For six generations the Andrews family has been prominent in the life of
Comber: that historic and prospering village, near Strangford Lough, on
the road from Belfast to Downpatrick: and in almost every generation
some one or other of the family has attained distinction. During the
eventful times of 1779-82, John Andrews raised and commanded a company
of Volunteers, in which his youngest son, James, served as Lieutenant.
Later, another John Andrews was High Sheriff of Down in 1857; and he
also it was who founded the firm of John Andrews & Co., which to-day
gives employment to some six hundred of the villagers. The present head
of the family, William Drennan Andrews, LL.D., was a Judge of the High
Court, Ireland, from 1882, and has been a Privy Councillor since 1897.
His brother, Thomas Andrews, is a man whose outstanding merits and
sterling character have won him an honoured place among Ulstermen. One
of the famous Recess Committee of 1895, he is President of the Ulster
Liberal Unionist Association, Chairman of the Belfast and County Down
Railway Company, a Privy Councillor, a Deputy Lieutenant of Down, High
Sheriff of the same county, and Chairman of its County Council. Two more
brothers, James and John, were Justices of the Peace. In 1870 Thomas
Andrews married Eliza Pirrie, a descendant of the Scotch Hamiltons, Lord
Pirrie's sister, and herself a woman of the noblest type.
To these, and of such excellent stock, was born, on February 7th, 1873,
a son, named after his father, and described in the family record as
Thomas Andrews of Dunallan. His eldest brother, John Miller, born in
1871, and his youngest brother, William, born in 1886, are now Managing
Directors of John Andrews & Co., Ltd., under the Chairmanship of their
father. A third brother, James, born in 1877, adopted the profession of
his distinguished uncle, and is now a barrister-at-law. His only sister,
Eliza Montgomery, married in 1906, Lawrence Arthur, the third son of
Jesse Hind, Esq., J.P., of Edwalton, Notts, and a solicitor of the
Supreme Court.
[Illustration: ARDARA, COMBER]
Tom was, we are told, "a healthy, energetic, bonny child, and grew
into a handsome, plucky and lovable boy." His home training was of the
wisest, and of a kind, one thinks, not commonly given to Ulster boys in
those more austere times of his youth. "No one," writes his brother
John, "knew better than Tom how much he owed to that healthy home life
in which we were brought up. We were never otherwise treated than with
more than kindness and devotion, and we learned the difference between
right and wrong rather by example than by precept." To Tom, his father,
then and always, was as an elder brother, full of understanding and
sympathy; nor did his mother, even to the end, seem to him other than a
sister whose life was as his own. He and his elder brother, John, were
inseparable comrades, there among the fields of Comber and in their
beautiful home, with its old lawn and gardens, its avenue winding past
banks of rhododendrons, the farm behind, outside the great mill humming
busily, and in front the gleam of Strangford Lough. Both father and
mother being advocates of temperance, encouraged their lads to abstain
from tobacco and strong drink; and to this end their good mother offered
to give a tempting prize to such of her sons as could on their
twenty-first birthday say they had so abstained. Tom, and each of his
brothers, not only claimed his prize but continued throughout life to
act upon the principles it signalised. Doubtless at times, being human
boys, they fell into mischief: but only once, their father states, was
bodily punishment given to either, and then, as fate willed it, he boxed
the ear of the wrong boy!
Quite early, young Tom, like many another lad, developed a fondness for
boats, and because of his manifest skill in the making of these he
gained among his friends the nickname of "Admiral." In other respects
also the man who was to be showed himself in the boy. He had a beautiful
way with children. He loved animals of every kind and had over them such
influence that they would follow him and come to his call. Still at
Ardara, in shelter of the hedge, you may see his nine hives of bees,
among which he used to spend many happy hours, and to which in later
times he devoted much of his hard-won leisure: once, his mother will
tell you, spending a whole winter's day--and a hunting day too!--carrying
his half-famished workers to and fro between hive and kitchen in his
cap. For horses he had a passion, and particularly for the Shetland pony
given to him one birthday. The fiercest brute yielded to his quiet
mastery; he never used whip or spur; and in time he was known as one of
the straightest and most fearless riders to hounds in County Down.
Until the age of eleven he was educated privately by a tutor, but in
September, 1884, he became a student at the Royal Academical
Institution, Belfast--the same institution through which, some years
previously, his father and his uncle, then Mr. Pirrie, had passed. There
he showed no special aptitudes, being fonder apparently of games than of
study, and not yet having developed those powers of industry for which,
soon, he became notable. In the Institution, however, was no more
popular boy, both with masters and schoolfellows. He excelled at
cricket, one is glad to know, and at all manly sports. Even then, we are
told, generosity and a fine sympathy were prominent traits in his
character. "He was always happy," writes a playmate, "even-tempered, and
showed a developing power of impressing everyone with his honesty and
simplicity of purpose." Wherever he went Tom carried his own sunshine.
All were fond of him. One can see him returning with his brother from
school, big, strong, well-favored, and perhaps with some premonition of
what the future had in store, lingering sometimes near the station
doorway to watch the great ships rising above the Island Yard close by
and to listen for a minute to the hammers beating some great vessel into
shape: and whilst he stands there, grave and thoughtful for a minute,
one may write here the judgment of his parents upon him, "He never
caused us a moment's anxiety in his life."