The End of the County Down Lands

Time was fast running out for the family lands of County Down. Harriett Wombwell died in 1871, and left the proceeds of those lands to be divided amongst her children – once they had been sold off. 

Gracey tombstone just outside Downpatrick Cathedral.
Thomas Gracey was named in Harriett Wombwell's will
with regard to a not insignificant debt.

In her will, and for nearly the last time, the lands and people of Downpatrick float across the pages, from the legal specialists of Hugh and William Nevin Wallace to the famous Gracey family, a member of whom was in debt to Harriett to the not insignificant sum of 1000 pounds. 

And so, finally, we return to May Street, Belfast on the 1st of July 1881, and the final sale of the lands. It is hard by now to avoid the conclusion that the family members concerned would have been anything but absolutely delighted to get the lands off their backs in return for some hard cash in lieu. 

It was good riddance to Ireland, good riddance to the lands, and good riddance to certain Irish and semi-Irish ancestors who seemed to have done their very best to scandalize polite society with their reckless disregard for convention. 

No wonder in future years that no-one seemed willing or able to discuss the details of the West and Wombwell Irish lands, least of all lay claim to any kind of ancestral Irish identity. Indeed, there is no indication as to whether the later family of Robinsons, Bradleys and Owens had any knowledge of their relationship to the Hadzors, the Wests, the Dills, to Sir Richard Dawson Bates, or the Dr. Robert Foster Kennedy who treated Winston Churchill, or any of the other colourful characters who have drifted in and out of these entries.  

Catherine Haughton Dill and Jane Gordon Dill

The eight and ninth children of Robert Foster Dill and Catherine Haughton Rentoul were: 

i. Catherine Haughton Dill (1861-1948)
ii. Jane Gordon Dill (1863-1947)

These two sisters looked after Robert Archer Kennedy after his mother died in Poland. After the death of their parents, the house at 3 Fisherwick Place, Belfast was sold. Jin and Kate, as they were known, then took the young Robert Archer Kennedy to Bangor, County Down, where they settled, back in the county of their West and Hadzor forebears.

The Bangor Coastline
By MartinRobinson at the English language Wikipedia,
CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6800409
Katherine died at the Glenmoor Hotel in Newcastle, County Down.

The two sisters, neither of whom married, were the final two great-grandchildren of Susanna West.

James Chiseldon Gooch Dill and Robert Foster Dill Junior

Rosemary Street Presbyterian Church, Belfast

The sixth and seventh children of Robert Foster Dill and Catherine Haughton Rentoul were:


i. James Chiseldon Gooch Dill (1856-1911)

ii. Robert Foster Dill (1858-1869)

No further information has come to light about these Dills beyond the fact that they were born in Belfast and were baptised at the Rosemary Street Presbyterian Church.

Robert Foster Kennedy Saves The Free World

From his Wikipedia Entry

Robert Foster Kennedy was the youngest of the children of William Archer Kennedy and Hessie Foster Dill. He was a first cousin of Sir Richard Dawson Bates, and a fourth cousin of Hetty Jane Owen. He became a neurologist, first in London and subsequently in New York.

In an illustrious career, he succeeded in giving his name to the Foster-Kennedy syndrome, the Kaplan-Kennedy test and Kennedy's Syndrome. He was one of the first doctors to define shell shock during the First World War when he was working in France near the front. According to his entry in the Dictionary of Ulster Biography, his direct experience of the war destroyed his religious faith.

He returned to New York after the war, and became Professor of Neurology at Cornell. Amongst his patients were one Winston Churchill who had managed to collide with a taxi on a visit to New York in 1931. Needless to say, Churchill came off worse than the taxi. The great tactician and strategist had overlooked the fact that the Americans drove on the opposite side to the British. It seems that Churchill was quite severely injured and shaken up. He now had a scalp wound, two cracked ribs and pleurisy as well as shock and depression to contend with. Nonetheless, he was out of hospital in a week, and in this era of prohibition had secured himself exactly the prescription he needed to recuperate in the form of a note that stated:

This is to certify that the post-accident concussion of Hon. Winston S. Churchill necessitates the use of alcoholic spirits especially at meal times.

Churchill himself was aware that he had had a narrow escape and kept in contact with Kennedy right into the Second World War when he sought his opinion as to whether America would enter the war. 

For those fond of such scenarios, Churchill's accident and Kennedy's prompt treatment might just make for one of those great 'what if?' moments in history.

Kennedy also treated the US President, Franklin D Roosevelt. 

Hessie Foster Dill and William Archer Kennedy

Hessie Foster Dill was born in 1850. She was the fifth great-grandchild of Susanna West, and the last of those great-grandchildren to be born in Susanna's lifetime. She died in 1931. 

She married William Archer Kennedy on 7th September, 1871. 

According to The Dictionary of Ulster Biography, William was a factory manager in the linen industry, and the family lived on the Upper Shankhill Road in Belfast. Just after the birth of the youngest of their fifth children, William took the family to Poland to take up a post as manager of a linen factory. Hessie died of scarlet fever just months after they relocated and William sent whichever children were with them back to Ireland, to 3 Fisherwick Place in Belfast, there to live with their grandparents, Robert Foster Dill and Catherine Haughton Rentoul.

The original Linen Hall Library in 1888, shortly before its demolition
and replacement with Belfast City Hall.
From:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linen_Hall_Library

It should be borne in mind that by the time the First World War broke out, Belfast was the biggest producer of linen in the world.

The Linen Hall library where Thomas Russell worked, and later Reginald Blackwood laboriously compiled family trees of the Hadzors, Wests, and so many others, owes its name to the association of Belfast with linen.

Francis Nesbit Dill

Francis Nesbit Dill (1847-1901) was the fourth child of Robert Foster Dill and Catherine Haughton Rentoul, and a great-grandchild of Susanna West, who was still living on the Hill in Downpatrick at the time of his birth. There is a record for Francis an engineer in the Admiralty Records for 1878.

Francis was clearly named after his Uncle, Francis Nesbit Dill who had died in 1846 aged just thirty in Victoria, Hong Kong. This Francis was another doctor, and the founder of the China Medico-Chirurgical Society:

The excerpt below is from their Transactions for the years 1845-1846:

The younger Francis died in 1901, unmarried.

Jean Victor Bates

Of the sisters of Sir Richard Dawson Bates, and also a fourth cousin of Hetty Jane Owen, mention should also be made of Jane Bates. Jane shared her brothers’ passion for unionist politics, and became an author, writing under the nom de plume of Jean Victor Bates. Her books included:



Our Allies and Enemies in the Near East (New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., ca. 1918), contributions by Edward Carson

Sir Edward Carson, Ulster Leader (London: J. Murray, 1921), contributions by Arthur James Balfour and James Craig Craigavon

Jean also drove an ambulance in Serbia in the First World War, as well as consorting with these notables of the day. 

(Thanks are due to Ms. Helen Johnston for alerting me to Jean Victor Bates, and the daughters of Richard Dawson Bates and Mary Dill).

Mary Dill and Richard Dawson Bates.

Returning to Ireland, Mary Dill (1845-1931) was the third of the nine children of Robert Foster Dill and Catherine Haughton Rentoul, and thereby another great grand-daughter of Susanna West, and  third cousin once removed of Hetty Jane Owen. Mary married Richard Dawson Bates, a Belfast solicitor in 1872. 

Mary and Richard had two sons, John Bates, who died young, and Sir Richard Dawson Bates (1876-1949), and three daughters, Jane, Catherine and Mary.

Dawson Bates and Jessie Muriel Cleland
Photo copyright of The National Portrait Gallery

Sir Richard Dawson Bates, their son, was thus a fourth cousin of Hetty Jane Owen, and if there is a reincarnation of the spirit of original West settlers to be found in later generations, this is the candidate.

Sir Richard was born in Strandtown, Belfast in and died in Somerset, England. He married Jessie Muriel Cleland, daughter of Sir Charles John Cleland (K.B.E.)  in 1920. Sir Richard was usually known simply as Dawson Bates. 

In terms of the bare bones of his career, he variously held the offices of Justice of the Peace for County Down, Deputy Lieutenant of Belfast and Privy Counsellor. 

He was Unionist M.P for East Belfast between 1921 and 1929, and for Belfast Victoria between 1929 and 1943. He was Minister for Home Affairs for Northern Ireland between 1921 and 1943. 

He was awarded an OBE in 1919, knighted in 1921, and created 1st Baronet Bates, of Magherabuoy, Londonderry in 1937. 

Quite an illustrious career on the surface, but as we shall see, one not short of controversy.

Lieutenant John Pengelly Dill

From Invizyon Website:

8 Sept. 1915

Births - at Durbans, Romsey, Hants. On 30th August the wife of the late Captain Robert Foster Dill, DSO, 129th DCO Baluchhis, of a son.

The two children of Robert Foster Dill (1883-1915) and Margaret Douglas Pengelly (1882-1970)were:

i) Robert Hastings Dill (1914-1995)

ii) John Pengelly Dill (1915-1941)

John is the child who was born after his father’s death at Neuve-Chapelle, and the two brothers would be the fifth cousins of Hetty Jane Owen’s children, Olwen and Harold Eldridge. 

Robert Hastings Dill was born in June 1914 in Mussoorie, Bengal, India, probably just before his father departed for France. He was educated at Marlborough College, and Sandhurst and immediately followed in his father’s footsteps by joining the Indian Army and attaining the rank of major. He married Barbara Angel Horton in 1942 in Indore. 

Around the time of, or after, Indian independence, they returned to England and settled in the West Country. Robert died in Barnstable, Devon in 1995. The couple had two children (sixth cousins of Hetty Jane Owen’s grandchildren) and at least three grandchildren. 

John Pengelly Dill was not so fortunate, as the following excerpt from a history of the Battle of Pink Hill in Crete in 1941 records: 

The Germans apparently airlifted John Pengelly Dill to Athens, but to no avail. Margaret Douglas Pengelly thus lost her husband in the first war and her son in the second.

Testaments of Youth

Of the other Dill brothers, Marcus Graham Dill, who met John Rowe Dill just before his death, survived the conflagration, and pursued his medical career in Edinburgh. He died in 1966. He was married to Elizabeth Barnwell. They had no children.

Alfred Vincent Dill graduated from Edinburgh University and also became a doctor, yet another family member following in the footsteps of Seneca and John Hadzor so many years before.

It is not clear which of the Dill sisters it would have been who worked on the hospital ship,  as a V.A.D (Voluntary Aid Detachment) nurse, bringing the wounded back from France. 

But, of these sisters (Agnes, Louisa, and Hessy Foster), Agnes Rose Dill (1887-1927) eventually married Edward Wickham Jones and moved to South Norwood. They had a daughter, Shirley Wickham Jones, who was born in 1924. 

With the Dill sisters as well as brothers involved in the war, the story starts to look quite similar to the memories so vividly and movingly recounted by another V.A.D nurse, Vera Brittain in Testament of Youth, and detailing her journey from unquestioning patriotism to pacifism. We do not know from what shifting perspectives Samuel Marcus Dill and Agnes Rowe viewed the Great War as it proceeded, but Brittain's work gives valuable clues as to how those perspectives changed both at the Front and at home, as the war just ran on and on, and the casualty figures mounted to a level never seen before in the history of human conflict. 

Sepoy Khudadad Khan

Both Robert Foster Dill and John Rowe Dill are buried at the Cabaret-Rouge British Cemetery, Souchez. The newspaper archives do not tell us all the story though.

Khudadad Khan (1888-1971)

In the case of Robert Foster Dill, he was severely wounded in the first battle of Yypres in an engagement that has become famous for other reasons entirely, namely, the award of the first Victoria Cross to a Muslim, Sepoy Khudadad Khan. This incident is reported on The British Library Website Blog  and reads as follows:


On 31 October 1914, the 129th Baluchis were engaged in heavy fighting around the Belgian village of Hollebeke, in the course of which two machine gun crews of the Regiment were cut off. One of the machine guns was destroyed by a shell, and its crew killed or wounded. A short time later, the British officer, Captain Dill was severely wounded. Despite being wounded himself, Khudadad kept working his gun with the other men of his gun detachment until they were rushed by the enemy in overpowering numbers. All were killed except Khudadad, who was left for dead. Amazingly Khudadad survived this attack, and under the cover of darkness was able to crawl back to the safety of the Regiment.

Khudadad lived on until 1971, one of 400,000 Muslim soldiers who fought for the British Empire in the war, their contributions to be almost entirely forgotten in future years. 

Robert Foster Dill meanwhile recovered from his wounds, only to die at Neuve-Chapelle. Of the 4447 members of the 129th Punjab regiment, 3585 casualties were suffered in just this one engagement. John Rowe Dill met his own end not far away, just a few months later.

Lieutenant John Rowe Dill

From the 1914-1918 InvizionZone Website:


11 June 1915 Announcement

News reached Alloway on Tuesday, that Lt J. R. Dill, 69th Punjabis Indian Army, had been killed in action in France on Sunday June the 6th.

John Rowe Dill (1889-1915)      

Lt. John Rowe Dill was the third son of the Very Rev Marcus Dill, D. D., Alloway, Ex Moderator of the Church of Scotland. He was born on the 3rd of December 1889. Having received his education at Marlborough College and the Royal Military College Sandhurst, he obtained his first commision in 1910, when he was attached to the 2nd Battalion North Staffordshire Regiment. In 1911 he joined the 69th Punjabis, in which he was recently appointed Adjutant.

When war was declared he accompanied his regiment to Egypt, and along with them, he arrived in the North of France, where a day or two afterwards he fell in the service of his country.

His brother Captain Robert Foster Dill, DSO, 129th Baluchis, was killed near the same place early in April, and both are buried in the same cemetery, near the trenches.

The Very Rev Dr. Dill has two other sons in the service, Captain Graham Dill of the R. A. M. C. and Mr. Alfred Dill in the Officers Training Corps, and Miss Dill is engaged on a Hospital Ship bringing the wounded from France. Captain Graham Dill met his brother, the late Lt. J. R. Dill, for the first time in 5 years only a day or two before he was killed.

As we can see, at least five of the Irish-Scots children of Samuel Marcus Dill and Catherine Haughton Rentoul had willingly signed up to service in the British army, following in the path of Lieutenants John and Seneca Hadzor almost exactly two hundred years before.  

Captain Robert Foster Dill

From the 1914-1918 InvizionZone Website:

15 April 1915 Announcement

Robert Foster Dill (1883-1915)

It is officially announced that Capt. Robert Foster Dill, DSO, 129th DCO Baluchis, Indian Army, was killed in action on 11th April. He was the second son of the Very Rev. Marcus Dill, D.D., ex-Moderator of the Church of Scotland. Having received his education at Marlborough College and the RMC Sandhurst, he obtained a commission in the Indian Army in 1904 and was gazetted to his Captaincy in 1912. On the outbreak of the war, his regiment, along with the Lahore Division, arrived in France and it has since then been at the front. In Oct., when fighting in the trenches, he was wounded, but in a few weeks he was able to return to his military duty. For his brilliant conduct on that occasion he was mentioned in dispatches of the C-in-C, and His Majesty bestowed upon him the D.S.O. Capt. Dill was married in 1913 to Margaret Douglas, daughter of General Pengelley, RMA.

Robert Foster Dill was a x2 great grandson of Susanna West of Downpatrick.

The Dill Family Go to War

The last dinner menu for first-class passengers on the Titanic, including Arthur Rowe,comprised oysters, filet mignon, poached salmon, chicken Lyonnaise, foie gras, roasted pigeon, lamb with mint sauce and Punch Romaine, a palate-cleansing ice flavored with oranges and drenched in champagne.

For Agnes Rowe, the years following the loss of her twin brother on the Titanic were not to get any easier. Whilst her husband, the Reverend Samuel Marcus Dill attended to matters spiritual as Moderator of the Church of Scotland, at least two of her sons embarked on military careers, which took them in the first instance to India, there to experience first hand the glories of the British Raj. 

Once war broke out in Europe however, it was not long before the overstretched British army felt the need to call on the forces from distant parts of the empire to reinforce their frontlines in France and elsewhere. And so they did, to be joined in due course by more of the Dill children. 

In uncovering the story of the Dill sons, military records have been of some help, but the main source is from a discussion forum about the Duke of Connaught's Baluchis where the activities and fate of the Dill brothers has been pieced together by a number of contributors, using newspaper archives of the time. Further information is also available on the OurHeroes website. 

The Children of Samuel Marcus Dill and Agnes Rowe

Index of wills.
Samuel Marcus Dill was the executor
of the wills of both his mother,
(the grand-daughter of Susanna West) and father.

Samuel Marcus Dill, the second child of Robert Foster Dill and Catherine Haughton Rentoul was educated in Geneva and Belfast, and graduated finally as a Doctor of Divinity from Belfast Theological College. 

He was the Minister at Alloway, Ayrshire, and by 1912, the very year the Titanic sank, had become Moderator of the Church of Scotland. 

He married Agnes Rowe in 1878 in Toxteth, Liverpool, and their nine children were as follows:

i) Agnes Edith Dill (1879-1881). Born and died in Balleymena, County Antrim, Ireland.

ii) Kathleen Norah Dill (1880-1965). Born in Ballymena, County Antrim and died in Peebles, Scotland.

iii) Marcus Graham Dill (1882-1966). Born in Alloway, Ayrshire, died in Edinburgh.

iv) Robert Foster Dill (1883-1915). Born in Alloway, Ayrshire, died in France. 

v) Agnes Rosa Dill (1887-1927). Born in Alloway, Ayrshire, died in Upper Norwood, Surrey.

vi) John Rowe Dill (1889-1915). Born in Alloway, Ayrshire, and died in France.

vii) Louisa L M Dill (1892-1973). Born in Alloway, Ayrshire.

viii) Hessy Foster Dill (1892-1975). Born in Alloway, Ayrshire, and died in Croydon, Surrey. She married William Jackson.

ix) Alfred Vincent Dill (1894-????). Born in Alloway, Ayrshire, and was living in Lanark, Lanarkshire in 1976.

These children were all fourth cousins of Hetty Jane Owen.

Samuel Marcus Dill and Agnes Rowe

The loss of Alfred Rowe on the Titanic must have stayed with his twin sister, Agnes Graham Rowe (died 1934) for the rest of her days, and indeed with her nine children, all of whom were old enough at the time to appreciate the magnitude of the disaster. 

It is a fair assumption that the family will have sought comfort in religion, not least since Agnes was married to the Reverend Samuel Marcus Dill (1843-1924) of Belfast, great-grandson of Susanna West,  third cousin once removed of Hetty Jane Owen, and the second child of Robert Foster Dill and Catherine Haughton Rentoul.

Samuel Marcus Dill and Agnes Rowe had by 1891 transplanted themselves away from Ireland to Alloway, Ayrshire, Scotland, there to proceed with ministering to the spiritual needs of the Scottish Presbyterian community. 

It will have been there that the news will have reached them about the calamity that had just taken place in the Atlantic Ocean.

Susanna West Dill and John McCrea

The first child of Robert Foster Dill and Catherine Haughton Rentoul was Susanna West Dill (1841-1931). Susanna was named after her great-grandmother, Susanna West, who was still alive and living in Downpatrick at this point.

She married John McCrea, who died in Belfast on the 18th December, 1876, aged thirty-seven. John was a doctor. Susanna was still resident in Windsor Ward, Belfast, County Antrim, in 1911. 

They had five children, all fourth cousins of Hetty Jane Owen.

i. Robert Foster McCrea (1871-) was born in Belfast, At the time of the 1911 census, he was living in Donaghdee, County Down.

ii. John McCrea (1872-) was born in Belfast. It is possible but not certain that he emigrated to Watertown, Massachusetts, USA.

iii. Mary Moreland McCrea (1873-1952). She was both born and died in Belfast.

iv. Samuel Marcus McCrea (1875-). He was born in Belfast and may have married into the Boyd family.

v. Hugh Moreland McCrea  (1877-1941) married Kate Rose Hannen (1876-1955). He was born in Belfast and died in 20 Devonshire Place, Marylebone, London, England, He married Kate on August 22 1908 at St Mary’s church, Wergrave, Berkshire. 

Sir Nicholas Hannen was another brother of
Charles Hannen. He was also a judge,
and was consul-general in Shanghai between
1891 and 1897. He was educated at the
City of London School. One of his sons,
Nicholas 'Beau' Hannen went on to be
a successful stage and film actor.
Such were the circles
that Hugh Moreland McCrea,
fourth cousin of Hetty-Jane Owen moved in.

Kate was the daughter of Charles Hannen and niece of Lord Hannen, the famous English judge. 

Hugh was also a doctor and was awarded an OBE. 

More curiously, he seems also to have taken out in 1927 a patent for a new device for helping practitioners improve their billiards skills, the abstract for which follows below:

303,218. McCrea, H. M. Oct. 6, 1927. Billiards and croquet practising appliances.-A device for use in practising billiards, croquet and similar ball games comprises a semi-circular disc or plate a having markings of angular degrees thereon and formed at the centre of the arc with carrying means for a pair of hinged arms b, b<1> which are adapted for independent angular movement over the face of the disc or plate to determine the angle and to indicate a sighting line and the position for the ball in play. An indicator arm d is rigidly attached to the disc a or to the hinged joint of the arms b, b<1>. Stops c enable the arms b, b<1> to be set in alignment. Suitable friction devices hold the arms in their adjusted positions. The arms may have hinged or telescopic extensions. In using the device, e.g. to play a half-ball stroke off the red ball into a pocket, the arms b, b<1> are set as shown at, say 146‹ and the hinge is placed in contact with the red ball g so that the indicator arm d coincides with the diametrical centre line of the ball g and the angularly-set arm b points to the centre of the pocket h. The arm b<1> now indicates the line of aim for the white ball i. After taking aim along the arm b<1>, the device is removed and the stroke may be made.

Hugh and Kate had two children:

i. Catherine Fanny McCrea (1909-) married John Denman Finlaison (1903-1953). Catherine was born in Paddington, London. They had three children.

ii. Betty Joan McCrea (1920-2007) married David L Evans. Betty was born in London, and died in Watford, Hertfordshire.

The Children of Catherine Haughton Rentoul and Robert Foster Dill

The children of Catherine Haughton Rentoul and Robert Foster Dill were: 

i. Susanna West Dill (1841-1931) married John McCrea
ii. Rev. Samuel Marcus Dill (1843-1924) married Agnes Graham Rowe (1855-1934)
iii. Mary Dill (1845-1931) married Richard Dawson Bates.
iv. Francis Nesbit Dill (1848-1901)
v. Hessy Foster Dill (1850-1931) married William Archer Kennedy
vi. James Chiseldon Gooch Dill (1856-1911)
vii. Robert Foster Dill (1858-1869)
viii. Catherine Haughton Dill (1861-1948)
ix. Jane Gordon Dill (1863-1947)

They are all third cousins once removed of Hetty Jane Owen. 

Presbyterian Meeting House in Fisherwick Place, Belfast, where Catherine Haughton Rentoul died. The family no doubt attended the church. Illustration copied from: An Extract of Reflection.

Robert Foster Dill Addresses the Ulster Medical Society

Here follows the opening of Robert Foster’s Dill inauguration speech as President of the Ulster Medical Society in 1872 with accompanying photograph.

This then was the world into which Susanna West's great-grandchildren were to be born and raised – as serious, respectable and respected members of the Belfast Presbyterian community. 




Follow this link to read the full address.

Catherine Haughton Rentoul and Robert Foster Dill

It is entirely probable that Catherine Haughton Rentoul's middle name results from the close relationship that was formed between John Potter and Joseph Haughton many years earlier, and that the relationship between the families had endured through the generations. In any case on the 15th February, 1841, Catherine married Robert Foster Dill of Limarady. Catherine died at 3 Fisherwick Place, Belfast in 1892, aged seventy-one and Robert the following year, aged eighty-two. Robert's obituary below sums up his career:

From: http://brmedj08885-0070a.pdf