11/08/2026
What a great find & successful winning bid today at Mill Auctions.
VINTAGE FLAGS BELONGING TO LIEUTENANT COLONEL JAMES HANNA MCCORMICK ULSTER UNIONIST PARTY
James Hanna McCormick, DSO
(September 1875 - May 1955) was a professional soldier and Ulster Unionist Party politician.
McCormick was born in Belfast, Ireland to Thomas McCormick and Elizabeth Hanna McCormick. He self-described his religion as “Irish Protestant”. He moved to Canada in 1903, to take part in the colonisation of Lloydminster, Saskatchewan. By 1909, he had become the deputy mayor of Lloydminster, where he also owned 1,200 acres of land and worked as an estate auctioneer.
McCormick served in the Boer War in the Imperial Yeomanry and later joined the 22nd Saskatchewan Light Horse of the Canadian militia.
At the outbreak of the First World War, McCormick enlisted as a commissioned officer in the Canadian Expeditionary Force. As the deputy sheriff of Saskatchewan, he raised a band of men at his own expense - the Corps of Western Canadian Cowboys, nicknamed “McCormick’s Devils”. They joined the 197th Battalion (later absorbed into the 11th Battalion) and crossed the Atlantic in January 1917.
In August 1917, he led the 17th (City of Winnipeg) Battalion during the final assault on Lens. He won the Distinguished Service Order medal for his actions at Vimy Ridge. He had been recommended for the Victoria Cross and was wounded five times throughout the war. He returned to Canada in October 1919.
After the war, McCormick returned to Belfast to pursue a political career in the newly partitioned Northern Ireland.
Will be listed shortly.