John Bowen-Colthurst
| “ | After the three unfortunate victims had been murdered Bowen Colthurst made frantic efforts to wipe out all the traces of his crime which, in the shape of three sets of bullets in the wall, proclaimed to all and sundry who passed that way one of the first actions of ‘a Soldier and a Gentleman’ with which we became so familiar as the struggle went on. | „ |
| ~ F. McL. Scannell |
Captain John Bowen-Colthurst (died 1965) was an Irish soldier and mass murderer who was detained at Broadmoor prison for atrocities committed during the Easter Rising.
Biography edit
Captain Bowen-Colthurst was originally from County Cork, Ireland. He was commissioned as an officer in the Royal Irish Rifles, serving in the Boer War and the 1904 British invasion of Tibet. During the latter conflict, he was witnessed shooting a dog for barking during the night and deliberately picking a non-fatal spot to shoot it in so it would bleed to death. He was also rumoured to commit atrocities against civilians and prisoners.
Bowen-Colthurst later went to fight in France towards the beginning of World War I. During the war, he participated during the battle of Mons and is recorded as having recklessly thrown away his men's lives during the retreat. He was later wounded during a reckless attack on a German position and was subsequently sent back to Ireland and attached to the 3rd Battalion stationed at Portobello Barracks.
During the Easter Rising in 1916 (April 25 to be precise) Bowen-Colthurst took the detained activist Francis Sheehy-Skeffington out of the barracks along with a patrol he was leading to kill suspected rebels. While on patrol, Bowen-Colthurst encountered a nineteen-year-old mechanic named James Coade, who he promptly shot dead. Labour Party councillor Richard O'Carroll was shot in the lungs after the patrol pulled him off his motorbike. He later died. Conversely, Patrick Nolan survived being shot by Bowen-Colthurst after he was taken to hospital.
On reaching Camden Street, the soldiers firebomber and destroyed a tobacconist's shop and arrested two journalists: Thomas Dickson, editor of The Eye Opener, and Patrick McIntyre, editor of The Searchlight. The two of them were taken back to the barracks along with Sheehy-Skeffington. All three were executed under Bowen-Colthurst's orders. In a moment of clarity, Colthurst reported the action to his superior, a Major James Rosborough, saying that he had shot the three prisoners on his own responsibility and that he might possibly be hanged for it. Rosborough asked him for a written report, and Colthurst was confined to barracks duties. The bodies were hastily buried in the grounds. A team of bricklayers were later drafted to remove the bricks damaged by the gunfire.
Bowen-Colthurst was later arrested and court-martialled for his crimes. Despite the cover-up of the so-called "Portobello killings" seemingly showing that he knew what he was doing, he was found insane and sent to Broadmoor Secure Hospital for twenty months. He was later released, and emigrated to Canada on a military pension. He died in 1965, having never faced adequate punishment for his crimes.