James Green Douglas
James
Green Douglas (11 July 1887 – 16 September 1954) was an Irish
nationalist active in the Irish White Cross from 1920 to 1922. He
was appointed by Michael Collins as chairman of the committee to
draft the Irish Free State Constitution following the Irish War of
Independence.
An Irish senator and businessman, he was born
in Dublin, the first son and the first of nine children of John
Douglas (1861–1931), originally of Grange, co. Tyrone, who owned an
outfitter's and drapery business at 17–19a Wexford Street, Dublin,
and his wife, Emily (1864–1933), daughter of John and Mary Mitton of
Gortin, Coalisland, co. Tyrone. His parents were both Irish, and the
Douglas family, consistently Quaker, can be traced through the male
line to Samuel Douglas of Coolhill, Killyman, co. Tyrone.
Raised in a strict Quaker household, James G. Douglas attended the
Quaker elementary school of Gertrude Webb at Rathgar, and in 1898
entered the Friends' school at Lisburn as a boarder. In 1902, aged
fifteen, he commenced a three-year apprenticeship in his father's
shop, and also embarked on a radical course of self-education and
reading, spending evenings in the National Library of Ireland.
Douglas was, during 1905, the honorary secretary of the recently
formed Young Friends' Association, and service in the Quaker
community provided useful administrative experience. An interest in
Irish politics led him to join the parliamentary debating society
that met once a week in the Imperial Hotel. Already favourable to
Irish home rule, he hoped for a peaceful settlement between Britain
and Ireland.
On 14 February 1911, at the Eustace Street
Quaker meeting-house, Dublin, Douglas married Georgina (Ena) Culley
(1883–1959), originally of Tirsogue, Lurgan, co. Armagh, who had
been a fellow apprentice. They lived first at Hannaville Park,
Terenure, and later moved to St Kevin's Park. Their children were
John Harold Douglas (1912–1982) and James Arthur Douglas
(1915–1990). In 1914 James G. Douglas visited the USA as a
representative of the Young Friends, a visit that formed a basis for
his appreciation and understanding of American Quakers.
During the Easter rising of 1916 Douglas and his family assisted in
the provision of relief, but refused any military protection.
Opposed to the use of force, Douglas developed an understanding
sympathy for the ideals of its executed leaders. During 1918 he was
the Quaker chaplain at Mountjoy gaol, and visited English
conscientious objectors imprisoned there.
Douglas was seen as
a positively neutral person in a politically mistrustful world, and
when an American relief committee was set up to assist victims of
the Black and Tan outrages, $5000 was sent to him by Hollingsworth
Wood, an American Quaker, which led to the foundation of the Irish
White Cross. This organization was supported by the Sinn Féin
leadership and by practically all the Irish churches, and between
1920 and 1922 Douglas was its central administrative figure. Through
it he befriended Michael Collins, who became guarantor for its
non-political aims.
Much trusted by Collins, Douglas was
nominated as a member of the committee that met in 1922 to draft the
free state constitution. In the same year he was chairman of the
postal commission, which reorganized the public communications
services. In December 1922 Douglas was elected by members of the
Dáil to serve in the first senate, where he was seen as an authority
on constitutional law, and was its ‘vice-chairman’ from 1922 to
1925.
In the new state Douglas was a voice for moderation,
pragmatism, and peace. In 1924–5, during the discussion on
legislative provisions for divorce, he played a significant part. A
man of strict integrity, he was sometimes subject to deliberate
misrepresentation, or misunderstanding unbelief. As a practical
administrator, accuracy and truth rather than inflammatory rhetoric
were his tools in the advancement and defence of the senate.
When De Valera's 1937 constitution was introduced, Douglas's advice
was a powerful persuasive to its recognition of other churches in
addition to the Roman Catholic church. Under that new constitution
he was returned as a senator, and continued until his defeat in the
1943 election. Subsequently, he joined the Fine Gael party and was
re-elected to the senate during 1944 to 1948, being nominated by the
taoiseach after that.
Douglas took an enlarged view of
Ireland's place in the world, and his speeches on external affairs
had an unusual quality of statesmanship. Support for international
institutions and the rule of law was signalled in his presidency of
the League of Nations Society of Ireland, and his membership of the
Irish Institute of International Affairs. In 1934 he represented
Ireland at the International Labour Conference in Geneva. He also
represented his country at inter-parliamentary conferences in
Copenhagen, Brussels, Rome, and Oslo, and at the congress of Europe
in 1948.
Douglas was prominent in Irish commercial life. He
took over the family's drapery business on the death of his father
in 1931, was a founder of the National Land Bank, a president of the
Linen and Cotton Manufacturers' Association, and a member of the
council of the Federated Union of Employers. Resident at Herbert
Park, Ballsbridge, he died of heart failure at 96 Lower Leeson
Street, Dublin, on 16 September 1954 and was buried on the 18th at
the Friends' burial ground, Temple Hill, Blackrock, Dublin. At his
funeral he was described as a ‘man of independent mind … never
subservient … ever mindful of the right of the individual against
the state or against the party. His charity knew no bounds of
religion, or party or nationality’ (Irish Times, 17 Sept 1954).
See also:
• Douglas families in
Lurgan
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