OLDKNOW, Joseph (son of Octavius Oldknow mayor of Nottingham). b. Nottingham 16 March 1809; educ. Christ’s coll. Camb., B.A. 1831, M.A. 1835; D.D. of Hartford univ. U.S. of America 1857; V. of Holy Trinity, Bordesley, Birmingham 1841 to death; leader of high church party in Birmingham, established daily services and the observance of saints’ day 1841; he was libelled by marks put on the copper coins, such as ‘Oldknow is a papist and has pay from Rome,’ others were marked ‘No surplice,’ and such coins were at times thrown through the windows into the church during service time; the first in Birmingham to establish early weekly communion and harvest festivals; author of The catholic church, its nature, constitution and privileges 1839; A letter on the relations of the church of England to the church of Rome and the protestant bodies 1848; A month in Portugal 1855; The validity of the holy orders in the church of England 1857; Anti-ritual proceedings, a letter to the clergy of the rural deanery of Birmingham 1866; Sermons on various points of doctrine and practice 1868; and with A. D. Crake The priest’s book of private devotion 1872, 4 ed. 1891. d. Birmingham 3 Sept. 1874. bur. Holy Trinity churchyard. Guide to the church congress (1883) 54–5.
O’LEARY, Daniel Florence. Served in the war of Colombian independence, general of brigade; aide-de-camp to general Bolivar 1819–27; British consul at Puerto Cabello 11 Aug. 1841; chargé d’ affaires and consul general in New Granada 28 Nov. 1843 to death. d. 24 Feb. 1854.
O’LEARY, Ellen (dau. of a shopkeeper). b. Tipperary 1831; contributed verse to The Commercial journal, The Irishman, The Shamrock, and to the Irish People newspaper Nov. 1863 to 15 Sept. 1865, when the paper was seized by the government; assisted James Stephens, chief organiser of the Irish republic, in directing the affairs of the Fenian organisation; raised £200 on a mortgage of her property to help Stephens to escape from Ireland 1866; resided in Tipperary 1866–85, and with her brother John O’Leary in Dublin from 1885. d. Cork 16 Oct. 1889. Ellen O’Leary’s Lays of country, home and friends (1891) portrait; A. H. Miles’ Poets of the century (1893) 449–58; Irish Monthly xvii 83–94 (1889); Academy xl 70 (1891).
O’LEARY, William Hagerty (son of Thomas O’Leary of Charleston road, co. Dublin). b. 16 June 1839; educ. catholic univ. Ireland, gold medallist; L.R.C.S. Ireland 1861, F.R.C.S. Ireland 1871; professor of anatomy and physiology at Sedwick school of medicine 1872–4; surgeon to St. Vincent’s hospital, Dublin to 1874; M.P. Drogheda 5 Feb. 1874 to death; wrote on Original researches on the sources of animal heat; New theory on the functions of iron in the blood; Food, its relation to animal heat and muscular motion; received a treasury grant to assist him in prosecuting investigations in scientific philosophy. d. 1 Cottage green, Camberwell, London 15 Feb. 1880.
OLIPHANT, Sir Anthony (3 son of Ebenezer Oliphant of Condie, Perth, d. 1807). b. Condie 1793; educ. Hyde Abbey school; advocate Edinburgh; barrister L.I. 6 Feb. 1821; attorney general, Cape of Good Hope 1826–38; chief justice of Ceylon 22 Oct. 1838, retired on a pension 1855; knighted by patent 7 Aug. 1839; C.B. 27 April 1848. d. London 9 March 1859. Gent. Mag. vi 429 (1859).
OLIPHANT, Francis Romano (younger son of the succeeding). b. Rome Oct.-Dec. 1859; educ. Eton, at Balliol coll. Oxf. and at New Inn hall; B.A. 1883; assistant to R. R. Holmes in the royal library at Windsor castle; contributed frequently to The Spectator and other periodicals; assisted his mother M. O. Oliphant in the preparation of her Victorian age of literature 1892; author of Notes of a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Holy Land 1891. d. about 4 Oct. 1894. Times 5 Oct. 1894 p. 3, 13 Oct. p. 6.
Note.—His elder brother Cyril Francis Oliphant, b. 1856, educ. Balliol coll. Oxf., B.A. 1883, published in 1890 in the Foreign classics series A biography and criticism of the work of Alfred de Musset, he d. 1890.
OLIPHANT, Francis Wilson (son of Thomas Oliphant of Edinburgh). b. Newcastle 31 Aug. 1818; educ. Edinburgh academy of art; designer of painted glass in the works of Messrs. Wailes of Newcastle; worked with Welby Pugin in London, especially upon the painted windows in new houses of parliament; sent in a cartoon to the competition for the decoration of Westminster Hall; exhibited the Prodigal son nearing home and 4 other pictures at R.A. 1849–55; produced the windows in the ante-chapel of King’s college, Cambridge, those in the chancel of Aylesbury church, and designed the famous choristers’ window in Ely cathedral; author of A plea for painted glass 1855. d. Rome Oct. 1859.
OLIPHANT, Henry William. b. 1822; connected with Drury lane theatre 1842–46; edited Weekly Despatch; edited Sunday Times to death; resided 8 Brigstock road, Croydon. d. Clapham, London 5 March 1882. bur. Highgate cemet. 10 March.
OLIPHANT, Laurence (only child of sir Anthony Oliphant 1793–1859). b. Capetown 1829; private secretary to his father in Ceylon 1848; called to the bar in Ceylon; barrister Lincoln’s Inn 30 April 1855; secretary to lord Elgin during negotiation at Washington of reciprocity treaty with Canada 1854; superintendent of Indian affairs at Quebec 1854; went to the Crimea with lord Stratford de Redcliffe 1855; joined the force under Omar Pasha, present at battle of the Ingour 6 Nov. 1855, was correspondent of The Times during this expedition; a candidate for Stirling 1855; private secretary to lord Elgin in China and Japan 1857–9; first secretary of legation in Japan, arrived at Yeddo June 1861, severely wounded by a Japanese 5 July, returned to England; started with sir Algernon Borthwick and others a journal called The Owl 1864, contributed to the first ten numbers; M.P. the Stirling burghs 13 July 1865 to April 1868; joined the community of The Brotherhood of the New Life, of which Thomas Lake Harris was the leader, at Brockton Junction or Salem-on-Erie, Chautauqua county, United States of America 1867, where he gave all his money to the community and was employed in very menial occupations; Times correspondent in the Franco-German war 1870–71; m. June 1872 at St. George’s, Hanover sq. London, Alice, dau. of Henry le Strange of Hunstanton, Norfolk (she d. at Haifa, Syria 2 Jany. 1886 aged 40), returned with his wife and mother to Brockton by Harris’s orders 1873; recovered his land at Brockton by legal proceedings from Harris May 1881; resided a great deal at Mount Carmel, Palestine from 1882; m. (2) at Malvern 16 Aug. 1888 Rosamond Dale, dau. of Robert Dale Owen; author of A journey to Khatmandu 1852; The Russian shores of the Black Sea 1853; The Trans-Caucasian campaign under Omar Pasha, a personal narrative 1856; Narrative of the Earl of Elgin’s mission to China and Japan in the years 1857–8–9, 2 vols. 1859; Patriots and filibusters incidents of political and exploratory travel 1860; Universal suffrage and Napoleon the Third 1860; Piccadilly, a fragment of contemporary biography 1870, 5 ed. 1874; The land of Gilead with excursions in the Lebanon 1880; The land of Khemi, up and down the Middle Nile 1882; Traits and travesties 1882; Altiora Peto, 2 vols. 1883; Massollam, 3 vols. 1886; Episodes in a life of adventure 1887; Fashionable philosophy 1887; The star in the east 1887; Scientific religion 1888; author with Alice Oliphant of Sympneumata 1885. d. at residence of sir M. G. Duff, York house, Richmond road, Twickenham 23 Dec. 1888. M. O. W. Oliphant’s Memoir of Laurence Oliphant and of Alice, his wife, 2 vols. (1891) with portraits; L. Liesching’s Personal reminiscences of L. Oliphant (1891); R. Mac Cully’s Brotherhood of the new life (1893) 146–61; The Times 21 Jany. 1886 p. 7, 23 Jany. p. 10.