Brian Desmond Hurst

Brian Desmond Hurst (12 February 1895 – 26 September 1986) was a Belfast-born film director. With over 30 films in his filmography, Hurst was Ireland's most prolific film director during the 20th century. He is perhaps best known for Scrooge (released abroad in the United States as A Christmas Carol), a film that frequently tops lists of classic Christmas movies.

Hurst was born Hans Hurst at 23, Ribble Street, Belfast into a working-class family. Hurst attended the New Road School, a public elementary school, on the junction of the Newtownards Road and Hemp Street in East Belfast.

Brian Desmond Hurst's father (Robert, senior) and brother (Robert, junior) were iron-workers in the Harland and Wolff shipyard. In August 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, Hurst enlisted as a private in the British Army and changed his name from Hans to Brian soon afterwards. He saw service with the 6th Battalion Royal Irish Rifles at the battle of Chunuk Bair in Gallipoli, the Balkans and the Middle East. At the battle of Chunuk Bair his regiment were "battle virgins when they were thrown into the Turkish machine gun fire for the first time on 10 August 1915". "They had set out a few hours before for the Chunuk Bair with twenty officers and over 700 men. Several stragglers and those who had lost their way returned to base in the hours that lay ahead but by the evening of 10 August the Hampshires and the Rifles had been broken in what amounted to a cruel massacre".

Hurst was interviewed by Punch magazine in 1969 and the article contained Hurst's quote "'I would fight for England against anybody except Ireland' he says, Why for England? 'Because an Englishman is worth twenty foreigners.' Why not against Ireland? 'Because an Irishman is worth fifty Englishmen.'" In the same article when commenting about his experiences of fighting at Gallipoli in a Battalion that was from a mixed religious background with recruiting offices in Belfast and Dublin, the article comments "Catholic-Protestant antagonism vanished in this holocaust".

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