Alexander Stewart Roy

Alexander Stewart Roy (1897 - n.d.)

Date of letters

10 October 1915 - 17 January 1919

Number of letters

14

Regiments

14th Royal Irish Rifles (Y.C.V.) Young Citizen Volunteers (10 October 1915 - 17 January 1919)

Rank

Private/Rifleman

Regimental number
14/3755

Alexander Stewart Roy, usually referred to as Stewart, was born in Belfast on 8 August 1897 to parents John Roy and Annie McGreevy. Roy joined the staff of Belfast Public Libraries in September 1910 when he took up the post of Junior Assistant “as boy” in Ballymacarrett Library, following in the footsteps of another brother, John Roy, into the library service. In the 1911 Census, aged fourteen, his occupation is listed as Assistant Librarian. The family lived at Bentinck Street moving to Canning Street by 1911. Roy transferred to Oldpark Branch Library in 1912.

On 10 Feb 1915 Roy joined the 14th Royal Irish Rifles Young Citizen Volunteers (Y.C.V.). He was posted to France where he fought in the trenches. In a letter written at the end of the war he wrote that he had “got through the War, thank goodness, without a scratch”.

Roy resumed his duties on 3 March 1919 at Ballymacarrett Library but on 11 November 1919 he applied for a post in the King's Inns Library in Dublin. His reference for this post from Goldsbrough, the Chief Librarian, reads as follows.

‘Studies diligently for library association certificates (before and after war) and has assisted in the cataloguing of the branch library. He has a good knowledge of the library organisation and administration and also of the Dewey System of class. He is courteous in manner, most reliable in his work and he has given good satisfaction to those above him. I have much pleasure in …testimony to his fitness and ability for the position he now seeks.’

Oldpark Road Library. © National Museums Northern Ireland Collection Ulster Museum