Subject

St. Alban

Text

Sanctus Albanus

Inscription

In Mem: Capt. Osborne O'Hara

Description & History

Captain Osborne O'Hara was the first former student of Trinity College to be a casualty of the First World War: he died on 13 February 1915. It was also the first order that stained glass artist William Montgomery (1850-1927) received for a soldier memorial although it was not the first to be installed. On 16 April 1915, Montgomery wrote in a reply to a letter from Trinity's Warden, Dr. Alexander Leeper, 'I shall be very pleased to make a sketch for window under the conditions mentioned in your letter of 15th inst. If you do not mind I should prefer the St. Alban, & will, unless you wish otherwise, make him the subject of window'. The window depicting Britain's first proto-martyr was intended to be part of a comprehensive and appropriate cycle of window subjects that Montgomery promised to forward 'in the next week or so' for the Horsfall Chapel. An invoice for £56.7.0 was issued to the donor, Dr. O'Hara, on 27 September 1916 and paid in full by cheque on 3 October.

Osborne O'Hara was born in 1886, son of Dr. Henry Michael O'Hara of Melbourne and his second wife, Isabella Jane Osborne (d. 1887). He was a 2nd Lieutenant in Princess Victoria's (Royal Irish Fusiliers) Regiment in 1907 and became Lieutenant on 26 March 1913. He was killed in action on 13 February 1915 and is honoured on the Menin Gate Memorial, Ypres, Belgium.

References & Acknowledgements

Argus, 23 April 1915, p.9; Church of England Messenger, 4 June 1915, p.1788; 12 January 1917, p.8. Letterbooks 1/522 NGA Research Collection. Folio 96, Montgomery ledger William Montgomery Collection, State Library of Victoria. Mitchell, Ann M., 'O'Hara, Henry Michael (1853--921)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/ohara-henry-michael-7892/text13723, accessed 12 January 2012; http://desert-column.phpbb3now.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=105; http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead.aspx?cpage=1.