O'SULLIVAN, Horatio Eugene Augustus, Rev (1862-1939)
Assembly memorial minute, 1939
Mr. O’Sullivan was born on February 5, 1862, at Victoria, Hong Kong. His father was Admiral Mortimer O’Sullivan, then in command of the British squadron in China Seas. His mother, Helena de Smidt, was a descendant of an old Dutch governing family at the Cape of Good Hope. The Admiral was Roman Catholic, and the mother a member of the Dutch Reformed Church. Mother and son were with the Admiral when stationed in the West Indies. When the family came to live in Jersey, Channel Islands, Horatio was sent to the Anglo-French College in England. With Dutch as his mother-tongue, he had learned English as well, and had acquaintance with other languages. The Admiral was later engaged by Japan to assist in the forming and training of its Navy on the British model, and it was in Yokohama that he died.
Horatio went to sea as an apprentice in a liner trading with the West Indies. Transferring to Australian ships, he left the “Torrens” at Adelaide in 1881, being then a second mate. After three years in a warehouse, he became a teacher in the Education Department. He joined the Y.M.C.A., and was a member of it for fifty-five years. Open-air preaching led to evangelistic work in South Australia and Tasmania. With the development of the goldfields in Western Australia, the Home Mission Committee of the Victorian Presbyterian Church sent him to Kalgoorlie, where his work in Boulder City led to the building of St. George’s Church. He and his bicycle were familiar in the changing scenes of the goldfield towns.
Returning to Victoria, he began his training for the ministry in 1900. He was ordained at Mooroopna, and was subsequently in charge of Trafalgar, Yea, and Hampton. Having belonged to the volunteer forces in South Australia, he gladly availed himself of the opportunity for service in the Great War. He was Chaplain on the troopship “Hororata, ” and later on Salisbury Plains. On his retirement from the active ministry, he associated hilmself with St. Leonard’s, Brighton Beach, and became a member of the Kirk Session. Though seventy-seven years of age, he rode to church on a bicycle, and would be ready to welcome worshippers as they arrived. He died on April 17, 1939.
Testimonials from sea captains, school inspectors, the Y.M.C.A., the Orange Lodge and Christian organizations, tell of his energy, organizing ability, and evangelistic spirit.
The Assembly tenders its deep sympathy to his widow and his daughter.