October 1900 saw William Henry Pick, occupation listed as a “gentleman”, up before the Dublin Police Court. Pick, who resided at 21 Kenilworth Square in Rathgar, was charged with being a “dangerous lunatic” and committed to Richmond Asylum.
Nenagh Guardian, 17 October 1900
It transpired that the previous Saturday Pick had stabbed a policeman, a local man and made an attempt to attack another police officer with a sword.
Patrick Strahan, a car driver living in nearby 22 Charlemont Place, was at his car-stand when he saw Pick running up South Richmond Street. With a sword drawn, and with no apparent provocation, he made for a Constable Whitney and stabbed him in the left arm.
Strahan had made an attempt to stop Pick, apparently asking him “what he was going to do” with his weapon. Pick responded by stabbing Strahan in the hip with the sword, inflicting a wound of an inch and half deep. Pick then made a run for it, down South Richmond Street and towards the city centre.
Nearby Constable John Walsh chased Pick, jumping on a passing tram car to catch up with him. He managed to knock him down from behind but not before Pick “made a thrust of his sword” at Walsh. Luckily, the blade only grazed his tunic.
Portobello Bridge with South Richmond Street to the left. Credit – http://www.property.ie
Strahan and Whitney, the two wounded men, were treated for their injuries in the Adelaide Hospital but both survived.
William Henry Pick was declared insane and committed to the Richmond Lunatic Asylum. It is not known whether he was ever released.
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In 1901, there were only 11 people with the surname Pick living in Ireland – none in Dublin. However, that year in Kenilworth Square there was a family by the name of ‘Pic’ living in number 214. Here is their census form.
George Vesian Pic (De Nogart), aged 29 was living in the house with his younger sisters Marie Gertrude and Jessie Adelaide. All were Church of Ireland and had been born in Offaly. The family employed a domestic servant from Carlow by the name of Lizzie Curry. George listed his profession as a Lieutenant in the ’4th Royal Irish’ Regiment.
It can be safely assumed that William Henry Pick (sic) was the sibling of George, Marie and Jessie of Kenilworth Square.
The Irish Times of 23 February 1901 announced that ‘Lieut Vesian de Nogart’, an invalid officer from the West African Regiment, arrived in Dublin on board the ship Biafra from Ashanti, a “pre-colonial West African state in what is now Ghana”. The same paper, the following March, reveals that he leaves the city from Kingstown (Dun Laoghaire). George was later attached to the The Prince of Wales’s North Staffordshire Regiment according to The National Archives and then the India Audit Office in the 1920s according to The London Gazzette.
Refs: The Irish Times 15 October 1900; Nenagh Guardian 17 October 1900
