Archibald Warwick

Archibald Warwick
Bornc. 1769
Died (aged 29)
Kircubbin, County Down, Ireland
Cause of deathExecuted by hanging
Resting placeMovilla Cemetery, Newtownards
Other namesWilliam Warwick
Alma materGlasgow University
OccupationLicentiate
OrganizationSociety of the United Irishmen
ReligionPresbyterianism
ChurchPresbyterian Church in Ireland
Congregations served
Kircubbin Presbyterian Church
Military career
Allegiance United Irishmen
UnitLower Ards contingent
Battles / warsIrish Rebellion of 1798
  • Attack on Portaferry

Archibald Warwick (c. 1769 – 15 October 1798) was a Presbyterian licentiate and member of the United Irishmen from Kircubbin, County Down who participated in the Irish Rebellion of 1798.[1][2]

Early Life

Archibald Warwick was the son of John Warwick and Elizabeth Gordon.[3] His family were all from Loughriscouse outside Newtownards, County Down.[4]

Warwick attended Glasgow University, where liberal Presbyterian Francis Hutcheson instilled students with a liberal, democratic and anti-slavery philosophy.[5]

At the outbreak of the 1798 rebellion, Warwick was a probationer training to be a Presbyterian Minister, and while awaiting to assigned to a parish was a licentiate at Kircubbin Presbyterian Church.[1][6][7]

1798 Rebellion

Warwick and other clergymen such as James Porter, Thomas Ledlie Birch, and William Steele Dickson became key figures in the United Irishmen.[8][9] Warwick was the leader of the Lower Ards contingent of the United Irishmen.[10] Warwick, having raised a force at Kircubbin and Innishargie, led an attack on the Yeomanry garrison in Portaferry on 10 June 1798, which was that was repulsed through musket fire and canon fire from an anchored revenue cutter in the Strangford Lough.[11][12] Following the attack they retreated to their camp at Inishargie, with the Portaferry garrison later also retreating across the lough to Strangford and then Downpatrick after having deemed their position to be untenable.[12]

Like others in the United Irishmen,[13] Warwick denounced Lord Castlereagh and his father, as "renegade apostates", asserting that they betrayed their liberal beginnings and philosophy by assisting in suppressing the rebellion.[14]

Death and legacy

Following the rebellion, Warwick's name (mistakenly prefixed with reverend by authorities) appeared among the most wanted of the rebels, and a month after the end of the rebellion he was captured. On 15 August 1798, Warwick was brought before a court-martial, and despite weak evidence, was convicted of ‘acting as a traitor and rebel and endeavouring to excite treason and rebellion in Ireland’.[2][15][16] Warwick's death sentence was not carried out immediately, with him being imprisoned instead in Newtownards Gaol for 2 months, raising expectations that he may be given a reprieve.[2] On 15 October 1798, he was publicly executed by hanging in Kircubbin beside the Presbyterian Meeting House.[1][2][17] His execution in front of his congregation was to stand as a warning against further rebellion in the Ards peninsula. Warwick was one of seven licentiates to be found guilty of treason,[18] and one of two probationers to receive capital punishment.[2][19][20]

He is buried in Movilla cemetery in Newtownards.[1][4][21]

Warwick is sometimes erroneously referred to as William or James Warwick due to errors in historical publications or accounts.[2] The character of William Warwick in W. G. Lyttle's Betsy Gray (about the folklore figure) is based on Archibald Warwick.[22][23] Warwick's execution also appeared in Florence Wilson’s much-recited poem ‘The Man from God Knows Where’.[2][24]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Newmann, Kate. "Archibald Warwick ( - 1798): United Irishman". Dictionary of Ulster Biography. Ulster History Circle. Retrieved 19 June 2025.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Beiner, Guy (2018). Forgetful Remembrance: Social Forgetting and Vernacular Historiography of a Rebellion in Ulster (1st ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. 158–159, 334. ISBN 978-0-19-874935-6.
  3. ^ "Members' Interests: Queries". North Irish Roots. 1 (5). North of Ireland Family History Society: 131. Summer 1985. JSTOR 27696596. Retrieved 19 June 2025.
  4. ^ a b "Movilla Cemetery". North Down Museum. Ards and North Down Borough Council. Retrieved 19 June 2025.
  5. ^ Whelan, Fergus (December 2010). "Oliver Cromwell: father of Irish republicanism?". History Ireland. 18 (6): 21. ISSN 0791-8224. JSTOR 40961479. Retrieved 4 July 2025.
  6. ^ Wilson, Catharine Anne (1994). A New Lease on Life: Landlords, Tenants, & Immigrants in Ireland & Canada. McGill–Queen's University Press. p. 168. ISBN 0-7735-1117-2. ... Archibald Warwick, a teacher and licentiate of Kircubbin Presbyterian Church, was hanged in the churchyard.
  7. ^ "Early Church History". Kircubbin Presbyterian Church. Retrieved 19 June 2025.
  8. ^ Orr, Philip (October 2011). The Secret Chain: Francis Hutcheson and Irish Dissent – a Political Legacy (PDF). The Flourishing Society. p. 12 – via TASC.
  9. ^ Collins, Peter (2004). Who Fears to Speak of '98'? Commemoration and the Continuing Impact of the United Irishmen. Ulster Historical Foundation. p. 4. ISBN 9781903688236. It was further scandalised by the reports that some of its clergy had assumed a leadership role in the United Irishmen. Prominent among these were Robert Acheson, Samuel Barber, Thomas Ledlie Birch, William Steel Dickson, Sinclare Kelburne, and Archibald Warwick.
  10. ^ Hughes, G.; Trigg, J. (2011). "Theory and History in Irish Conflict Archaeology, with specific reference to the role of British Crown Forces in the United Irishmen's Rebellion of 1798" (PDF). Rosetta (10). University of Birmingham: 16–48.
  11. ^ Turner, Brian S.; Dawson, Kenneth; Hill, Myrtle, eds. (1998). 1798 Rebellion in County Down. Colourpoint Books. p. 182. ISBN 9781898392446.
  12. ^ a b Timeline of the 1798 Rebellion in North Down and the Ards. North Down Borough Council. 15 May 2015. p. 3 – via fliphtml5.
  13. ^ Elliott, Marianne (June 2011). "New Light On Dissent". Dublin Review of Books. Retrieved 4 July 2025. ...it strikes me that the villainous reputation which has followed Castlereagh in Ireland owes more to radical perceptions that he had once been one of their own and the very effective propaganda of the United Irishmen is saying as much. He appears in Dissent into Treason as the "apostate" Castlereagh.
  14. ^ Mackenzie, William Lyon (3 February 1853). "Two Presbyterian Ministers executed order of Lord Castlereagh". Mackenzie's Weekly Message. No. 2. p. 1. Retrieved 3 July 2025. Warwick denounced Castlereagh and his father, as renegade apostates from their earlier professions;
  15. ^ Power, Patrick C. (1997). The Courts Martial of 1798-9. Irish Historical Press. p. 157. ISBN 9781902057002. OCLC 39391306. One Prominent person to be charged in Newtownards with being a leader in the rebellion in County Down was Rev. Archibald Warwick of Kircubben on the shores of Strangford Lough on the Ards peninsula, who was a Presbyterian minister. He was charged at a court martial 15th August 1798 with treason and rebellion and exciting both in the Kingdom of Ireland.
  16. ^ Wright, Barry; Murray Greenwood, Frank, eds. (1996). Canadian State Trials: Law, politics, and security measures, 1608-1837. Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History. pp. 289, 322. ISBN 9780802009135. In County Down, young Archibald Warwick, a Presbyterian licentiate, later hanged on the basis of contradictory evidence, found himself tried by a court presided over by a captain of the bloodthirsty Monaghan militia ... The prosecution cases against Porter and Warwick were weak and yet both were hanged.
  17. ^ Dickson, Charles (1960). Revolt in the North Antrim and Down in 1798. Clonmore & Reynolds. p. 233.
  18. ^ Barkley Woodburn, James (1914). The Ulster Scot: His History and Religion (PDF) (1st ed.). London: H. R. Allenson. p. 307 – via Wikimedia Commons.
  19. ^ Latimer, William Thomas (1893). "A Time of Tyranny". A History of the Irish Presbyterians (PDF). J. Cleeland. p. 182. OCLC 1047480351. OL 16828082W. Mr. Porter was the only minister, and Mr. Archibald Warwick the only licentiate who suffered capital punishment.
  20. ^ Swords, Liam, ed. (1997). Protestant, Catholic, and Dissenter: The Clergy and 1798. Columba Press. p. 111. ISBN 9781856072090.
  21. ^ Murray, Emily (22 November 2012). Inishargy, County Down: Investigation of a Viking Silver find-spot (PDF) (Report). Queen's University Belfast. p. 16. Retrieved 4 July 2025. A couple of names in particular who are associated with the camp are Archibald Warwick (later interred in Movilla cemetery, Newtownards)...
  22. ^ "1798 an' a' that: radicalism, revolt & realignment" (PDF). Ulster-Scots Community Network. March 2021 [2010]. p. 11. Retrieved 19 June 2025. Archibald Warwick (who appears in W. G. Lyttle's Betsy Gray as William Warwick) was hanged in Newtownwards in a thunderstorm, four months after the end of the rebellion.
  23. ^ "Betsy Gray: Fact or fiction - the shadowy legend of an Ulster-Scots heroine". Belfast News Letter. 15 August 2023. Retrieved 19 June 2025. W G Lyttle's story contains real historical figures such as the Rev William Steel Dickson, the Rev Thomas Ledlie Birch and Archibald Warwick.
  24. ^ O'Byrne, Cathal (1982). As I roved out : a book of the North : being a series of historical sketches of Ulster and old Belfast. Blackstaff Press. p. 333.
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