ROSS MONUMENT,

The Department's description

Historical information

This monument was erected in 1826 to the memory of Major General Robert Ross (1766-1814). Ross was a member of the locally prominent gentry family of Rostrevor House who distinguished himself as a soldier during the Napoleonic Wars. By 1812 he had risen to the rank of Major General and two years later was sent to the United States, (which by that date had also declared war on Britain), with orders ‘to effect a diversion on the coasts of the United States of America in favour of the army employed in the defence of Upper and Lower Canada’. In August 1814 Ross and his troops routed an American force at Bladensburg, Maryland, and from there marched on to attack the relatively recently established - and largely undefended - US capital of Washington, where they burnt the Capitol Building, the Library of Congress and the Executive mansion – the original ‘White House’. He followed this up in September by raiding Baltimore, but unlike Washington, this city was better garrisoned, thus his forces were repulsed and the Major General himself shot during the fighting, dying from his wounds shortly afterwards.

A memorial to Ross was installed in St Paul’s Cathedral in London in 1821, but as early as 1815 Roger Hall of Narrow Water had been in correspondence with architect Richard Morrison about plans for a suitable monument in or close to Ross’s native Rostrevor. The finished design, which commenced building at some point in or after 1821, is thought to have been the work of Richard’s son and collaborator, William Vitruvius Morrison, with the construction overseen by fellow architect Thomas Duff of Newry, although the 1836 OS Memoirs refers to Henry Hamilton of nearby Carpenham as the designer. This same source also states that the whole project cost £2,000, a sum raised by subscription. Part of this money was probably spent on the small picturesque style caretaker’s lodge that stood at the south-western corner of the site, but which was removed in the 1970s when the road was widened.

A major restoration scheme was carried out in 2008.

References - Primary sources
1 PRONI D2004 Ross of Bladensburg Papers (1684-1940)
2 PRONI MIC498 (1814-96)
3 ‘Newry Telegraph’, 2 January 1821
4 ‘Saunders’s News-Letter’, 21 November 1821
5 Day, Angelique and McWilliams, Patrick ed. ‘Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland…vol.3’ (QUB, 1990), p.35 (1835-36)

Secondary sources
6 W. A. Maguire,”Major General Ross and the Burning of Washington” in ‘Irish Sword: The Journal of the Military History Society of Ireland’, vol. 14 (Winter 1980), pp. 117-28
7 Dictionary of Irish Architects [https://www.dia.ie accessed 2020.05.19]
8 Smith, Philip, ‘The Buildings of South County Down’, (Belfast, UAHS, 2019)