​Recalling two individuals who became collateral damage of the 1914 Larne gun smuggling escapade

In the early 1920s contemporaries, even strangers, wrote to Crawford to express the opinion that Northern Ireland would never have come into existence if it had not been for his success in landing the guns at Larne. Yet he remains little known a century later, principally because he fought shy of publicity and readily gave the credit to others.

This applied particularly to Captain Andy Agnew who had captained the arsenal-carrying Fanny, who – when the Ulster Unionist Council (UUC) at Craigavon House had suffered frostbitten feet while the cargo was on the high seas - had remained unfailingly faithful.

Crawford had sought small quantities of guns from Germany as early as January 1911. His preferred and trusted supplier was Bruno Spiro of Hamburg, who had established an arms and munitions company in 1864.

Eventually the UUC determined that one large shipment of rifles was the best option, and at the end of March 1914 Crawford travelled to Hamburg to meet Spiro, his secretary, Elsa Kanski, and shipping agent, Friedrich (Fritz) Schneider, who had travelled to Bergen with Crawford a couple of weeks earlier to purchase a boat.

It was a nervous meeting, as Spiro was well aware that in Germany, prison - unlike the verb - came at the start of a sentence. Crawford later wrote that Bruno Spiro’s name was one which ‘Ulster ought never to forget’.

Ultimately, the negotiations cost Ulster businessmen £62,500 for the purchase of rifles and ammunition, a steamer to transport the rifles, packing charges and miscellaneous costs.

The Belfast starch manufacturer was later to concede that, despite the euphoria and elation at successfully landing the rifles, he (and also Bruno Spiro) had found the entire episode incredibly stressful.

Two other individuals, however, were to become collateral damage - directly and indirectly - of the incidental events of the gun-running.

In mid-March 1914 along with Schneider and Andy Agnew (who was to captain the Fanny), Crawford travelled to Bergen in Norway to purchase a vessel to transport the rifles.

On March 18 he purchased the Fanny, a collier, from Erik Rusten, as long as he would quickly undertake some repairs and alterations. Crawford also engaged its crew - raising their wages - who included 66-year-old Captain Ole Marthin Falck.

Falck - who had been a sea captain for about forty years - had owned the collier for many years, but some bad cargoes had obliged him to sell it to Rusten. Crawford, nevertheless, believed that Falck’s expertise and intimate knowledge of the Baltic would be invaluable.

Crawford presented himself as an American, John Washington Graham, and it is likely that throughout the saga, this was the only name by which Falck knew the Belfast man. It was not the only deception proffered. The purchasers said that it would be primarily used for fishing off Iceland, but it was not long before Falck was disabused of this idea.

Crawford intended to load the rifles on to two barges at Hamburg and sail them down the Kiel Canal and transfer them surreptitiously to the Fanny. Crawford sought the Norwegian’s insight into the best location in the western Baltic to carry out such an operation.

Falck suggested that they would not be troubled off the island of Langeland. Crawford was intensely irritated that this proved a very poor choice, being observed from many quarters, but he did concede that, up to that point, Falck had not been made aware of the true cargo.

Captain Falck did not enjoy any of the escapade. He later wrote that ‘I never sailed with two such men [Crawford and Agnew] before in all my sea experience’. Crawford added: ‘I believe he never wanted to do so again’.

Close inspection by the Danish authorities encouraged Crawford to flee without the ship’s papers, which made its journey to the Irish Sea very unpredictable. Falck became distressed at the deception exercised upon him and the alterations made to his boat.

Through necessity, Crawford regularly changed the appearance of the vessel and renamed it on at least three occasions with the names of his daughters.

When the guns were eventually transferred on 19 April in the Irish Sea to the Clyde Valley, the Fanny was damaged when the boats were tied together. For all his inventiveness, the whole venture proved incredibly stressful, and at one point, probably suffering from malaria, Falck suggested that Crawford land for treatment. Crawford placed his .38 Colt revolver at Falck’s temple to explain that that was never going to happen. Letters and newspapers also revealed to Falck that, having fled illegally from Denmark, he was an unpopular figure at home for annoying a friendly neighbour.

On May 8, Crawford and his wife, Bruno Spiro, Andy Agnew and Falck sailed the Fanny to Hamburg. The crew was paid off with a bonus, and Falck received double his wages plus ‘£50 for worry and trouble’.

He was disappointed that the much-travelled boat was not gifted to him, and with all the relevant paperwork deposited in the German city shortly before the outbreak of war, despite all his subsequent efforts Falck was never able to repatriate his former vessel. It lay in Hamburg very much the worse for wear, leaking and in need of regular pumping, and requiring a new boiler.

Falck received 750 marks in July 1914 and a further £75 in January 1915, but he was a ruined man. Else Kanski wrote to Belfast to say that ‘He talked always about having lost his character or his honour and so on’.

The Norwegian never saw ‘John Washington Graham’ again, even when he arrived in Belfast in March 1915. On March 5 he arrived at the Royal Avenue offices of solicitor Alexander McDowell and was given a cheque for £50, but sixty per cent of that was taken up with his travel expenses. He requested an advance to transfer the Fanny to Scandinavia, but the inability to source the mortgage papers made it impossible to move it.

Captain Falck was a married man who, in addition to a son (born in Havana), had to support three daughters who never married. On September 18, 1922 the 75-year-old wrote from Norway to Alexander McDowell to explain his destitution ‘as a consequence of the disastrous Fanny affair’.

Pointing out that he was too old to go to sea again, and claiming that ‘Messrs [sic] Graham’ had promised to help if his circumstances required it, he outlined:

"The fact is that the Fanny affair actually brought me to the brink of ruin and it was only by mortgaging my home and my life policy of Kr. 10.000 (equal to about £400) that I have so far been able to hold the position. However, not being able to do so any longer, the position now is that I have nothing else to do but to leave my home for debts, which have now run up to Kr. 30823.53, as you will see from the enclosed statement from the bank.

“Properties having fallen considerably in value in the last couple of years, I do not think that my home would reach a higher price now than round about Kr. 12000 (about £500) at an official sale and, referring to Messrs Grahams' promise to me at that time, I sincerely hope that they will now kindly give me some assistance.”

The evidence suggests that, as ever, Fred Crawford, suggested the honourable path, and the failing captain received £1,250. He died on February 13, 1925 and is buried in Fjaere with his wife, Anna Ovidia (who died in 1941), and his son Ole. His three daughters are buried beside them. [I would like to thank Trine Bogenes of Fjaere for her appreciated help in this matter].

The second victim of this episode was the most successful Belfast businessman, twice former Lord Mayor, Sir Otto Jaffé. There is a strong possibility that, because Hamburg was his native city, and that he retained strong familial and commercial links with Germany, he was the individual who had recommended Bruno Spiro as a supplier of hardware.

His generosity to Belfast was legendary and, although it is impossible to prove, he was probably one of the most liberal donors towards the cost of the enterprise.

In spite of this, when the war broke out in August 1914, because of his maintained German associations and his pronounced German accent, in spite of the fact that he had given up his German citizenship in 1888 and had become a British citizen, he was hounded out of Belfast in 1916 as a result of an orchestrated campaign by the closet anti-semite, Sir Robert Kennedy of Cultra Manor.

He was backed by Belfast High Street solicitor, Herbert T Whitaker.

Both the latter and Jaffé died on April 29, 1929. Sir Otto gained some revenge by outliving Whitaker by a mere 12 hours.

Keith Haines is the former Head of History and Archivist at Campbell College in Belfast where he taught ‘A’ level Medieval History. Born in Scarborough and raised in Reading, he has lived in Belfast for 52 years. His principal interest is researching and writing about Irish characters who are little known or unknown but who have achieved something interesting and worthwhile.

In pursuit of this he has travelled to Iran and India on six occasions. His publications include Fred Crawford Carson’s Gunrunner, The Persian Interpreter: the life and career of Turner Macan and, most recently, a history of 19 th century Glenarm: Glenarm and Jane, Countess of Antrim.