William Lombard Murphy was one of the Irish doctors who signed up to serve during the first World War. After the war, he led an eventful life that included heading up a national newspaper and helping the less well-off in Dublin city.
He was in his late thirties when he accepted a commission into the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) in 1914. For the first year of the war, he was based at the First Eastern General Hospital in Cambridge. It had been established specifically to treat war casualties.
He was then sent to Salonika with the rank of captain where the British army was part of a multinational Allied force fighting against the Bulgarians and their allies in the Balkans. Fluent in French and German, he acted as liaison between the British, French and Serb medical teams.
Weather conditions were extremely poor. In November 1915, Capt Noel Drury of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers noted in his diary that there were snow drifts up to his shoulders in some places. The men could hardly hold their rifles as their hands froze to the cold metal. Temperatures were so low that overcoats froze and when men tried to make them pliable to lie down, “they split like matchwood”.
War veteran, doctor and newspaper tycoon – Oliver O’Hanlon on William Lombard Murphy
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Big Benn – Brian Maye on Belfast philanthropist and antiquarian Edward Benn
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Summer was not much better with extreme heat and deadly disease making life unbearable. A private in an English regiment recorded that “marching is very hot and tiring and we get a thirst which no amount of drinking will satisfy; our water bottles are very precious things”.
In 1917, Capt Murphy was awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Légion d’honneur by the president of the French republic.
He was given similar honours by Greece and Serbia.
He left the army in 1919 and returned to Dublin with the intention of resuming his medical career. He had a promising career ahead of him, having been appointed head of the throat and nose department in St Vincent’s Hospital in 1908.
However, the death of his father in June 1919 changed the course of his life. William Martin Murphy was a prominent businessman, who seems to be forever associated with the 1913 Dublin Lockout when workers took on employers in a bid to unionise.
As the eldest son, he assumed control of his father’s affairs. He was appointed chairman of Independent Newspapers and took on directorships of other companies such as the Dublin United Transport Company and the Great Southern Railway Company.
In those days, large numbers of newspapers were sold by an army of newsboys on the streets of the capital. Many of them came from extreme poverty, walked around the city barefoot and were dressed in rags in all weathers.
He co-founded the Dublin Boys Club in 1908. Located on what is now Pearse Street, it provided shelter to young newsboys when they were not out selling newspapers. It also provided clothing and sustenance.
After the war, it became the Belvedere Newsboys’ Club, where the young lads could go in the evenings and enjoy a warm supervised space and relax in the company of their pals.
In the 1960s, the boys could be trained in boxing and play snooker or table tennis. The club also organised a summer camp in Laytown. It grew into the Belvedere Youth Club, which still exists today, offering various programmes to young people in the northeast inner city.
As well as supporting charities and charitable causes, William Lombard Murphy played an active role in Dublin business life. In the 1920s, he was a vice-president of the Irish Tourist Association, a forerunner of Fáilte Ireland and he founded the Publicity Club of Ireland, an industry body for advertisers, agencies and publishers. He served as president of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce in 1924.
In the 1930s, he represented employers in the Free State at International Labour Conferences in Geneva. While he became immersed in business, he did not leave the medical world behind as he sat on the boards of the Coombe and Richmond hospitals.
Along with his business activities, he also found time for amusement and was fond of golf, boxing and tennis. He was a vice-president of the Rathmines and Rathgar Musical Society and a keen supporter of the Feis Ceoil. The Lombard Murphy Cup for Church Music is still awarded at the feis every year. It was won this year by the Dublin Youth Choir.
He died at his home in Dartry in January 1943 at the age of 66. His funeral Mass, which took place at the Church of the Three Patrons in Rathgar, was attended by members of the Oireachtas, government departments and the diplomatic corps. Prayers were said at the graveside by the provincial of the Jesuit order.
He never married and was buried in Glasnevin in the Murphy family plot.