You don't have to go to the other side of the world for a story. Sometimes you just potter around close to home, do some local mileage if you can find a good enough reason.
Not long ago this regular column appeared in our daily newspaper. It caught Herself’s eye, she ringed one of the snippets, said I should have a look at it, and yep, definitely seemed interesting. So I put it into my “Check This Out Later” file, where it promptly got buried by the traffic. Until last week.
Re-read it, definitely curious, so I went digging. Which led me on, and on, more and more curious. Don’t ever say there isn’t a story to be found in just about anything. But especially on cemetery headstones.
The story of “Old Joe O’Shea” goes like this...
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In South Australia’s capital city one Friday night, late in October 1954, an “...elderly man (was) found lying on the roadway at the corner of Wattle Street and Glen Osmond Road... after being struck by a car... (and he) died four hours after he had been admitted to Royal Adelaide Hospital with a fractured skull, two compound fractures of a leg and other injuries.”
(This has always been a busy intersection on the outskirts of town, on the main access road to the start of the Adelaide-Melbourne Interstate, thick with semi-trailers and local traffic, and I remember it also had trams in both directions up the middle of it in 1954. Bad enough for motorists, let alone pedestrians!)
So okay, this is a sad little piece, but it’s the fact that they said he was “...Patrick Joseph O’Shea... a hermit... and well-known Glen Osmond identity, who lived in a tunnel at Glen Osmond...” that got me sucked in. And another article went on...
“For at least 12 years O'Shea lived in and round the quarries in the foot hills. He was 62 and was known throughout the district as "Joe". He told people for whom he did odd jobs he was born in Vine Street, Glen Osmond, one of seven children. Some months ago a crazed New Australian usurped an old tunnel in which O'Shea was living. The New Australian defied police, and smoke bombs were used in unsuccessful attempts to drive him out. (The man) was eventually taken from the tunnel, conscious but violently ill, and died in Royal Adelaide Hospital.”
The “tunnel” they refer to – still there but closed - was one of three silver/lead mines that operated in Adelaide’s foothills in the 1840s, not far from where Joe was to meet his untimely end. And it may have been a fairly modest bit of real estate, but it had one of the best views of the city to be had anywhere!
Well sucked in, I checked back on this “usurping” of Old Joe’s tunnel, and found a full cover of the story in Oct 1953 in our (then) “NEWS” afternoon daily paper, under “TRAGIC END TO DUEL IN TUNNEL”, which begins...
“A crazed New Australian died early today after unsuccessful attempts to drive him from a tunnel hide-out at Glen Osmond with a smoke bomb. Police are now attempting to identify the man, who held them at bay for several hours by pelting them with stones.”
(‘New Australian’ was our quaint way of describing all non-British migrants back then, flooding in from the Continent in the Post-War Reconstruction period.)
Apparently Joe had left “home” that morning at about eight o’clock, to get on with some casual gardening work he did in the Glen Osmond area, but the “crazed” man had escaped the day before from what was then the nearby Parkside Mental Hospital, and holed up in Joe’s mine shaft. Not only that but he barricaded the mouth with boxthorn bushes, and refused to come out when the constabulary arrived, who’d been roused to action by locals concerned about the man’s “suspicious” activities.
Unresponsive to repeated orders to come out, they tried to rush him, but he drove them back with a sharpened stick and a volley or two of rocks. But, undeterred, a detective protected himself with the nearest thing at hand, which just happened to be Old Joe’s one and only cardboard suitcase, and had another go, which only managed to get Joe’s suitcase totalled from another volley of well aimed rocks.
Crazed Man 1 : Cops nil.
Crazed Man 1 : Cops nil.
So they brought in the Army! Tin hats and all. (Kid you not!) Who set about lobbing in a well placed phosphorous smoke grenade. And waited. And waited. (I’ve used these things when I did my Nasho and I can tell you they’re not to be messed with! How the hell this guy survived at all is beyond me).
It was at this point that Joe arrived back home.
"‘I got the biggest shock of my life when I saw all the smoke,’ he said. ‘I wondered what had gone wrong.’ O'Shea said he met a New Australian about three weeks ago and allowed him to sleep in his tunnel for the night. However, he did not think last night's New Australian was the same man.” (Presumably the news of Joe’s largesse had got out onto the New Australian network and this guy had factored Joe’s cave into his getaway plans.)
Anyway, the cops waited half an hour but by then it was a long way past their tea-time and they’d run out of patience so in they went, dragged out what was left of the poor sod, who was conscious but - not surprisingly - “violently ill”, and shipped him off to the Royal Adelaide. Where he lasted a whole 20 minutes. But I can’t find the outcome of the subsequent inquest.
So, no surprise then, a year later just about to the day, when poor old Joe was killed by a car on his way home, that the locals rallied to his cause, one writing to the editor of “The Advertiser”...
“Sir — To describe Patrick Joseph O'Shea, who died in the Royal Adelaide Hospital after having been found seriously injured on Glen Osmond road, as a 'hermit' is hardly fair. His father died when he was eight. His mother then sold newspapers at the Adelaide GPO corner, but her earnings were insufficient to support all her seven children, so Joseph became a ward of the State. He served in France during World War I, after suffering great privations for three days on a raft when a troopship was torpedoed. Joseph was hard working and willing. He will be missed by the people in the district who used to employ him for gardening and similar casual work. He lived in an old mining tunnel at Glen Osmond from choice. 'I like to be independent' was his explanation. He was a great lover of birds and animals. His only fault - if it can be so described — was his charity and good nature, for he would give food and shelter to every human derelict who sought it. It is to be hoped that the RSL will not allow this honest old Digger to be buried in a pauper's grave.”
And fair enough too.
So they quickly contacted the Adelaide RSL (Returned Serviceman’s League), but as no record of his service was available in South Aust, they whizzed off an urgent telegram to the Army Records Office in Canberra...
“PATRICK JOSEPH OSHEA DECEASED HAVE YOU SERVICE PARTICULARS AND IF SERVED OVERSEAS”.
...and written across it is “Reply RSL Adelaide. Your telegram 25th. One Patrick Joseph O’Shea served overseas as 642 20 Bn.” And in no time at all £251 was forthcoming from the Repatriation Department, the normal funeral grant for an ex soldier who had served in a war zone, with the Catholic Servicemen's Guild agreeing to pay the rest.
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So this “honest old Digger” was laid to rest in the West Terrace Cemetery’s Commonwealth War Graves with full military honours. As it should be...
“HILLS HERMIT BURIED - Friends At Old Joe’s Funeral
‘Old Joe’ O’Shea, who lived most of his last years alone in the hills at Glen Osmond, was buried today in the presence of unknown - probably unsuspected - friends. Three women and five men bowed their heads at his graveside in the AIF section of the West Terrace Cemetery. The service was conducted by Father O'Donohue. The hearse was followed to the cemetery by a lone car, driven by Mr. Pat Auld, secretary of the Catholic Ex-Servicmen's Catholic Association. Four wreaths from Glen Osmond residents rested on the coffin. They had been sent by people for whom Patrick Joseph O'Shea had done gardening and odd jobs over the years. One of the men who attended the funeral said afterwards - "I didn't know Patrick O'Shea, but I couldn't let a man go to his grave alone. By all reports, he was a good and kindly man. O'Shea, who served in the 20th Battalion AIF during World War I, was given an ex-serviceman's funeral. He died in Royal Adelaide Hospital last Friday after having been found lying injured on Glen Osmond Road.”
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We visited Joe’s grave not long ago, and yes, there he is...
In Memory of
No 642
Sgt PATRICK J O’SHEA
20th Btn AIF
Died At Adelaide
24th Oct 1954
Aged 62 Years
...lined up in regimental order with all of his fellow World War One diggers. Always a moving sight.
Then, wondering what sort of a war Old Joe had, I did a quick scan through his jacket in the Aust National Archives...
March 1915 – Enlisted, no civil convictions, religion RC, had done 3 years in the peacetime militia, 5ft-9in tall, 148 lbs (=10st 8lbs or 67 kgm), assigned B Coy, 20th Batt AIF.
May 1915 – Promoted to Corporal.
June 1915 – Embarked on the troopship “Berrima”.
Aug 1915 – Into the horrors of the Gallipoli Peninsula campaign.
Oct 1915 – Promoted to (temp) Sgt.
Jan 1916 – Transferred to Alexandria in Egypt, confirmed as Sgt.
Mar 1916 – Shipped to Marseilles, into the hell of the trenches at the Western Front near Armentieres, just below the Belgian border.
May 1916 – Reported missing in action, confirmed a POW at Dulmen Germany.
Sept 1916 – Transferred to POW camp near Minden Germany.
Apr 1918 – Trsferred to Holland for internment (where, later, he was “...reported by name...for exceptionally good work while interned...”
Jan 1919 – Transferred (in England) from 20th Batt (“ex POW”) to HQ Batt ready for demob.
July 1919 – Embarked ex England on “City Of Exeter” for Sydney.
Oct 1919 – discharged.
I couldn’t quickly find any account of a troopship he may have been on being torpedoed from under him, or being adrift for three days at sea on a raft, but I did find his POW records, which said he was born in Tamworth NSW in 1894. Not Adelaide in 1892. Odd, but maybe just a mixup somewhere?
So I went over his jacket contents in detail, found he enlisted in Liverpool NSW while living in Attunga NSW, next of kin was his mother Catherine, and he was discharged in Sydney. Not a single mention anywhere in his files of Adelaide or South Australia. Except for the copy of that 1954 telegram.
It was then I found a Repatriation Dept form letter that had written on it “O’Shea Patrick Joseph 642 Sgt, dob 1894” and “1914-18”, directed to Albert Park Army Barracks in Melbourne, asking for full service records, in what looks like an appplication for “benefits”. But it’s dated Sept 1960!
Then a handwritten letter from an Isobel O’Shea of East St Kilda Victoria, to the Albert Park Army Barracks Melbourne - “As a widow of an Anzac soldier I want to make application for the Anzac Medallion... who died 25/9/1960...” (and noted on it was “Sent”). And that one’s dated June 1967.
A quick whip through the Victorian cemetery records and sure enough, in Springvale Botanical Cemetery in St Kilda Victoria, is one Patrick Joseph O’Shea, who died 25/6/1960!
So, who the heck is “Old Joe”? Buried in the Commonwealth War Graves as some expense to the Repatriation Dept and the Catholic Servicemen's Guild. Inscribed on his headstone as No.642 Sgt Patrick J O’Shea 20th Batt AIF.
So, did some more digging.
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THIS is “Old Joe’s” actual story...
For starters Old Joe wasn’t a Catholic. Sgt O’Shea was, but Joe was a Protestant, as his parents were married in April 1892 at the Residence of the Protestant Revd EG Day, Pastor of “The Adelaide New Church” (a busy man, who actually did 166 marriages that year, more than any other in the colony). And his name wasn’t O’Shea but just Shea. And he wasn’t Patrick Joseph, but Joeseph Patrick! And his mother wasn’t Catherine but Mary.
Joseph Patrick Shea was born in inner Adelaide in Jan 1893, the eldest of the four surviving children (two of his siblings died before their first birthday) of Patrick Joseph and Mary nee O’Neil, and he lived all of his days in South Australia, seemingly only in and around Adelaide.
I don’t doubt that Joe could have lost his father early in life (although I can’t find a relevant death record), and that his mother “...sold newspapers at the Adelaide GPO corner, but her earnings were insufficient to support all her seven (actually four) children, so Joseph became a ward of the State...”, as Joe was in and out of trouble – of the police and magistrates variety - most of his life. All of it petty theft and vagrancy. Other than the New Year’s Day “unlawful assault” of Constable Goblet which cost Joe six quid.
But what about his serving in France? And the torpedo, and the raft at sea for three days? Well, Joe did actually enlist, in Jan 1916, at the Keswick Barracks Adelaide...
“D277 Joseph Patrick OSHEA (recorded with no apostrophe), born Adelaide, (he signed as both “Joe Shea” and also “Joe OShea”), age 23, Labourer, 5ft-4in, 126 lbs (=9 st or 57 kgm), no convictions(!), next of kin mother Mary O’Shea of Liza St Adelaide.”
So Joe WAS in the Army, for a whole five weeks. Not really enough time to do more than “...use oscene language and insolence to his superior officer...”, be fined five bob, and be discharged “...medically unfit but not through misconduct...”, but with an added note by the MO that implied Joe wasn’t really Army material and that he may have a tendency on occasions to tamper with the truth.
So, how did ‘Old Joe’ manage to finish up with a full military send-off with Sgt O’Shea’s headstone on top of him? A fairly simple combination of things really.
Best I can work out, Joe’s fairly colourful version of his war service – presumably done to help him get his casual gardening work among the affluent residents of Burnside – was swallowed whole by them. And somewhere along the way he’d taken to using, or simply accepting, the Irish “O’SHEA” spelling of his name, but his brief Army records are actually under “SHEA”. Then at the time of his death, everyone kept referring to him as – wrong way around - Patrick Joseph. No idea why.
So, with all the good intentions in the world, they passed this information on to the RSL, the RSL asked Army Records about Patrick Joseph O’Shea who’d served with the AIF in France, the records people grabbed the only file that lined up with this, didn’t question anything or look deeper into the paperwork, and zapped off confirmation! Job done! One can only wonder what the reaction was when Sgt O’Shea’s widow contacted them in 1960, looking for their standard financial burial support - “Hey, we’ve already paid for this old Digger once!”
But whether all of this was ever noticed by anyone or not, at least Sgt O’Shea is rightfully in the War Graves section of Springvale in Victoria. With exactly the same headstone as Joe.
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