Hollywood, James
Company Quartermaster Sergeant
No. 17888, ‘A’ Company, 13th Battalion, Royal Irish Rifles
Second Lieutenant
12th Battalion, Royal Irish Rifles
Killed in action on Saturday 1 July 1916 (aged 23)
No known grave
Commemorated:
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Thiepval Memorial, France (Pier and Face 15 A)
Bangor and District War Memorial
Royal British Legion (Bangor Branch) Memorial Plaque
Comrades of the Great War (Bangor Branch) Album in North Down Museum
First Bangor Presbyterian Church
Helen’s Bay Presbyterian Church
Bangor Grammar School
Royal Belfast Academical Institution (RBAI)
Friend’s School Lisburn
Family grave headstone in Bangor Cemetery
Royal North of Ireland Yacht Club Memorial Plaque
Brother of Lieutenant Arthur Carson Hollywood
BIOGRAPHY
James Hollywood was born on 16 April 1893 at 139 Albertbridge Road, Belfast and he was a son of James and Elizabeth (Eliza, sometimes Lizzie) Hollywood (nee Carson) who were married on 17 April 1889 in St Patrick’s Church of Ireland, Church Ballymacarrett, Belfast. James Hollywood from 137 Albertbridge Road, Belfast was a son of David Hollywood, a manager. Eliza Carson from 63 Castlereagh Street, Belfast (born in Co Tyrone) was a daughter of Arthur Carson, a land-steward.
The Hollywood family moved from Belfast to Bayswater, Princetown Road, Bangor and later to Red Gorton, Helen’s Bay.
James Hollywood was a property broker and insurance agent and he and Elizabeth had four children:
David (born 5 October 1890 at 139 Albertbridge Road, Belfast; died 1 June 1953)
Arthur Carson (born 29 December 1891 at 139 Albertbridge Road, Belfast)
James (born 16 April 1893 at 139 Albertbridge Road, Belfast)
Gerald (born 30 March 1896 at 8 Castlereagh Avenue, Belfast)
Their father, James Hollywood, died on 20 June 1919 and their mother, Elizabeth Hollywood, died on 18 May 1942.
James Hollywood was educated at Bangor Grammar School, Friend’s School Lisburn and the Royal Belfast Academical Institution (RBAI). He spent a year in the Young Citizen Volunteers and six months in the Ulster Volunteer Force. He worked as an apprentice with Ross Brothers Linen Merchants in Linenhall Street, Belfast before he joined the 13th Battalion Royal Irish Rifles. He was appointed Company Quartermaster Sergeant on 14 October 1914 and was gazetted Second Lieutenant with the 18th Battalion Royal Irish Rifles on 5 May 1915. He was posted to France on 28 February 1916 with the 12th Battalion in 108th Brigade of the 36th (Ulster) Division.
Second Lieutenant James Hollywood was killed in action on 1 July 1916 during the attack at Thiepval Wood. His body was found later in the year by men of the 2nd Hants Regiment but was subsequently lost.
Brothers James and Arthur Hollywood died on the same day and the telegram announcing James’s death arrived with his parents one day before that announcing the death of his brother Arthur.
Second Lieutenant James Hollywood is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial in France; on Bangor and District War Memorial; in the Comrades of the Great War (Bangor Branch) Album in North Down Museum (Page 16); on the family grave headstone in Bangor Cemetery, Newtownards Road, Bangor and on the Memorials in the RBL Bangor Branch, First Bangor Presbyterian Church, Helen’s Bay Presbyterian Church, Bangor Grammar School, RBAI and Friend’s School Lisburn.
James Hollywood’s nephew, David Francis Apperson Hollywood, (younger son of David Hollywood) was 20 when he died in service during the Second World War, on 15 September 1943.