Died 6 November 1914 | Party Ulster Unionist Party | |
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Children Terence O'Neill, Baron O'Neill of the Maine | ||
The Honourable Arthur Edward Bruce O'Neill (19 September 1876 – 6 November 1914), was an Irish Ulster Unionist Party politician who was the first Member of Parliament to be killed in World War I.
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Early life
O'Neill was the second but eldest surviving son of Edward O'Neill, 2nd Baron O'Neill, and his wife Lady Louisa Katherine Emma (née Cochrane). Hugh O'Neill, later Baron Rathcavan, was his younger brother.
Military career
O'Neill joined the British Army in 1897. He saw active service in South Africa between 1899 and 1900, during the Second Boer War. He was awarded the Queen's South Africa Medal with three clasps. In January 1902, he was temporary appointed Adjutant to the 2nd Regiment of Life Guards.
O'Neill fought in the First World War as a Captain in the 2nd Life Guards and was killed in action at Klein Zillebeke ridge, 6 November 1914, aged 38, the first MP to be killed in the conflict. He is commemorated on the Menin Gate memorial. O'Neill is also commemorated on Panel 8 of the Parliamentary War Memorial in Westminster Hall, one of 22 MPs that died during World War I to be named on that memorial. O'Neill is one of 19 MPs who fell in the war who are commemorated by heraldic shields in the Commons Chamber. A further act of commemoration came with the unveiling in 1932 of a manuscript-style illuminated book of remembrance for the House of Commons, which includes a short biographical account of the life and death of O'Neill.
Political career
He was elected to the House of Commons for Mid-Antrim in 1910, succeeding his uncle Robert Torrens O'Neill. His brother Hugh succeeded him as MP for Mid-Antrim.
Personal life
O'Neill married, at St Paul's Church, Knightsbridge, on 21 January 1902, Lady Annabel Crewe-Milnes, daughter of Robert Crewe-Milnes, 1st Marquess of Crewe. The Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of All Ireland, performed the ceremony. Lady Annabel O'Neill later remarried and died in 1948.
O'Neill and his wife had five children; three boys and two girls. Their youngest child, Terence, was less than two months old at the time of his father's death. Their eldest son Shane succeeded his grandfather in the barony in 1928, while their third son Terence O'Neill was Prime Minister of Northern Ireland between 1963 and 1969.
Children: