William Robert Gregory (20 May 1881 – 23 January 1918)
/ref> was an Irish

flying ace A flying ace, fighter ace or air ace is a military aviator credited with shooting down five or more enemy aircraft during aerial combat. The exact number of aerial victories required to officially qualify as an ace is varied, but is usually co ...

who served as a fighter pilot with the

Royal Flying Corps "Through Adversity to the Stars" , colors = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = , decorations ...

during World War I. He was also an accomplished artist and cricket player. His death was memorialised in a series of poems by

W. B. Yeats William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...

Early life and family

The only child of

William Henry Gregory Sir William Henry Gregory PC (Ire) KCMG (13 July 1816 – 6 March 1892) was an Anglo-Irish writer and politician, who is now less remembered than his wife Augusta, Lady Gregory, the playwright, co-founder and Director of Dublin's Abbey Theatre, ...

and

Lady Gregory Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory (''née'' Persse; 15 March 1852 – 22 May 1932) was an Irish dramatist, folklorist and theatre manager. With William Butler Yeats and Edward Martyn, she co-founded the Irish Literary Theatre and the Abbey Theatre, ...

, an associate of

, Robert was born in County Galway in Ireland in May 1881. He grew up in the couple's houses in Ireland and England (

Coole Park Coole Park is a nature reserve of approximately located a few miles west of Gort, County Galway, Ireland. It is managed by the Irish National Parks & Wildlife Service, part of the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. The park is in ...

and London). He studied at Harrow,

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

and the

Slade School of Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

Obituary
/ref>

Sport

He excelled at

bowls Bowls, also known as lawn bowls or lawn bowling, is a sport in which the objective is to roll biased balls so that they stop close to a smaller ball called a "jack" or "kitty". It is played on a bowling green, which may be flat (for "flat-gre ...

boxing Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermined ...

horse riding Equestrianism (from Latin , , , 'horseman', 'horse'), commonly known as horse riding (Commonwealth English) or horseback riding (American English), includes the disciplines of riding, Driving (horse), driving, and Equestrian vaulting, vaulting ...

and

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

. He was good enough at cricket to play once for the

Ireland cricket team The Ireland cricket team represents all of Ireland in international cricket. The Irish Cricket Union, operating under the brand Cricket Ireland is the sport's governing body in Ireland, and organises the international team. Ireland participa ...

, taking 8/80 with his

leg spin Leg spin is a type of spin bowling in cricket. A leg spinner bowls right-arm with a wrist spin action. The leg spinner's normal delivery causes the ball to spin from right to left (from the bowler's perspective) when the ball bounces on the ...

bowling in a first-class match against

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

in 1912. He didn't score a run.Cricinfo profile
/ref> His bowling performance in that match remains the tenth best in all matches for Ireland and the fourth best in first-class cricket for Ireland. His

bowling average In cricket, a player's bowling average is the number of runs they have conceded per wicket taken. The lower the bowling average is, the better the bowler is performing. It is one of a number of statistics used to compare bowlers, commonly use ...

of 10.22 is the second best for Ireland in first-class cricket.

Art

An accomplished artist, he studied in London at the

Slade School of Fine Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

, eventually marrying another Slade student, Margaret Parry; his best-man was

Augustus John Augustus Edwin John (4 January 1878 – 31 October 1961) was a Welsh painter, draughtsman, and etcher. For a time he was considered the most important artist at work in Britain: Virginia Woolf remarked that by 1908 the era of John Singer Sarg ...

, who had assisted him in developing his style. He worked in Paris at the design studio of

Jacques Émile Blanche Ancient and noble French family names, Jacques, Jacq, or James are believed to originate from the Middle Ages in the historic northwest Brittany region in France, and have since spread around the world over the centuries. To date, there are over ...

, and had his own exhibition of paintings in

Chelsea Chelsea or Chelsey may refer to: Places Australia * Chelsea, Victoria Canada * Chelsea, Nova Scotia * Chelsea, Quebec United Kingdom * Chelsea, London, an area of London, bounded to the south by the River Thames ** Chelsea (UK Parliament consti ...

in 1914. He was also an illustrator for books and stage.

World War I

In 1915 Gregory joined the war effort, although he was now 34, and had three children. He briefly became a member of the 4th

Connaught Rangers The Connaught Rangers ("The Devil's Own") was an Irish line infantry regiment of the British Army formed by the amalgamation of the 88th Regiment of Foot (Connaught Rangers) (which formed the ''1st Battalion'') and the 94th Regiment of Foot (which ...

, but quickly transferred in 1916 to the

Royal Flying Corps "Through Adversity to the Stars" , colors = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = , decorations ...

. A fighter pilot, he eventually was credited with eight victories. His colleagues

Mick Mannock Edward Corringham "Mick" Mannock (24 May 1887 – 26 July 1918) was a British flying ace in the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force during the First World War. Mannock was a pioneer of fighter aircraft tactics in aerial warfare. At the time ...

and

George McElroy Captain George Edward Henry McElroy MC & Two Bars, DFC & Bar (14 May 1893 – 31 July 1918) was a leading Irish fighter pilot of the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force during World War I. He was credited with 47 aerial victories. Mili ...

, with many more victories, became much better known, but he was the first of the Irish pilots to achieve ace status in 40 Squadron RFC. France made him a Chevalier of the

Legion d'Honneur The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon B ...

in 1917, and he was awarded a

Military Cross The Military Cross (MC) is the third-level (second-level pre-1993) military decoration awarded to officers and (since 1993) other ranks of the British Armed Forces, and formerly awarded to officers of other Commonwealth countries. The MC i ...

for "conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty." He flew the

Royal Aircraft Factory R.E.8 The Royal Aircraft Factory R.E.8 was a British two-seat biplane reconnaissance and bomber aircraft of the First World War designed and produced at the Royal Aircraft Factory. It was also built under contract by Austin Motors, Daimler, Standar ...

, the French Nieuport, and, at the time of his death, the

Sopwith Camel The Sopwith Camel is a British First World War single-seat biplane fighter aircraft that was introduced on the Western Front in 1917. It was developed by the Sopwith Aviation Company as a successor to the Sopwith Pup and became one of the b ...

Death and legacy

He was killed in Italy at the age of 36. It has been commonly stated that he was the victim of "

friendly fire In military terminology, friendly fire or fratricide is an attack by belligerent or neutral forces on friendly troops while attempting to attack enemy/hostile targets. Examples include misidentifying the target as hostile, cross-fire while eng ...

", when an Italian pilot mistakenly shot him down; but other sources say it was a flying accident. In 2017, Geoffrey O'Byrne White, a director of the Irish Aviation Authority, great-grandnephew of Lady Gregory, and former pilot in the

Irish Air Corps "Watchful and Loyal" , colours = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = , equipment = , equipment_label = , battles = ''see list of wars'' , decorations = , battle_honours = , battle_honours_label = , fl ...

, said he believed Major Gregory had become incapacitated at high altitude, attributing this to an

inoculation Inoculation is the act of implanting a pathogen or other microorganism. It may refer to methods of artificially inducing immunity against various infectious diseases, or it may be used to describe the spreading of disease, as in "self-inoculati ...

for

influenza Influenza, commonly known as "the flu", is an infectious disease caused by influenza viruses. Symptoms range from mild to severe and often include fever, runny nose, sore throat, muscle pain, headache, coughing, and fatigue. These symptoms ...

. Robert's death had a lasting effect on W. B. Yeats, and he became the subject of four poems by him, although Lady Gregory is reported not to have agreed with all of their content."Major Robert Gregory, and the Irish Air Aces of 1917-18"
''

History Ireland ''History Ireland'' is a magazine with a focus on the history of Ireland. The first issue of the magazine appeared in Spring 1993. It went full-colour in 2004 and since 2005 it is published bi-monthly. It features articles by a range of writers ...

'', Issue 4 (Winter 2001), Volume 9, World War I. They are: In Memory of Major Robert Gregory,

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" is a poem by Irish poet William Butler Yeats (1865–1939), written in 1918 and first published in the Macmillan edition of ''The Wild Swans at Coole'' in 1919.Pierce 2000 p.274 The poem is a soliloquy give ...

, Shepherd and Goatherd, and Reprisals.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gregory, Robert 1881 births 1918 deaths Alumni of New College, Oxford Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art British Army personnel of World War I British military personnel killed in World War I Chevaliers of the Légion d'honneur Connaught Rangers officers Friendly fire incidents of World War I Irish Anglicans Irish artists Irish aviators Irish cricketers Irish World War I flying aces Military personnel killed by friendly fire People educated at Harrow School Recipients of the Military Cross Royal Flying Corps officers Sportspeople from County Galway