On 20 November 2018, sisters Lady Maureen Semple and Ruth Armstrong visited the MBTG project to hear more about their uncle, Robert Wallace McConnell, one of our Men Behind the Glass.
Robert was the son of the late Rev. James McConnell and Annie Duffield McConnell (nee Gibson), of "Ulidia" Holywood Rd., Belfast. He entered Campbell College in September 1906, later progressing to Queen's University Belfast. Commissioned in February 1915, Robert was gazetted as a 2nd Lieutenant to the 10th Battalion, King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment. He served at Gallipoli and then was deployed to modern day Iraq as part of the force to relieve General Townshend, besieged at Kut. Robert was killed in action on 9th April 1916.
Robert was the central character in the primary school drama outreach programme of the MBTG project. Creative workshops were held in nine local schools to introduce children to the MBTG project, consider what life was like at an Edwardian school one hundred years ago and discover the subject of the First World War. Children explored these subjects through the school life and military career of Robert, who was played by an actor. For more information on the workshops go here: https://menbehindtheglass.co.uk/our-story/men-behind-the-glass-time-traveller-drama-workshops
