Refused to be Members of the Second Dáil - Julia McMordie

Julia McMordie - Middle Center Right

Julia McMordie CBE (1860–1942) was an Ulster Unionist Party politician.

McMordie was the daughter of Sir William Gray, of Hartlepool, County Durham. A Presbyterian, she was educated at Chislehurst, Kent. On 21 May 1886, she married prominent Belfast barrister Robert James McMordie; the couple made their home at Cabin Hill, The Knock, Belfast.

When the Officers returned from service with the Forces in World War 1, they decided that new headquarters were needed: the Troop had the use of Lomond Avenue schoolroom on only one night a week. A building at 12 Parkgate Avenue was rented instead. It was almost derelict to begin with, needing structural repairs as well as painting and decorating, but it was ready for the official opening by the Troop’s President, Julia McMordie, in October 1919. It was soon in use every night of the week.

In 1921, she was one of two women elected to the first Parliament of Northern Ireland, she represented South Belfast. She did not stand for re-election in 1925.

In October 1926, a purpose-built headquarters began to take shape in Oakland Avenue. That the project went ahead at all, despite the economic problems afflicting Belfast at the time, can be attributed to two people: Julia McMordie and Sydney Hanna.

Mrs McMordie, well known in Belfast for her philanthropic work, donated £500 towards the total cost of £1,200 and the headquarters were named after her.

Assistant Scoutmaster and treasurer Sydney Hanna, by now a prominent Belfast jeweller, organised fundraising dances and whist drives and bazaars. He shouldered the financial responsibility from 1923 through the Depression Years to 1934, when the overdraft was finally cleared. The official opening on 19 February 1927 was performed by the first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Viscount Craigavon.

In 1925, McMordie moved to East Cliff, Budleigh Salterton, Devon, in order to be near her family (a son and daughter). She was the first female High Sheriff of Belfast (in 1928).

She died, in 1942, at her daughter's home in King's Cliffe, Oundle.