Edward Carson

4 Harcourt Street, Dublin, where Carson was born in 1854

Edward Carson, the second son of Edward Henry Carson, architect, was born at 4 Harcourt Street, in Dublin, into a wealthy Anglican family.[2] The Carsons were of Scottish origin, Edward's grandfather having originally moved to Dublin from Dumfries in 1815. Carson's mother was Isabella Lambert, the daughter of Captain Peter Lambert, part of an old Anglo-Irish family, the Lamberts of Castle Ellen, County Galway. Carson spent holidays at Castle Ellen, which was owned by his uncle.[3] He was one of six children (four boys and two girls). Edward was educated at Portarlington School, Wesley College, Dublin[4] and Trinity College Dublin, where he read law and was an active member of the College Historical Society. It was said that he also played hurling with the college team. Carson graduated BA and MA.

He spoke Irish and was a regular player of Gaelic games as a child.[5]

He later received an honorary doctorate (LL.D.) from the University of Dublin in June 1901.[6]

In 1877 Carson was called to the Irish Bar after graduating from King's Inns. He gained a reputation for fearsome advocacy and supreme legal ability and became regarded as a brilliant barrister, among the most prominent in Ireland at the time.[7] He was also an acknowledged master of the appeal to the jury by his legal wit and oratory.[8] He was appointed Queen's Counsel (Ireland) in 1889 and was Called to the English Bar at Middle Temple on 26 April 1893. He was twice admitted to the Inn, once on 1 November 1875 and then again on 21 April 1893, and was made a Bencher on 15 June 1900.[9]

Oscar Wilde

Main article: Oscar Wilde trials

Carson addressing Parliament as depicted in Vanity Fair in 1893

In 1895, he was engaged by the Marquess of Queensberry to lead his defence against Oscar Wilde's action for criminal libel. The Marquess, angry at Wilde's ongoing homosexual relationship with his son, Lord Alfred Douglas, had left his calling card at Wilde's club with an inscription accusing Wilde of being a "posing somdomite" [sic]. Wilde retaliated with a libel action, as homosexuality was, at the time, illegal.

Kevin Myers states that Carson's initial response was to refuse to take the case. Later, he discovered that Queensberry had been telling the truth about Wilde's activity and was therefore not guilty of the libel of which Wilde accused him.[10]

Carson portrayed the playwright as a morally depraved hedonist who seduced naïve young men into a life of homosexuality with lavish gifts and promises of a glamorous artistic lifestyle. He impugned Wilde's works as morally repugnant and designed to corrupt the upbringing of the youth. Queensberry spent a large amount of money on private detectives who investigated Wilde's activity in the London underworld of homosexual clubs and procurers.

Wilde abandoned the case when Carson announced in his opening speech for the defence that he planned to call several male prostitutes who would testify that they had had sex with Wilde, which would have rendered the libel charge unsupportable as the accusation would have been proven true. Wilde was bankrupted when he was then ordered to pay the considerable legal and detective bills Queensberry had incurred in his defence.

Based on the evidence of Queensberry's detectives and Carson's cross-examinations of Wilde at the trial, Wilde was subsequently prosecuted for gross indecency in a second trial. He was eventually found guilty and sentenced to two years' hard labour, after which he moved to France, where he died penniless.

Initially a radical Liberal,[13] Carson's political career began on 20 June 1892, when he was appointed Solicitor-General for Ireland, although he was not then a member of the House of Commons. He was elected as Member of Parliament for the Dublin University constituency in the 1892 general election[14] as a Liberal Unionist, although overall the Liberal Party won the election.

Carson maintained his career as a barrister and was admitted to the English Bar by The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple in 1893 and from then on mainly practised in London. In 1896 he was sworn of the Irish Privy Council.[15] He was appointed Solicitor-General for England on 7 May 1900,[16] receiving the customary knighthood. He served in this position until the Conservative government resigned in December 1905, when he was rewarded with membership of the Privy Council.[17]

In the 1918 general election, Sinn Féin won 73 out of the 105 Irish seats in the House of Commons. In 25 constituencies, Sinn Féin won the seats unopposed. Unionists (including Ulster Unionist Labour Association) won 26 seats, all but three of which were in the six counties that today form Northern Ireland, and the Irish Parliamentary Party won only six (down from 84), all but one in Ulster. The Labour Party did not stand in the election, allowing the electorate to decide between home rule or a republic by having a clear choice between the two nationalist parties. Irish Republicans regarded these elections as the mandate to establish the First Dáil. As such, all persons in Ireland elected to Westminster were considered to have been elected to Dáil Éireann. Had he chosen to do so, Carson could have exercised the option of attending the meeting of the First Dáil in the Mansion House on 21 January 1919. Like all of those elected to Irish seats in December 1918 he received an invitation, written as gaeilge, to attend. He kept the invitation as a souvenir.[18] When his name was called out in the first roll call of the new Dáil, it was met by silence, and then laughter, from the Sinn Féin delegates and the audience in the Mansion House.[19] He was listed as "as láthair", or absent.

In September 1911 a huge crowd of over 50,000 people gathered at a rally near Belfast where Carson made a speech in which he urged his party to take on the governance of Ulster. With the passage of the Parliament Act 1911, the Unionists faced the loss of the House of Lords' ability to thwart the passage of the new Home Rule Bill. Carson disliked many of Ulster's local characteristics and, in particular, the culture of Orangeism (although he had become an Orangeman at nineteen he left the institution shortly afterwards).[20] He stated that their speeches reminded him of "the unrolling of a mummy. All old bones and rotten rags."[21]

Sir Edward Carson signing the Ulster Covenant.

Carson campaigned against Home Rule. He spoke against the Bill in the House of Commons and organised rallies in Ireland promoting a provisional government for "the Protestant province of Ulster" to be ready, should a third Home Rule Bill come into law.[22]

On Sunday 28 September 1912, "Ulster Day", he was the first signatory on the Ulster Covenant, which bound 447,197 signatories[23] to resist Home Rule with the threat that they would use "all means necessary" after Carson had established the Ulster Volunteers, the first loyalist paramilitary group. From it the Ulster Volunteer Force was formed in January 1913 to undergo military training and purchase arms.[24] In Parliament Carson rejected any olive branch for compromise demanding Ulster "be given a resolution rather than a stay of execution".[25] The UVF received a large arms cache from Germany on the night of 24 April 1914.[26] Historian Felician Prill says Germany was not trying to start a civil war, for the Ulster cause was not popular in Berlin.[27] Later that year, a further shipment of arms from Germany was delivered to the pro-Home Rule and IRB-influenced Irish Volunteers at Howth near Dublin.[28]

The Home Rule Bill was passed by the Commons on 25 May 1914 by a majority of 77 and due to the Parliament Act 1911, it did not need the Lords' consent, so the bill was awaiting royal assent. To enforce the legislation, given the activities of the Unionists, H. H. Asquith's Liberal government had prepared to send troops to Ulster. This sparked the Curragh Incident on 20 March. Together with the arming of the Irish Volunteers, Ireland was on the brink of civil war when the outbreak of the First World War led to the suspension of the Home Rule Act's operation until the end of the war.[29] By this time Carson had announced in Belfast that an Ulster Division would be formed from the U.V.F., and the 36th (Ulster) Division was swiftly organised.[29]

Brown examines why Carson's role in 1914 made him a highly controversial figure:

But his commitment was unqualified, both to Ulster unionism and to its increasing extremism. Under Carson's leadership, with Craig as his lieutenant, discipline and organization were imposed on their supporters; proposed compromises were rejected; and plans were drawn up for a provisional government in the north, if the bill was passed, with its implementation to be resisted by the paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force, which had been armed by illegal gun-running. It is this apparent willingness to carry resistance to virtually any length, even to risk civil war, that makes Carson so controversial.[30]

In 1914, suffragettes Flora Drummond and Norah Dacre Fox (later known as Norah Elam) besieged Carson's home, arguing that his form of Ulster "incitement to militancy" passed without notice whilst suffragettes were charged and imprisoned for same action.[31] In a 1921 speech opposing the pending Anglo-Irish Treaty, Carson attacked the "Tory intrigues" that had led him on the course that would partition Ireland, an outcome he opposed almost as strongly as Home Rule itself. In the course of the speech Carson said:

What a fool I was! I was only a puppet, and so was Ulster, and so was Ireland, in the political game that was to get the Conservative Party into Power.[32][33]

Later in the speech, Carson said:

But I say to my Ulster friends, and I say it with all sincerity and solemnity: Do not be led into any such false line. Stick to your old ideals of closer and closer connection with this country. The Coalition Government, after all, is not the British nation, and the British nation will certainly see you righted. Your interests lie with Great Britain. You have helped her, and you have helped her Empire, and her Empire belongs just as much to you as it does to England. Stick to it, and trust the British people.[34]

Although considering himself proudly British, Carson also considered himself a proud Irishman stating "I am very proud as an Irishman to be a member of the British Empire."[35]

On 25 May 1915, Asquith appointed Carson Attorney-General[36] when the Coalition Government was formed after the Liberal government was brought down by the Shell Crisis and the resignation of Admiral Fisher. He resigned on 19 October, however, citing his opposition to Government policy on war in the Balkans. During Asquith's coalition government of 1915–1916, there was no formal opposition in either the Commons or the Lords. The only party not in Asquith's Liberal, Conservative, Labour Coalition was the Irish Nationalist Party led by John Redmond. However, this party supported the government and did not function as an Opposition. After Carson, the leading figure among the Irish Unionist allies of the Conservative Party, resigned from the coalition ministry on 19 October 1915, he then became the de facto leader of those Unionists who were not members of the government, effectively Leader of the Opposition in the Commons.

He played a major role in forcing the resignation of Asquith as Prime Minister, returning to office on 10 December 1916 as First Lord of the Admiralty,[37] and elevated to the powerful British War Cabinet as a Minister without Portfolio on 17 July 1917.[38]

Carson was hostile to the foundation of the League of Nations as he believed that this institution would be ineffectual against war. In a speech on 7 December 1917 he said:

Talk to me of treaties! Talk to me of the League of Nations! Every Great Power in Europe was pledged by treaty to preserve Belgium. That was a League of Nations, but it failed.[39]

Early in 1918, the government decided to extend conscription to Ireland, and that Ireland would have to be given home rule in order to make it acceptable. Carson disagreed in principle and again resigned on 21 January. He gave up his seat at the University of Dublin in the 1918 general election and was instead elected for Belfast Duncairn.[40]

He continued to lead the Unionists, but when the Government of Ireland Act 1920 was introduced, advised his party to work for the exemption of six Ulster counties from Home Rule as the best compromise (a compromise he had previously rejected). This proposal passed and as a result the Parliament of Northern Ireland was established.[41]

In January 1921 he met in London over three days with Father O'Flanagan and Lord Justice Sir James O'Connor to try to find a mutual agreement that would end the Anglo-Irish war, but without result.[42]

After the partition of Ireland, Carson repeatedly warned Ulster Unionist leaders not to alienate northern Catholics, as he foresaw this would make Northern Ireland unstable. In 1921 he stated: "We used to say that we could not trust an Irish parliament in Dublin to do justice to the Protestant minority. Let us take care that that reproach can no longer be made against your parliament, and from the outset let them see that the Catholic minority have nothing to fear from a Protestant majority."[43] In old age, while at London's Carlton Club, he confided to the Anglo-Irish (and Catholic) historian Sir Charles Petrie his disillusionment with Belfast politics: "I fought to keep Ulster part of the United Kingdom, but Stormont is turning her into a second-class Dominion."[44]

Carson did not see himself as an Ulsterman and, unlike many northern unionists it is thought he had an emotional connection with Ireland as a single entity.[5]

Carson was asked to lead the Unionists during the election to become the first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. He declined due to his lack of connections with any Northern Ireland constituency (an opponent once taunted him saying: "He has no country, he has no caste"),[45] and resigned the leadership of the party in February 1921.[46] Carson was appointed one of seven Lords of Appeal in Ordinary on 24 May 1921 and was created a life peer under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876 on 1 June 1921 as Baron Carson, of Duncairn in the County of Antrim.[47]

St Anne's Cathedral; Carson's final resting place

Carson retired in October 1929. In July 1932, during his last visit to Northern Ireland, he witnessed the unveiling of a large statue of himself in front of Parliament Buildings at Stormont. The statue was sculpted by L. S. Merrifield. cast in bronze, and placed upon a plinth. The inscription on the base read "By the loyalists of Ulster as an expression of their love and admiration for its subject". It was unveiled by Lord Craigavon in the presence of more than 40,000 people.[46]

Carson married twice. His first wife was Annette Kirwan from County Galway, daughter of Henry Persse Kirwan, a retired County Inspector of the Royal Irish Constabulary. They were married on 19 December 1879. He had two sons and two daughters by his first wife (he described them as a "rum lot"),[46] namely:

• The Hon. William Henry Lambert Carson, born 2 October 1880 (d. 1930)
• The Hon. Aileen Seymour Carson, born 13 November 1881
• The Hon. Gladys Isobel Carson, born 1885
• The Hon. Walter Seymour Carson, born 1890

The first Lady Carson died in 1913.[46] His second wife was Ruby Frewen (1881–1966),[50] a Yorkshirewoman, the daughter of Lt.-Col. Stephen Frewen, later Frewen-Laton MP (1857–1933) and Emily Augusta (Peacocke) Frewen. They were married on 17 September 1914; she was 32 and he was 60. They had one son:

• The Hon. Edward Carson MP, born 17 February 1920

• online Hennessey, Thomas. Dividing Ireland: World War I and Partition (1998)
• H. Montgomery Hyde, Carson (Constable, London 1974) ISBN 0-09-459510-0
• Marjoribanks, Edward and Colvin, Ian, The Life of Lord Carson, (Victor Gollancz, London, 1932–1936, 3 Vols).
• A.T.Q. Stewart The Ulster Crisis, Resistance to Home Rule, 1912–14, (Faber and Faber, London, 1967, 1979), ISBN 0-571-08066-9
• A.T.Q. Stewart, Edward Carson (Gill and Macmillan Ltd, Dublin 1981) ISBN 0-7171-1075-3
• Geoffrey Lewis, Carson, the Man who divided Ireland, (Hambledon and London 2005), ISBN 1-85285-454-5
• Jackson, Alvin, Judging Redmond and Carson, Royal Irish Academy (2018)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Edward Carson, Baron Carson.

Wikiquote has quotations related to Edward Carson.

Wikisource has the text of a 1922 Encyclopædia Britannica article about "Edward Carson, Baron Carson".

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Edward Carson
• "Archival material relating to Edward Carson". UK National Archives.
• Image: Sir Edward Carson inspecting the U.V.F, 1913
• Image: Sir Edward Carson at U.V.F rally, 1913
• Video footage of Lord Carson's funeral on YouTube
• Newspaper clippings about Edward Carson in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW