somewhat unsteady initials, remains with us to this day. One wonders if Willie, reading the signs, was moving away from Adam’s liberal unionism to a more constitutional nationalist position. The Home Rule Act for which Redmond’s constitutional Irish Parliamentary Party had struggled for so long eventually received the Royal Assent in September 1914—and was immediately suspended for the duration of the First World War.

Findlater’s profits

While these political excitements were going on, Adam was managing director of a major Irish company whose profits put it in the front rank. However, progress over the few years after the flotation was to come under heavy scrutiny

^{* In the election as a whole,
the Liberal-Unionists and the Conservatives suffered
a disastrous defeat, losing 215 seats. They returned
to the House with a mere 157 seats against a
Liberal, Labour, and Irish nationalist total of 513.
Long’s triumph in Dublin South was the only
nonuniversity unionist victory in Ireland outside
Ulster. Hazleton became MP for North Galway.}

^{† John Redmond (1856-1918) was
leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party 1900-1918.}

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^{ADAM FINDLATER 1855–1911}

^{1901—Vintage
port for Christmas—‘Age in bottle is a great
desideratum’!}

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^FINDLATERS

^{Jameson floats delivering
casks of whiskey to Findlater’s bonded warehouse
under the tenements in Findlater Place.}

by the Irish Investor’s Guardian, a publication that didn’t mince words if it felt all was not going well. In 1902 everything seemed fine:

The directors can be fairly congratulated on the successful results for the past year’s operations. The prospectus profits averaged £11,468 a year [€1.46m] for three years, and the year before floating were £10,087 [€1.27m]. In 1900 the trading amounted to £9,552 [€1.21], in 1901 to £9,121 [€1.16m]; and for the year ended 28 February last to £10,665 [€1.35m]. Only the £65,000 in 4 per cent Debenture Stock and £55,000 in 5 per cent Cumulative Preference Stock are in the hands of the public, while the vendors hold all the Ordinary Shares. The general conditions of trading have been, admittedly, unfavourable since the company was floated. When the Shareholders consider the difficulty of making profits just now, and the unfavourable trading results of most other kindred concerns during the past few years, they will admit the above record of Alexander Findlater & Company is both satisfactory and encouraging.²¹

In 1904 profits were reported at £9,131 [€1.16m], and the Investors’ Guardian comments:

There has been a considerable increase in the debts due to the company and in the stocks held, owing to a large increase in the volume of trade, and the new departments added, due to larger premises accommodation. The development of the business has been continuous for years past, but it is evident from the large sum due that the capital issued is insufficient, seeing that so much has had to be spent on new buildings which the company had to undertake.

These sound like warning signs.

In 1905 a small decrease in profits is reported, to £9,017, and an issue of £20,000 [€2.5m] in 5 per cent second debenture stock was made to replace the working capital that had been depleted by the additions and rebuilding since the

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^{ADAM FINDLATER 1855–1911}

^{1905—1s per 5lb in today’s
money is equivalent to £1.64 per kilo. In 2000
Odlum’s oatmeal sold at 84p per kilo.}

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^FINDLATERS

company had been floated. The paper commented hopefully:

The company’s operations now cover every principal district in and around Dublin, and a largely increased trade has been done. The prevailing stagnation of trade, which is now believed to be passing away, should have a good effect on the trade and profits of this company.

However

By the regrettable death of Sir Henry Cochrane, Bart, DL, JP, the company lost an able and sound business man, but it is satisfactory to find his son, Sir Ernest Cecil Cochrane, Bart, has been co-opted in his place.

The company has a valuable business which is worked energetically, and now that the capital expenditure has practically been closed, we look forward to seeing the net profit in future reflect volume of trade that has followed the extensions and increased facilities provided for the firm’s many and ever growing clientele.

Sir Henry was a true friend to Findlaters. [The Board minutes recorded that his portrait be procured and placed along with the other portraits in the private office as a memorial. The members of the Board feel that this is not only a business loss but a personal one, Sir Henry being a trusted and valued friend to each of them]. The second debenture stock was in fact subscribed for in its entirety by Cantrell & Cochrane^* Ltd, ‘Aerated and Mineral Water Manufacturers in Dublin, Belfast, London and Glasgow.’ Sir Henry, one of the great entrepreneurs of the 19th century, once related that he started his career as a ‘doffer’ in Chartres Mills on the Falls Road at 7s a week, and made his entry into Dublin as a barman at half-a-sovereign weekly with a publican named James Weir, who kept the Scotch House, the tavern on Burgh Quay, which he leased from Alexander from 1840.

The results for 1906, 1907 and 1908 were around the £10,000 mark [€1m], and all was well. But the Investor’s Guardian of July 1909 was severe about that year’s results: ‘There is no gainsaying the fact that the results . . . were in every respect unfavourable in the extreme’. Profits had fallen to £5,879 [€746,125.00] before provisions. The directors commented that they ‘regret that owing to the depression in the Trade during the past year, the exceptional losses in some departments of the business and in connection with undertakings which have in the past been the means of largely increasing the Company’s output, the results . . . have not been satisfactory.’ The directors took the necessary action and reduced the value of the ordinary capital, which was held entirely by the family, from £55,000 to £25,000. This enabled them to reduce the goodwill by £10,000.

The Investor’s Guardian dealt with the subject at length in its February 1910 issue.

To write down the Ordinary Capital [was necessary] to cover the heavy depreciation losses that accrued in con-

^* Cantrell & Cochrane was founded in 1852 by Dr Thomas K. Cantrell to market their unique Irish soda water which rivalled natural sparkling waters such as Appollinaris. In 1868 Alderman Henry Cochrane of Dublin joined Dr Cantrell and from then the company never looked back. Cantrell retired in 1884 and Henry Cochrane became head of a business which is still a major force in the Irish drinks industry.

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^{ADAM FINDLATER
1855–1911}

^{The Royal Hotel, Bray}

nection with undertakings which, admittedly, in the past increased the company’s turnover, but which, in recent years, had become a serious and increasing burden on the entire business, owing to the exceptional wave of depression in the trade, and particularly in the Hotel extension business, which had been entered on at a time when these properties were considered in the trade a more or less desirable investment. [The hotels referred to were the St Lawrence in Howth and the Royal Hotels in Bray and Howth.] We always considered the Hotel extensions injudicious and risky at the best of times, but the conditions that have overtaken the trade since then rendered these investments, to a large extent, a total loss to the company, and it is to meet and cover the deficiency that has arisen that the Board now find themselves obliged to make good, by writing down. After the unfortunate and bitter experiences accruing from these enterprises, we doubt not the board will, in the future, stick to the legitimate business of the company . . .

What the journalist was not saying, but could well have had in mind, was that Adam was diversifying and employing his energies on too broad a front. He was chairman of two quoted theatres, one in Dublin and one in Belfast, he was a prominent voice in southern unionism and he was primarily the full time managing director of a quoted company. He was also chairman of the ailing Dublin City Distillery Co. Ltd .

John and Adam had entered the distilling business in 1888 when they joined a consortium of English spirit merchants to purchase the Banagher Distillery Co. Ltd which was in receivership. The new company had a capital of £200,000 [€24.8m]. After two years in business the directors were able to report that the whole of last season’s output had been sold and that they had present orders which would absorb a large portion of their manufacture for the coming season. They declared a profit of £9,201 [€1m] and, with a lack of prudence, paid

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^FINDLATERS

a dividend of 8 per cent on the ordinary capital, a payout of 57 per cent of profits.

Flush with this initial success they bought the defunct sugar refinery at 111 Great Brunswick Street, now Pearse Street, not far from the Grand Canal Docks. The sugar refinery had been built by two Dublin merchants, Thomas Bewley and Henry Moss, in about 1860, to recapture their extensive sugar business which had ceased almost altogether after the introduction of refined crushed sugar from Britain. Adam turned a profit of £5,000 [almost €600,000] on the purchase and resale of the refinery and obviously impressed his father with his business prowess. The formidable premises were converted into a distillery and the company renamed the Dublin City and Banagher Distilleries Ltd.

However, the early promise was not to develop. Whiskey needs to be matured in bond for several years before it is marketable. The English trade investors had taken up their initial commitments but the established Dublin distillers, mainly Powers, Jamesons and Roes, had defended their strong position in the Irish market. Thus the new entrant had to finance the build-up of large stocks of maturing whiskey. This was to be their eventual downfall. The attraction from Findlaters’ point of view was a cheaper source for their popular house brands. In 1891 Findlaters held 28,676 gallons of Banagher whiskey at an under bond cost of 3s a gallon in comparison to 43,000 gallons of Jameson at 4s 11d a gallon. Findlaters’ total value of whiskey in bond at 28 February 1891 was £20,284 [over £1.5m] and the total bond stock, including wines, amounted to £30,440 [€3.7m].

The Dublin City Distillery had a short and chequered career; the Freeman’s Journal of 20 April 1909 reported that its original shareholders were

^{'an English set of spirit merchants who had
little concern for the business relations with
the Dublin mercantile world, and its failure
wasdue in part to that, and in a measure to the
slump the sale of Irish whiskey suffered in the
English market.’}

The family story is that Adam was called in to help sort out the distillery and fared badly, the only thing he salvaged being the roll-top desk that I have to this day. The desk passed to me from my father with the moral ‘never back a cheque’, which in today’s language must mean never give a personal guarantee. However the ledgers make it clear that John and Adam were financially involved from 1888 and by 1892 to the extent of £9,696 [€1m].

The distillery went into liquidation

^{The Dublin City
Distillery}

^{The Banagher Distillery}

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^{ADAM FINDLATER 1855–1911}

in 1905 when they defaulted on the payment of interest on the mortgage debentures secured on the assets of the company including the stocks of whiskey. There was a large crop of law suits. In 1909 the bankruptcy court put it up for auction and it was bought by Mr Gallagher, the Belfast tobacco manufacturer, for £20,000 [€2.32m]. As a distillery it was doomed and from 1914, and for the most of the century, the site was occupied by the Hammond Lane Foundry.

In contrast to his grand-uncle Alexander, whose great legacies had passed into history, these diversifications were a drain on Adam’s resources, and left his estate in poor shape when he died in 1911 at the early age of fifty-six. The same was to happen some fifty years later, during the last years of my father’s custodianship of the company. The moral must be ‘stick to the knitting!’ or ‘diversify at your peril’. Today, as we enter the 21st century, we are in but one trade—wine—and with no ancillary activities.

Motoring

By 1906 there were just over 2,000 motor cars registered in Ireland, of which 269 were based in Dublin. One of these was Adam’s new Stanley steam car, in which he took the intrepid reporter of the Evening Herald for a spin around the branches just before Christmas of that year.22 They set off from Sackville Street: ‘the day was ideal, and with customary businesslike and clockwork regularity Mr Findlater had the car outside the great concern in O’Connell Street just at the moment arranged. There was no waiting about while some strong man “wound up” the car. We got in, took our seats, and directly we were careering off in the direction of Blackrock’.

In these days of highly accurate and cheap wrist-watches, it is difficult to imagine the service that Findlaters famous clocks supplied to sleepy suburbs. The Evening Herald reporter was of course aware of their usefulness: ‘A fine public clock, a delightfully clean, smart frontage, and an air of prosperity are the characteristics of all the Findlater branches. When you deal with Mr Findlater, or whether you do not, you have a constant bonus from him in the shape of the correct time, and this is a distinct boon in some of the suburbs, where policemen are scarce and watches much the same.’^*

They dashed through the Blackrock shop and then roared off to Kingstown, where the reporter duly admired the shop’s bustle. Then off to Dalkey, Foxrock, Dundrum, Rathmines and Baggot Street.

We got back in record time to O’Connell Street, where the big parent establishment was increasingly active. Verily, this ‘A1’ business is a monster one, and that it is conducted on the right lines is obvious to the least intelligent member of the community. The best of everything, the goods well set out in clean, attractive, and well-maintained shops, and a keen desire to give general satisfaction, are the objects which are before the Messrs Findlater, all of whom work hard and set the example of industry and cheeriness to those around them. Mr Adam S. Findlater, MA, JP, who directs the great

^{* For further information
see also J. Curtis Times, Chimes and Charms
of Dublin A unique guide to Dublin and its
clocks Dublin: Verge Books 1992 pp 20, 96}

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^FINDLATERS

^{Adam is in the centre
looking towards the camera with his son Seaton
most likely in the driving seat. His car is
probably a 1906 Daimler.}

enterprise, is a firm believer that the inert life is bad. He avails of all good opportunities and he often, with a smile of satisfaction, quotes the following:

Work and the world works with you

Sit down and you sit alone.

Adam’s son Seaton clearly inherited his father’s dashing motoring style. In 1904 (when there were only 140 cars in the whole of the city and county of Dublin) he was before the court at the Bray Petty Sessions for having failed to stop his motor car when motioned to do so; and also for not having his licence with him. The complainant said that on the occasion in question he raised his hand for Mr Findlater to stop. He did not stop then, but pulled up for petrol, where the complainant asked him why he did not stop, and he said:

‘You saw my identification number. I did not think it necessary’.

The defendant said that he was proceeding slowly, and thought the constable was merely saluting him; and as he was pulling up for petrol he did not think that the constable’s motion was for the purpose of making him stop. The constable, on being asked why he wanted the defendant to stop replied: ‘To inspect his licence’. The Court imposed a fine of 2s 6d and costs for not having his licence and £5 and costs for not stopping when motioned to do so by the constable. The defendant said he would pay the fine for being without his licence, but would appeal against the other. [£365 plus costs in 2000].²³

Nelson’s Pillar

To the traders of Upper Sackville Street, among whom Findlaters was predominant, Nelson’s Pillar was a grievance. The enormous base of the column split the street in two, making it difficult for traffic to flow north, and also to flow east-

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^{ADAM FINDLATER 1855–1911}

^{1908—It has taken over
a hundred years to get the nation to appreciate
the health qualities of pure olive oil. A large
bottle cost the 2000 equivalent of £7.50.}

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^FINDLATERS

west (say from Amiens Street station to the law courts). The busier the streets got, especially once the trams began to use the pillar as a terminus, the more significant an obstruction it became.

Eventually the IRA blew up the top half of the pillar on the night of 7 March 1966, leaving the Army to complete the destruction. Thus was achieved something that the traders of Upper O’Connell Street, led by Adam and then by his brother Willie, had sought for seventy-five years.

In 1891 Adam, with book publisher Henry J. Gill, a fellow-trader in O’Connell Street, and another, promoted a private bill to remove the pillar from its position just north of the GPO and to place it less obstructively at the top of Sackville Street.

T. D. Sullivan, the MP for College Green, Dublin, during the second reading the Bill on 13 February 1891, explained that

the simple object of the Bill is to remove an obstruction from the middle of Sackville Street, and re-erect it at one end of the street. At present the pillar intersects four thoroughfares, and prevents free communication from Earl Street to Henry Street. The O’Connell Monument is a large and handsome erection, but if placed where Nelson’s Pillar is, it would undoubtedly be an obstruction. The Bill proposes to move the pillar further down the street, where it will be no obstruction, and provision is contained in the measure for the re-erection of the monument within one month after it has been taken down. This will improve the City of Dublin, and it would be a hard thing if the House of Commons, in such a local matter should interfere with the carrying out of a reform which has been long desired in the ancient capital of Ireland.²⁴

Tim Healy, representing Longford North, took up this latter point:

Although I am in favour of the Bill I sincerely hope that the House will reject it, for if an argument in favour of Home Rule is wanted it would be found in the refusal of the House to allow this matter to be inquired into by one of its own Committees.

He then went on with a more stirring thought:

Monuments in a public street are a public nuisance, and I should be prepared to support a Bill not only for the removal of this monument but also for those to O’Connell, Father Mathew and Sir John Gray. If it is desired to commemorate the memory of the great dead the statues ought to be placed somewhere where they will not be in the way of the living.

The main opposition came from ‘a little knot of Northern Representatives’ who, Sullivan claimed, ‘lose no opportunity of supporting everything that would tend to disfigure the City of Dublin and opposing everything that would beautify and improve it’. As we have seen nationalists voted for this postponement, pointing out that the imperial parliament was discussing an issue relating to a Dublin street on which Dublin opinion had not been asked. In his autobiography Letters and Leaders of My Day Tim Healy described the events of February 1891:

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^{ADAM FINDLATER 1855–1911}

^{A farseeing
contemporary cartoon anticipating the traffic
chaos caused by the Parnell monument. The
Leprachaun June 1908.}

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^FINDLATERS

That day a Bill was promoted by a Dublin Conservative named Findlater to enable Nelson’s Pillar to be removed from O’Connell Street, Dublin, as being an obstruction to the thoroughfare. The Government opposed it, but it was carried by a majority of five. Parnell strolled in as the bells rang. Knowing nothing of what was going on he voted with us. Finding that we had beaten the Government, he approached Justin McCarthy with a smile, saying, ‘Allow me to congratulate you on the first great victory of your new Party!’²⁵

Despite this victory, nothing actually happened, and Nelson remained secure in his place. However, Adam continued to concern himself with the welfare of

O’Connell Street and on Friday 22 May 1908, in a letter to the Freeman’s Journal, he vented his alarm over the siting of the monument commemorating Charles Stewart Parnell:

Dear Sir, It is with feelings of the utmost alarm that the residents of Upper Sackville Street view the position selected for the Parnell Statue, namely, the centre of the intersection of Sackville street and Britain street [now Parnell Street].

It was generally understood that the Parnell Statue would be placed in the position at present occupied by the Coffee Palace, where it would have formed a most useful resting place for those crossing the street.

If the Corporation adhere to their present decision the result will be, with the quick traffic from the Broadstone and Rutland Square, to make the place a most dangerous one, and to interfere greatly with the cross traffic along the two Great Britain Streets and across Sackville Street. The block which will ensue can be best illustrated by the separation caused by Nelson’s Pillar as between Henry Street on the one side and Earl Street on the other. Undoubtedly the obstruction will not be as great as that at present existing at Nelson’s Pillar, but still it will be very serious.

The proper position for the Parnell Statue is where the Coffee Palace now stands. I have been in communication with many of the residents in this neighbourhood, and, without exception, they agree with my views. I will be glad to hear from others who are of the same opinion, and who would be in favour of respectfully submitting the matter to the reconsideration of the Dublin Corporation and the Parnell Statue Committee.

Yours faithfully, A. S. Findlater.

The Corporation paid no attention. However, the campaign to move Nelson was not over. In 1931Willie drafted a letter to the Minister of Local Government:

We, the undersigned, representing the Residents, Ratepayers and Shopkeepers in the

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^{ADAM
FINDLATER 1855–1911}

^{The strategic move into provisions must have
taken place during 1903 as there was no
mention of the department at the staff
conference in 1902. Departments were set up
in each branch on the left hand side inside
the door. We remained a force in that trade
for the following 65 years.}

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^FINDLATERS

North side of the City in and adjoining Upper O’Connell Street, and the citizens generally respectfully desire to say that for very many years the question of the removal of the Nelson Monument has occupied public attention, and in recent years, the desire for its removal has increased with the passage of time. We respectfully submit that the time is now opportune to carry out what has been so long agitating the public mind.

It is generally recognised that for upwards of forty years the effect of the retention of this obstruction in the heart of the chief street of the Metropolis has been to injure property of all kinds in the North side of the City. Anybody in middle life can bear testimony to the great damage to business and property that has taken place in the upper half of that thoroughfare, even in his own time; while nobody will deny that from the aesthetic point of view this monument destroys the beauty and harmony of what has often been described as one of the finest streets in Europe.

Forty years ago a Bill was passed through the British House of Commons endorsing the removal of the Monument, and the extension of Gloucester Street to O’Connell Street, but owing to the political situation then existing and the sentimental feeling against removing the pillar, the former project was never carried out. In recent years Gloucester Street has been extended and linked up with O’Connell Street, but the Pillar still remains.

The political or sentimental aspect of the problem is now removed and there is really no argument whatever for its retention any longer in the heart of our most beautiful street, while all the arguments point the other way. We therefore pray that the necessary steps will be taken without any further delay to carry out what has long been the desire of the overwhelming majority of the citizens.

O’Connell Street is the natural thoroughfare for the increased traffic which will result from the extensive building schemes which are being carried out in the northern part of the City from Glasnevin and Whitehall to Marino, and now that Gloucester Street could facilitate the traffic from the Northern area, Howth and Malahide, as was intended, the project is nullified by the non-removal of the Pillar.

The recent opening of the General Post Office has enormously increased traffic in this area, and is an added argument in favour of our request, otherwise the congestion at this particular point will reach a dead-lock as well as becoming a menace to life and limb.

We are Sir, Your Obedient Servants etc.

Later that year Dublin Corporation decided unanimously to remove Nelson’s Pillar since ‘the flower sellers and loungers as well as the ordinary crowds were always in danger of traffic’,²⁶ but once again, nothing happened.

Letters to the Editor

Adam was a vigorous writer of ‘Letters to the Editor’, on a wide range of topics, from the decorations for royal visits to re-arming the RIC. He favoured, for instance, the widening of lower Grafton Street, so that the Bank of Ireland could be seen from Nassau Street, proposing: ‘the removal of the high blank wall that shuts off the Provost’s House from Grafton Street. It is an unsightly structure, a

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^{ADAM
FINDLATER 1855–1911}

^{1910—Poultry and cheese were an extension of
the provision departments and at Christmas
time we developed an enormous trade in fresh
turkeys. A shilling is equivalent to £3.75
in 2000.}

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^FINDLATERS

veritable eyesore, and why it has been so long allowed to disfigure one of the most important thoroughfares of the city is inexplicable. A prison wall is all right in its own place, for it is appropriate to its purpose, but surely its place is not in Grafton Street . . . (Freeman’s Journal 21 July 1904).

In 1903, ahead of a royal visit to Dublin he wrote on the subject of the city’s decorations, revealing an intriguing insight into the organisation of the royal family’s visit across the empire: ‘Are you aware that these decorations I speak of follow Royalty from city to city, and from town to town, and I am sure most of the crowned heads of Europe (including our King and Queen), know every one of these decorations by heart.’²⁷

On 18 December 1903 he was a member of a committee of regular railway users on the line between Dublin and Kingstown who proposed a Christmas gratuities fund to recognise the courtesy and attention they had received from the employees. ‘It has been suggested that a small subscription from a large number, properly divided amongst the Guards, Ticket Collectors, and Porters, together with the Signal Men, Engine Drivers and Stokers, would be the best method to show this general appreciation.’

And in the same year he wrote a considerate letter to the Dublin Evening Telegraph concerning his employees’ Christmas holidays, by way of a public announcement of the firm’s opening hours over the Christmas holiday.

Dear Sir, Recognising the pressure of the season on the workers in our various establishments, we have decided to grant an extra holiday, and to close from the Thursday evening, 24th inst., until the following Tuesday morning. The great majority of our assistants come from far away parts of the country, and the absence of a train service on the Sunday would prevent many being back to their duties in time on Monday morning, unless indeed they returned on the Saturday, and in so doing break up the ‘welcome home party’ all too soon. Under the circumstances we feel certain our friends and the public generally will heartily co-operate in the matter, and by purchasing sufficient supplies prior to Christmas enable us to grant this concession without inconvenience to themselves.

Yours faithfully, Alex. Findlater and Co. Ltd.²⁸

To which the staff replied:

The Assistants of Alex. Findlater and Co., Sackville street, and Branches, take this opportunity of publicly thanking the directors for their thoughtful consideration in allowing them Monday the 28th inst., as an extra holiday. Were it not for this generous concession a visit to home and friends would be impracticable for many.

Adam was a shareholder in the railway, and had taken some interest in the affairs of the company. By 1909 the Dublin and South Eastern railway was making substantial losses, which they claimed was due to effective competition from William Martin Murphy’s electric trams which had been re-organised in 1896. Adam rejected this reasoning.²⁹

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^{ADAM FINDLATER 1855–1911}

^{1909—Powered by
boy-power not electricity—this advertisement
declared that housekeeping would be a pleasure
instead of a worry! Rental charges about £20 a
day in 2000 money.}

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^FINDLATERS

^{1905—Ripening
plants came in very much later}

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^{ADAM FINDLATER 1855–1911}

Dear Sir, The case put forward by Mr Pim for years past is that the unfortunate financial position of the Dublin and South Eastern Railway is principally caused by the loss of traffic brought about by the construction of the Electric Tram between Dublin and Kingstown.

When the recent Bill was before Parliament the Secretary of the Company, in answer to the chairman of the Committee, stated that the annual loss resulting from the competition of the electric trams was at the rate of £25,000 [€2.9m] per annum . . . The directors of the company have not revealed the fact that although the tramway has diminished the passenger receipts, it has largely increased those from parcels, a traffic which has become of a most remunerative character, as the receipts the Wicklow Company derive from this traffic are practically net receipts, the collection and delivery being performed by the Tramway Company.

The foregoing facts will be sufficient, I trust, to impress my fellow-shareholders of the importance of taking an interest in the management of their property at this critical stage, to decide whether, under the circumstances, new blood on the Board is required or not.

I am, yours faithfully, A.S. Findlater.

While at Trinity in the 1870s, Adam had no doubt rowed and so had learned the late-Victorian lesson of the moral and social value of sport. He put some of these views in a letter³⁰ in which he attempted to calm ruffled feathers in the rowing world:

I think it is very pitiful that there should be any conflict of interest between the old Metropolitan Regatta at Ringsend, known to us all and endeared to us by many pleasant recollections, and the University Regatta at Chapelizod.

No doubt there is room for both, I would say that there is occasion for both. Every man who has rowed in a racing boat—who has learnt to catch his water quickly and feather his oar cleanly—knows well the difference between taking a boat through the usually lively but bumpy water at Ringsend, and through the dull placid stretch of the Liffey from Chapelizod to the weir. Here you have absolutely two sets of conditions . . . Rowing is more than a pastime, a sport, or way of ascertaining which one of a number of crews may be the best. It is a real educational influence, teaching lessons of selfrestraint, self-denial, hard work, and co-ordinated effort such as no other form of physical training affords so fully. The man who breaks away from his fellows and, even under extreme pressure, indulges in some thing that may have the effect of stopping his boat by half a canvass is rightly regarded as a traitor. He knows as much, and the knowledge is a deterrent against such treachery . . . The Liffey can support two Regattas if their Committees work in harmony, friendship, and good-fellowship. It cannot, and will not, support one at all if the rivals continue their late policy of throat-cutting.

Yours faithfully, A. Findlater.

The Commercial Travellers Association

As we have seen, Findlaters had a nation-wide wholesale business, mainly to the licensed trade, and key to its success was the now-forgotten men of the road, the

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^FINDLATERS

^{Halloween fully identified with children,
Irish Independent 30 October 1906}

^{NOTE IT IS IS}^{HALLOW
EVE not HALLOWEEN.}

^{All
Hallows' Evening also known as All
Hallows' Eve, the night before All
Saints Day, November 1st.}

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^{ADAM
FINDLATER 1855–1911}

commercial travellers. These men often spent six months or more a year travelling the country seeking orders from small and large stores, promoting their brands by supplying samples to the retailers, and generally acting as the eyes and ears of the business in the country. Hotels had special rooms set aside for their accommodation, places where they could write up their orders, and generally sort out their samples.

The United Kingdom Commercial Travellers Association, later the United Commercial Travellers Association of Great Britain and Ireland, looked after the interests of salesmen/company representatives in the days when there was no stigma to the word ‘Traveller’. The Dublin branch, founded in 1903, had an average membership of 550 out of a total in 115 branches of close on 24,000. Its aims were to look after all the interests of its members, those who spent six months or more travelling the country. This involved everything from better deals on the railways and in the hotels (sometimes the only business in the winter came from the commercial travellers), to legal assistance, liaising with other professional bodies and legislators in the interests of its members, and managing a fund for those who had fallen on hard times.

Adam was chairman of the Benevolent Institute in 1904 and reported that ‘since its foundation in 1841 it had relieved 834 persons, at a cost of over £260,000 and at the present time it afforded relief to 429 annuitants, amounting to over £13,000 [almost €2m] a year’.

It is sometimes difficult for us to sense the impact of historical changes, particularly those before the profound turmoil of the 20th century. Adam, however, had no doubt he was living in revolutionary times. In his chairman’s speech he alluded to

the fact that they must realise they had passed through a social revolution. It was very serious, and changeful in its consequences, owing to the land legislation of the past twenty-five years, and also owing to the Local Government Act of 1898. The position, however, was not as deplorable as some people said it was. He believed that the position was very hopeful indeed (hear, hear). There must in the transition stage be difficulties, but he had a strong hope that things would work for the good of the country (hear, hear).³¹

The family continued to take a keen interest in the Association, not only having commercial travellers of its own but also because of the large number of travellers canvassing for business at Findlaters. Adam’s brother Willie was both Dublin and national president for 1919/20 and in his presidential speech on 28 December 1918, he ‘gave an eloquent address congratulating the Branch upon its continued progress. He surveyed the state of trade and commerce during the year, stating he thought the government and the control Boards had hampered businessmen very much, especially the Commercial Traveller; and he exhorted every CT to watch very carefully for changes which are bound to arise, and not to fail to make their voices heard when opportunities present themselves.’ He concluded by drawing attention to the benevolent activities of the association.

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In his speech on 20 December 1919 his advice to every member, in the troublesome times that were possibly ahead, was to ‘sit tight, and always play the game’! It must have been very difficult for ‘the men of the road’ whose livelihood depended on travelling from town to town seeking orders.

Dermot, Willie’s son, when chairman of Findlaters, filled the position of president of the Dublin branch for five years between 1946 and 1951. He presented back to the Association the presidential jewel that had been presented to his father Willie when he presided over the only international conference of the UKCTA held in Dublin in 1902/3. This now resides in the Findlater museum.

Lifeboat disaster 1895

^{Sir Thomas
Robinson*, a member of the}^{Kingstown
Urban District Council and chairman in 1900,
wrote of Adam:}

Those who had the privilege of working with Adam would recollect the extraordinary ability and energy that he brought to bear on his labours for the benefit of Kingstown. During one term of his tenure of office there occurred the disaster in Dublin Bay, when the entire crew of the Kingstown lifeboat, attempting to rescue Russian sailors from a wreck, were drowned outside the harbour. Mr Findlater had organised a relief fund for the families of the lost men, and in a fortnight had raised a sum amply sufficient to satisfy all the needs of the widows and families who were left penniless.

This disaster occurred on 24 December 1895 and was described in detail in the RNLI Journal:

Gales blew without moderation for the entire month. In the final week the ferocity increased bringing disaster around the entire coast with a great number of shipwrecks on the shore or sunk at sea. At 10 am on the 24th December, the ship ‘Palma’ of Finland, a wooden three masted full rigged sailing ship, which had come to Kingstown for shelter, was observed dragging her anchor off Kingstown Harbour, while a strong gale was blowing from the ESE with a heavy sea. The Kingstown No. 2 Lifeboat proceeded to her assistance under sail, but when about 600 yards distant from the vessel, the ‘Palma’ went aground in 15 foot of water surrounded by a rough, short and confused sea. Just as the Lifeboat was manoeuvring into position, a huge wave capsized her throwing the entire crew into the water. The lifeboat failed to self right and the entire crew perished. The Kingstown No. 1 Lifeboat was following and she also partially capsized but with no loss of life. The crew of the ‘Palma’ were rescued on St Stephen’s Day by the Irish Lights tender ‘Tearaght’. The ‘Palma’ was subsequently sold as a wreck.³²

The Evening Mail reported the disaster on Christmas Eve. Adam, as chairman of the Kingstown Commissioners, had a letter in the issue calling a public meeting in Kingstown at 8 pm that night to consider what could be done.

At the meeting a fund was inaugurated ‘for the immediate and permanent

^*An original partner in the firm of Hayes, Conyngham and Robinson, the chemists, established in 1897.

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^{ADAM FINDLATER 1855–1911}

^{The German squadron
visited Kingstown in May 1902. Prince Henry
and his officers were invited to dine at the Royal
Irish Yacht Club and he was made an
honorary member. (Lady of the House,
June 1902)}

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relief of the families of the brave men who perished in the ill-fated lifeboat’. The attendance was large and sympathetic. Adam, in the chair, first apologised for being late owing to the congested state of the traffic at Westland Row which had prevented him from being there as early as he had intended. He continued:

When at 2.30 o’clock that day he had heard of the deplorable accident, or act of God—at all events—the fact that sixteen of the bread winners of Kingstown had gone, and that sixteen families, with their relatives, their wives, their children, were now in the position, in many cases, he believed, of trusting to public charity for their support (hear, hear). It would be a dreadful thing to think that when they were all going into town that morning by the ten o’clock train, smoking their cigarettes and thinking of nothing but of going into their business, at that moment men were struggling in the sea near by between life and death, and that now they were gone. He was glad that he had the opportunity to get this meeting to gather together to do what they could in the smallest way to give some solace to those who were afflicted, and to do something to support those whose bread winners were gone (applause). They were joined there together for that purpose, and really the enthusiastic and hearty answers which they had received, the telegrams they had from the Lord Mayor and from the different institutions in town, showed that, after all, there was a common spirit of humanity amongst them (applause) and that really somehow or other there was something good left yet in the world (applause). Let them make up their minds to do what they could for these poor distressed people that had lost what was to them the dearest thing in the world.

Kingstown was a seaport town, so was Howth, so was Malahide, Baldoyle, Dalkey and Bray. He would suggest that the secretaries should write to the most representative men in those places asking them to do something to help them. Representative men of enterprising spirit were also to be found in the other towns. There were also a large number of wholesale firms in Dublin, such as Guinness’ and Jameson’s, and the steam packet and railway companies, including the London and North Western, all of whom, if properly approached, would, he thought, be only too willing to do what they could to see that the widows and orphans of those poor fellows, who behaved as heroes that day, would not be forgotten, and would not be in want (applause).³³

There was an amazing public response to this appeal. All of the leading commercial firms contributed as did smaller firms and very many citizens. It was said that there was not a firm, a parish or a citizen with a copper in his pocket who did not contribute. Mayors of different English towns opened subscription lists and the members of the London stock exchange contributed generously. The Royal National Lifeboat Institution contributed £2,200 [€290,000] to which Adam acknowledged: ‘Doubly grateful for your magnificent donation which will be well administered. The donation was announced publicly at the Mansion House luncheon to-day after the inauguration of the new Lord Mayor, signed Findlater.’ The RNLI contributed a further sum ‘to defray the costs of the funerals and also the purchase of graves, in perpetuity, in Dean’s Grange Cemetery, for the families of those men who lost their lives in the melancholy

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^{ADAM FINDLATER 1855–1911}

^{Some 65 years after
this appeared, I was about to re-run it, with
two extra ships added, when we reluctantly
gave up the supply contract. (Lady of the
House, August 1897)}

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^FINDLATERS

catastrophe’. A public funeral was held on Friday 27 December which started from the town hall at 1 o’clock.

On 4 January Adam received a letter from the Lord Lieutenant: ‘Dear Mr Findlater, I have received a communication informing me that Her Majesty has been graciously pleased to forward a donation of £30 [€4,000] towards the Kingstown Disaster Fund. I am yours faithfully, Cadogan.’

All the contributions were acknowledged in the press and many by Adam personally. When the fund was closed in the middle of January a total of £ 17,000 had been contributed, the equivalent of £1.4m in 2000 currency. This period was tough for Adam. In addition to the relief fund which he dealt with on a daily basis, there was a fire in the Belfast theatre of which he was chairman, reported in the press of 27 December. Also on the 27th he had to chair a difficult and extraordinary meeting of the Star Theatre Dublin where it took two hours to scrutinise the votes concerning a sacked director. As if that was not enough, on the 28th, as chairman of the Dublin and Banagher Distillery, he had to face a rough AGM on account of a loss of £5,000 [over €600,000] and directors’ subscription of £11,000 [€1m] towards a second mortgage (it gave them only temporary respite). Adam appears to have been a tough and resilient character.

Companions of St Patrick

In December 1906 a representative committee of Dublin’s citizens, under the chairmanship of the Lord Mayor J. P. Nannetti, gathered for the purpose of establishing a society analagous to St Andrew’s in Scotland and St George’s in England. The aims and objectives of the Companions of St Patrick were: the promoting of social intercourse between Irishmen, irrespective of political or religious creeds; the development of a spirit of mutual sympathy and practical goodwill among its membership; and the accumulation and application of benevolent funds.

The chairman stated that they wished to make the society a broad platform on which Irishmen could stand, and enable them to meet both socially and in other ways, thus letting the world see that there was a body of men in Ireland who could band themselves together independent of class and creed. It was proposed to establish companionships in towns and cities of Ireland, and in various parts of the world where Irishmen congregated. They had also taken powers to form a benevolent fund, and they had set by at least 50 per cent of the income for benevolent purposes. Amongst the founders were J. P. Nannetti, Sir James Talbot Power, distiller, who was first President, Adam Findlater, E. A. Aston,^* Hon. Sec., Dr W. Lombard Murphy, son of William Martin Murphy, Thomas Myles FRCSI^†, Dr Edward Magennis, Alderman Cotton, Thomas Macardle, Surgeon McArdle and Sir John Irwin, a paper mill owner who did a tremendous amount of good for his city.^**

^*Aston: journalist, engineer, pioneer of Irish planning.(see J. Anthony Gaughan (ed) Memoirs of Senator James G. Douglas Dublin: UCD Press 1998 p 160)

^** Sir John Irwin founded the Mansion House Coal Fund. He was one of the original members of the Council of the Dublin Industrial Development Association and was, during and after the Great War, chairman of the National Relief Fund. He was also chairman of the Visiting Justices and Committee of the Dublin Prisons. He was outspoken in his demand for fair treatment of political prisoners.

^†Sir Thomas Myles was an eminent Dublin surgeon. In 1916 he ran guns into Wicklow on his yacht ‘Chotah’, at the same time as Erskine Childers ran the Asgard into Howth

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^{ADAM
FINDLATER 1855–1911}

^{1910—First prize was won by a prisoner in
Derry prison. On another occasion the
winning entry by Georgina Allen of
Londonbridge road consisted of 2,817 words
and more than fifty entries exceeded 1,000
words!}

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Adam, in seconding the motion to adopt the constitution said that he would not be surprised if it bore very reproductive fruit in the future of the country. They did not desire flunkeyism in the society. Everyone should be the same as everybody else.

Thomas Myles, speaking at the third annual banquet in the Gresham Hotel, on St Patrick’s Day said:

Wherever the Irishman went he carried with him not only his brogue, but an undying love for the land which gave him birth. Their society was founded not in the hope that they could ever do anything to add to the devotion of their countrymen to their beloved country, but to give expression in a coherent manner to the feelings which animated the great mass of Irishmen on this national festival. St Patrick’s Day used, in times gone by, to be celebrated by only a portion of Irish people, but it was now the anniversary of every Irishman without distinction of politics or creed.(Applause)

The desire of the Society was to make every one of the 365 days of the year a St. Patrick’s Day for Ireland. The success with which the Society had met in the early stage of its career gave them a promise of a fair and happy future. They hoped as time went on that their countrymen would see that although they might differ they might yet esteem each other and tolerate each other’s differences, and unite in the common purpose of elevating their country and countrymen. (Applause)

Companionship was to be a little strained when the issue of the royal toast came up. However, they arrived at a suitable compromise. But such difficulties in Dublin were as nothing to those Adam met in Belfast where ‘an inaugural banquet, raised to fervour by the patriotic eloquence of Adam Findlater, was followed by Press warnings against any kind of association with Dublin citizens whose “loyalty” was open to suspicion. The result, of course, was inevitable, and the social bridge builders found their structure without adequate supports at its northern end; and so collapsed one of many well-intentioned efforts to forge human links across the Boyne’.³⁴ However that was seen as ‘hope deferred’!

The society prospered in Dublin and remained true to its ideals. It ‘managed to survive the storms and stresses of the last thirty years’, as The Irish Times put it in April 1935. The big event of the year was always the St Patrick’s Day banquet. Adam’s brother Willie, also in since the foundation, was still a vice-president in 1930. One can only surmise that it faded away with the passing of the early members. Willie died in 1941.

Adam dies

At the height of his influence, when his voice as representative of a moderate unionist opinion might have been increasingly important, Adam died on 18

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^{ADAM
FINDLATER 1855–1911}

January 1911, of carcinoma of the larynx, at the early age of fifty-six. The disease had been with him for some time, and he had spent an extended visit to Egypt, presumably in the hopes that the climate might help his throat.

The Evening Telegraph wrote generously:

Liberal in all his opinions, hating all humbug and bigotry, and qualified by his attainments to judge questions of moment to the community with broad impartiality, Adam was eminently a desirable representative on public boards. Here his presence and co-operation were always welcomed, as well by those who differed from his opinions as by those who shared them. He had deservedly the reputation of being a model employer, but only his closer friends knew his kindliness of disposition and the genial graces of his hospitality. None could ever know the extent of his benevolence, which knew no distinction of creed or country.³⁵

Only his closer family knew that his wide range of activities and interests, from theatre to politics, from hotels to distillery, caused his eye to wander from the core activity of the firm. In the end Adam did not die a rich man.

There was an unexpectedly warm tribute in The Irish Orchard and Forest Glade:

Adam Findlater is dead, and we are downright sorry. Where shall we begin in trying to describe the nature of a man whose personality was an embodiment of all the splendid qualities and characteristics, and even of those minor yet sensitive bonds of human feeling that make a man beloved by his kind? Is there a man who knew him who cannot recall countless manly acts of courage, generosity, breadth of view, and intellectual intrepidity that made his example, as it will make his memory, an inspiration and a source of genuine encouragement. He was our friend—hearty, cheery, forceful, true— and we never had, nor wish to have, a man to work with or to work for in any walk of life who could better blend in his own person all the best and bravest qualities of heart and brain.

Mr Findlater was, in fact, a lawyer, and a member of the Irish Bar, although he never practised. As a public speaker he was effective, because he thought clearly and spoke plainly. No man was a more genial host or a more welcome guest, whether at the festive table or in the hunting field; wherever men met in social relations he was a ‘prince among good fellows’.

Tributes of respect to Adam’s memory came from all sides, for, as a Dublin evening newspaper, opposed to his political views, wrote on the day of his death: ‘Fine qualities as a man and the bigger civic virtues distinguished him.’ His friend, writing in the Wine Trade Review, described having the privilege of his friendship and companionship for many years; he had accompanied him on several holiday and business trips over Europe, Canada, and the United States, and on his trip to Egypt a few months ago. It was, he wrote, an education to travel with him.

Perhaps Adam’s contemporary Alfred Manning, with the touch of exaggeration suitable to an obituary, best sums up Adam’s vibrant character:

Adam was a man of many parts, a man who filled a great part in the life of his coun-

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try; he was an Irishman to the backbone, and a very able and clever man. He had a great heart, was a great fighter, and he only wished they had a hundred such men in Ireland. He was a contemporary of Adam as a student in Trinity College, and since that time he had known him as a sincere and true friend. He had been told by one of the most powerful Irish members of Parliament, a great orator, and a great Irishman, that if Adam, years ago, had liked to go the whole hog and take off his coat in the fight for Home Rule he would have stepped into the shoes of the most illustrious Irishman that ever lived, Mr Charles Stewart Parnell. He was one of the few men that could have taken that position. ³⁶

^{Notes and
references}

^{The
Wine Trade Review 15 February
1911}

^{ln Dublin’s
Victorian Houses Dublin: A.
& A. Farmar 1998 pp 160-1, Mary
Daly gives details of three houses in
Belgrave Square built by McCurdy. When
his daughter married Adam, these
houses provided the security for the
annuity of £100 [€11,000] a year he
settled on her}

^{Minutes
for the year 1895 of the township of
Kingstown, pp 112-113}

^{Idem.
pp 110-111}

^{Quoted
in M. McCarthy Five Years in
Ireland Dublin: Hodges Figgis
7th ed. 1902 pp 52-3}

^{Quoted
in McCarthy Five Years in Ireland
p 364}

^{Sunday
Independent 5 April 1998}

^{Findlater archive}

^{The
Irish Times 15 October 1903}

^{The
Irish Figaro 17 October 1903}

^{Pamphlet distributed by Adam: Corporation
of Dublin v Alexander Findlater
& Co., Ltd., A Tale of Municipal
Landlordism, illustrated by the acts
of Dublin Corporation}

^{Evening
Telegraph February 1903}

^{The
Leader 2 February 1903}

^{The
Irish Times 21 February 1905}

^{The
Irish People 14 October 1905}

^{Diarmuid Ferriter A Nation of
Extremes, The Pioneers in
Twentieth-Century Ireland
Dublin: Irish Academic Press 1999 pp
120-1, 150}

^{The
Irish Times 18 June 1903}

^{The
Saturday Herald 5 September
1903}

^{Freeman’s
Journal 22 June 1906li>}

^{John
Kendle Walter Long, Ireland and
the Union 1905-1922 Dublin:
Glendale 1992 p 40}

^{Irish
Investors’ Guardian August 1902}

^{Evening
Herald 22 December 1906}

^{Irish
Independent 26 September 1904}

^{Hansard
13 February 1891 p 598}

^{T. M.
Healy Letters and Leaders of My
Day London: Butterworth 1928 p
339}

^{P.
Somerville–Large Irish Voices: 50
years of Irish life 1916-1966
1999 London: Chatto & Windus p 185}

^{Freeman’s
Journal 18 December 1903}

^{Evening
Telegraph 17 December 1903}

^{Freeman’s
Journal 23 January 1909}

^{The
Irish Times 18 March 1904}

^{Idem.
19 December 1904}

^{RNLI
Journal February 1896, Lifeboats
Ireland 1995 pp 40-3}

^{The
Evening Mail 26 December 1895}

^{The
Irish Times 4 April 1935}

^{Evening
Telegraph 18 January 1911}

^{The
Irish Times 24 January 1911}