Its first meeting was held on the 3rd of March, 1905, under the presidency of Colonel James McCalmont, M.P. for East Antrim.  The first ten members of the Standing Committee were nominated by Colonel Saunderson, M.P., as chairman of the Ulster Parliamentary Party.  They were, in addition to the chairman himself, the Duke of Abercorn, the Marquis of Londonderry, the Earl of Erne, the Earl of Ranfurly, Colonel James McCalmont, M.P., the Hon. R.T.  O’Neill, M.P., Mr. G. Wolff, M.P., Mr. J.B.  Lonsdale, M.P., and Mr. William Moore, K.C., M.P.  These nominations were confirmed by a ballot of the members of the Council, and twenty other members were elected forthwith to form the Standing Committee.  This first Executive Committee of the organisation which for the next fifteen years directed the policy of Ulster Unionism included several names that were from this time forward among the most prominent in the movement.  There were the two eminent Liberals, Mr. Thomas Sinclair and Mr. Thomas Andrews, and Mr. John Young, all three of whom were members of the Irish Privy Council; Colonel R.H.  Wallace, C.B., Mr. W.H.H.  Lyons, and Sir James Stronge, leaders of the Orangemen; Colonel Sharman-Crawford, Mr. E.M.  Archdale, Mr. W.J.  Allen, Mr. R.H.  Reade, and Sir William Ewart.  Among several “Unionist candidates for Ulster constituencies” who were at the same meeting co-opted to the Council, we find the names of Captain James Craig and Mr. Denis Henry, K.C.  The Duke of Abercorn accepted the position of President of the Council, and Mr. E.M.  Archdale was elected chairman of the Standing Committee.  Mr. T.H.  Gibson was appointed secretary.  In October 1906 the latter resigned his post owing to failing health, and, on the motion of Mr. William Moore, M.P., Mr. Richard Dawson Bates, a solicitor practising in Belfast, was “temporarily” appointed to fill the vacancy.  This temporary appointment was never formally made permanent, but no question in regard to the secretaryship was ever raised, for Mr. Bates performed the duties year after year to the complete satisfaction of everyone connected with the organisation, and in a manner that earned the gratitude of all Ulster Unionists.  The funds at the disposal of the Council in 1906 only enabled a salary of L100 a year to be paid to the secretary—­a salary that was purely nominal in the case of a professional gentleman of Mr. Bates’s standing; but the spirit in which he took up his duties was seen two years later, when it was found that out of this salary he had himself been paying for clerical assistance; and then, of course, this matter was properly adjusted, which the improved financial position of the Council happily rendered possible.