OLD CASE RECALLED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 April 1941, Page 6

OLD CASE RECALLED

FIGHT TO CLEAR NAME. BRITISH MAJOR’S DEATH, Major William Augustus Adam, formerly of the sth Royal Irish Lancers, and a former Conservative M.P. for Woolwich, who fought the War Office for 30 years to clear his name, has died at the age of 72, states the “Evening Standard," London. In 1906 he and several other officers were asked to resign their commissions, and although he was removed from the strength of the regiment, he was appointed a staff officer at the War Office, a position he held until 1910.

In January of that year he was returned as M.P. for Woolwich, but he was defeated at the election in December. Major Adam had raised in Parliament the question of the officers having to resign, and be contended that that fact, and the revival of rumours concerning him. caused him to lose his I seat. Ho brought an action for libel against the late Sir Edward Ward, Permanent Secretary of the War Office, for publishing a letter about him, and after a six days' trial the jury awarded him £2OOO damages.

On appeal, the appeal judges decided that the occasion was privileged, and Major Adam lost his £2OOO. He took the case to the House of Lords, but the finding of the Court of Appeal was upheld.

Since 1910 Major Adam has brought his case to the notice of successive Prime Ministers and War Ministers, and the matter had been raised in both Houses of Parliament, but he never succeeded in having it reopened. He contended that the War Office took action because of information lodged by an informer. On one occasion he said he believed it had been reported to the War Office that ho owed money to a woman, and that that was the reason for the action. “I was engaged to the woman, a beautiful widow," he said, "but 1 had to break oft' the engagement when 1 became aware that she was an inebriate. Soon afterwards a rumour went round that I owed her money, and the rumour persisted, although I had a legal statement from her denying it." When the Duke of Northumberland ■raised Major Adam's case in the House of Lords in 1925, Viscount Haldane said that the War Office took the action they did because of a report by .Sir John French, the Commander-in-Chief, to the effect that the major would not make a good cavalry officer in the field.

In the same debate, however, Lord Allenby said that when Major Adam served under him his reports were “uniformly good." At the beginning of the last war, Major Adam volunteered his services, and he was on active service until 1917, when he retired.