
The first Member of Parliament to be killed in action during the First World War was Captain Arthur O’Neill. Captain Thomas Phillips from Ahoghill, a Campbell and Queen’s educated medic, who was born in Damascus and William Davison with family links to Castledawson, Portrush, Belfast, and Bangor, serving with Canadian Infantry, also died on this day in 1914. In 1918 Stewart Agnew from Upperlands died serving with the New Zealand Rifle Brigade. In 1943 Edwin Toole, a Royal Canadian Air Force Sergeant from Belfast, died over Serbia near Belgrade. Geoffrey Reay is remembered on QUB WM and Portora Royal School RH. He was on one of three bombers lost over northern Germany in 1944. He was 21 years old. Photo – Recruiting office in Clifton Street, Belfast during WW2.