RIC Auxiliary Cadet Christopher Herbert Wainwright

RIC Auxiliary Cadet Christopher Herbert Wainwright (aged 36) from Gravesend, Kent (Kilmichael ambush)

Date of incident: 28 Nov. 1920

Sources: CE, 30 Nov., 1, 3 Dec. 1920; II, 30 Nov. 1920; CCE, 4 Dec. 1920; The Times, 4 Dec. 1920; Military Inquests, WO 35/152/1 (TNA); Patrick O’Brien’s WS 812, 14-17 (BMH); Timothy Keohane’s WS 1295, 5-7 (BMH); Edward Young’s WS 1402, 13-16 (BMH); Barry (1949, 1989), 36-51; Deasy (1973), 169-76; Hart (1998), 21-38; Abbott (2000), 156-63; Kautt (2010), 99-118; Leeson (2011), 101, 129; Sheehan (2011), 14, 30, 121, 146; Morrison (2012), 160-72; Townshend (2013), 210-15; Murphy (2014), 65-156; irishmedals.org (accessed 28 July 2014); http://www.theauxiliaries.com/men-alphabetical/men-w-x-y-z/wainwright-ch/wainwright.html (accessed 27 Sept. 2015); http://theauxiliaries.com/companies/c-coy/c-coy.html (accessed 28 April 2016). 

Note: A native of Lancashire, Wainwright was one of the Auxiliaries killed or mortally wounded in perhaps the greatest single disaster suffered by crown forces in Ireland during the war of 1919-21. He had joined the ADRIC about two months before his death. He had ten years of prior military service, with the rank of captain in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers and the Royal Irish Rifles.

Cadet Wainwright’s body was one of six carried to Paddington Station in London on Friday, 3 December 1920, for later burial in the home places of these Auxiliaries. ‘The bodies had been brought from Ireland, with those of the 10 other murdered Auxiliaries, in the destroyer Undine, which landed them yesterday morning at Milford Haven. They were escorted by “Black and Tans” of Y Company, to which the murdered men belonged. [In fact, all of the ADRIC dead at Kilmichael were members of C Company.] The coffins were brought by special train to Cardiff, and there, wrapped in Union Jacks, were placed in a waiting room pending dispersal. At Paddington a large crowd collected and watched reverently the work of detraining the coffins and placing them in motor hearses. Each was covered with the Union Jack and surmounted with a wreath of white flowers. Just before the body of Cadet Barnes was lifted from the shoulders of the funeral party, a lady and gentleman, who were accompanied by a Roman Catholic priest from Sutton, stepped forward and placed a wreath of lilies on it. Members of the [ADRIC] force, armed with revolver and rifle, entered the hearses and remained on guard to the journey’s end.’ See The Times, 4 Dec. 1920; http://theauxiliaries.com/companies/c-coy/c-coy.html (accessed 28 April 2016).