Capt McCormack and Lt Wilde were staying on different floors in the Gresham Hotel. The IRA unit gained access to their rooms by pretending to be British soldiers with important dispatches. When the men opened their doors they were shot and killed. A Times listing for McCormack and Wilde doesn't list any rank for the latter, however. McCormack's killing was another IRA mistake. He was a member of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps and was in Ireland to buy horses for the Army. He was shot in bed and Collins himself later acknowledged the error.
1884 the only English birth that fits is Apr/Jun 1884 of Leonard Wilde at Lewisham Vol 1d p1147. But I am not certain that he was born in England
1919 Feb 12, Married Miss Frances Rabbitts in Notre Dame in Paris. His bride, Frances Rabbitts, had spent a year in France between June 1909 and June 1910 and had a 'diploma' from the Sorbonne. In late 1917 she went to France as a voluntary hospital worker with the French Red Cross and worked at Hopital Auxiliaire 521 in Paris. Her father was postmaster, an attorney and journalist in Springfield, Ohio.
1920 Nov 18 He writes a letter published in the Times of 23rd November, which has a report of a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party which took place the previous evening during which Arthur Henderson read out a letter he had received from L A Wilde that morning:
1920 Nov 20 He is murdered by a group of IRA men. Present in this group of 15 to 20 include:-
Mr Leonard Wilde was found lying face down on the floor of his room. The medical examiner noted that he ‘was lying in a pool of blood and there was part of his brain lying in front of his head’. There was another bullet in the back of his right leg. His only other testimony was that the dead man seemed well nourished and appeared to be about thirty-five. The Times described Wilde as an innocent victim, publishing one of his letters to Arthur Henderson, secretary of the Labour party, asking how this simple ‘Roman Catholic ’ could best consecrate his life to Labour’s ‘magnificent fight for real democracy’ in Ireland. Others said he was an adventurer, a relative of Oscar Wilde. Archbishop Clune told the manager of the Gresham Hotel that he was nothing but a British spy who had been thrown out of Spain. The men who shot him did not seem to care.
McCormack had come to Dublin to purchase horses and was probably shot by mistake. James Doyle, manager of the Gresham Hotel at the time, was one of many who thought that he was a pointless casualty. "At about nine o'clock on the morning of Bloody Sunday," Doyle said, "I was in bed in my room and awakened by noise. It was a muffled kind of thing like the beating of a carpet. The porter called up to my room afterwards and I asked him what the noise I had heard was. He said that Captain McCormack , who was occupying a room quite close to me, had been shot dead. I got out of bed and entered Captain McCormack's room and I saw that he was then dead. The worker also told me that another man had been shot dead in a room on the next floor over Captain McCormack's. I went to this room also and saw the dead man. His surname was Wilde. I was totally ignorant of what took place or why these men were shot at the time. I questioned the porter and he told me that a number of armed men had entered the hotel and asked to be shown to the rooms occupied by these two men."The Gresham's manager said that McCormack had been staying in the hotel since September and had been buying race horses: "He had booked his passage back to Egypt for December on the Holt Line. Although he had been a veterinary surgeon with the British Army there would appear tohave been grave doubt as to his being associated with British intelligence. While he was here I never saw him receiving any guests. He slept well into the afternoon and only got up early when a race meeting was on. When I found him shot in his room, the Irish Field was lying besidehim."
Doyle, the Gresham Hotel Manager, however seemed confident that the suspiciously-named Wilde was indeed a spy, having being told that Wilde was thrown out of Spain because he was well known there to be a British agent.
Hansard reports. Gresham Hotel, Sackville Street. Two murders. Here a party of fifteen to twenty men entered the open door of the hotel, held up the boots and the head-porter with revolvers and forced the latter, Hugh Callaghan, to lead them to rooms occupied by Ex-Captain Patrick McCormack, formerly a captain in the Army Veterinary Corps, and Lieutenant L. E. Wilde. The party, one of whom carried a huge hammer, knocked first at Room 14 occupied by Mr. Wilde. He opened the door and asked, "What do you want?" By way of answer three shots were fired into his chest simultaneously. The party then moved to Room 24, which they entered and found Mr. McCormack sitting in bed reading the paper. Without any communication five shots were fired into his body and head as he sat there. The bed was saturated, and the body, especially the head, was horribly disfigured.
Richard Bennett's 'The Black and Tans' has both Lt Wilde and Cpt McCormack as Veterinary officers. One article says they were on leave. Apparently it was acknowledged McCormack was the wrong man, nothing said about Wilde.
Leonard Aidan Wilde, born 1885, was registered for his death in the Dublin North Registration District in the October-December Qtr of 1920. Vol 2 , p 346
WO 35/159B. Proceedings of a court of inquiry in lieu of inquest on Captain P. McCormick (sic) and Mr L. A. Wilde, London Evidence of the medical examiner (this file was closed till 2003
Bowden (whom I have not found particularly reliable) does on some occasions refer to Wilde as "Lt L W" and on other as "Lt L A". I have no idea what the basis of this is. A officers service record does exist for LW Wilde. And a MIC with little on it. I need to check L W to see if he is the same man or not
