Erskine Childers
1870–1922 · British-born; Irish public life
The Civil Servant Who Knew the Sea
Robert Erskine Childers was born in London in 1870 and studied classics and law at Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1895 he became a House of Commons clerk; he served in the South African War during a period away from the post. Sailing remained central to his life. Voyages along German and Danish coasts informed The Riddle of the Sands (1903), an espionage novel about preparations for an invasion of England.
Childers’s politics changed sharply over the next decade. In 1914 he sailed the Asgard to Ireland with arms for the Irish Volunteers. He supported Irish independence, took part in the negotiations around the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, and opposed the settlement when it divided the nationalist movement. During the Civil War he was arrested for carrying a pistol, tried by military court, and executed in Dublin on 24 November 1922. The weapon had been given to him by Michael Collins, once his ally.
His papers, now held in several archives, include yachting journals, political drafts and family material. They preserve the linked course of his writing, sailing and political work.