Robert Erskine Childers was an Irish writer, whose works included the influential novel The Riddle of the Sands, and a Fenian revolutionary who smuggled guns to Ireland in his sailing yacht Asgard.
Background
Robert Erskine Childers was born on June 25, 1870, in London, England, in the family of Robert Caesar (an Orientalist) and Anna Mary Henrietta (Barton) Childers.
When Erskine was six, his father died from tuberculosis and, although seemingly healthy, Anna was confined to an isolation hospital, where she died six years later. The five children were sent to the Bartons, the family of their mother’s uncle, at Glendalough, County Wicklow. They were treated kindly there and Erskine grew up knowing and loving Ireland.
Education
At the recommendation of his grandfather, Canon Charles Childers, he was sent to Haileybury College. Having gained his degree in law, and planning to one day follow his cousin Hugh into the British parliament as an MP, Childers sat the competitive entry examination to become a parliamentary clerk.
Career
Early in 1895 he became a junior committee clerk in the House of Commons, with responsibility for preparing formal and legally sound bills from the proposals of the government of the day.
Childers was encouraged by Walter Runciman, a friend from schooldays, to take up sailing. Childers's first published work was some light detective stories he contributed to the Cambridge Review while he was editor.
Achievements
Erskine Childers wrote two books on cavalry warfare, both strongly critical of what he saw as outmoded British tactics.
In the autumn of 1910 Childers resigned his post as Clerk of Petitions to leave himself free to join the Liberal Party, with its declared commitment to Home Rule, and in May 1912 he secured for himself the candidature in one of the parliamentary seats in the naval town of Devonport.
"Both of us, who came out as hide-bound Tories, began to tend towards more liberal ideas, partly from the ... democratic company we were keeping, but chiefly, I think, from our discussions on politics and life generally."
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
Éamon de Valera said of him, "He died the Prince he was. Of all the men I ever met, I would say he was the noblest".
Connections
Erskine married Mary Alden Osgood on January 5, 1904. They had sons Robert and Erskine.
Father:
Robert Caesar Childers
Mother:
Anna Mary Henrietta Barton
She was from an Anglo-Irish landowning family of Glendalough House.
