Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/63

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O'Halloran
57
O'Halloran

came a major-general on 10 Jan. 1837. He was made K.C.B. in 1837, and G.C.B. in 1841. He became a member of the Royal Asiatic Society of London in 1836, was chosen an honorary member of the Royal Irish Academy in 1838, and received the freedom of his native city (Limerick) on 25 Feb. the same year. He died at his residence in Connaught Terrace, Hyde Park, London, on 3 Nov. 1843, from the effects of a street accident, causing fracture of the neck of the thigh-bone. He was buried in the catacombs at Kensal Green cemetery, immediately beneath the chapel. A memorial tablet was placed in the wall of the south cloister.

O'Halloran married, in 1790, Frances, daughter of Colonel Nicholas Bayley, M.P., of Redhill, Surrey, late of the 1st foot-guards and brother of the first Earl of Uxbridge, by whom he had a large family. His second son, Thomas Shuldham O'Halloran, is noticed separately.

His sixth son, William Littlejohn O'Halloran (1806-1885), born at Berhampore on 5 May 1806, came to England in 1811, and on 11 Jan. 1824 received a commission as ensign in the 14th foot, which corps he joined at Meerut. He served with his regiment at the siege and storm of Bhurtpore (medal) in 1825-6, obtaining his lieutenancy in action. In April 1827 he exchanged into the 38th regiment; served on the staff of his father at Saugor, Central India; and was employed on recruiting service in Belfast from 1832 to 1834. In the latter year he embarked for Sydney with a detachment of the 50th regiment. Thence he sailed for Calcutta, joined the 38th regiment at Chinsorah in 1835, and accompanied it to England in 1836. He obtained his company by purchase on 29 Dec. 1837, and retired from the army in April 1840. He then embarked for South Australia, landed at Glenelg on 11 Aug. 1840, and purchased a property near Adelaide. In August 1841 he was appointed a justice of the peace, in March 1843 a member of the board of audit, in June 1843 private secretary to Governor Grey and clerk of the councils,and in January 1851 auditor-general of South Australia. In 1866 he acted as chairman of a commission for inquiring into the administration of affairs in the northern territory. On 22 Jan. 1868 he retired, after serving the colonial government for upwards of twenty-four years. He died at Adelaide on 15 July 1885, having married, in December 1831, Eliza Minton, daughter of John Montague Smyth. He left two daughters and three sons, the eldest of whom, Joseph Sylvester O'Halloran is secretary to the Royal Colonial Institute (Colonies and Indian 24 July 1885).

[Burke's Colonial Gentry, 1891, i. 81; East Army Lists; Military Annual (ed. by Griffiths), 1844; a pamphlet entitled 'Services of Sir Joseph O'Halloran,' printed and published by Marshall, 21 Edgware Road, circa 1844.]

H. M. C.


O'HALLORAN, LAWRENCE HYNES (1766–1831), miscellaneous writer. [See Halloran.]

O'HALLORAN, SYLVESTER (1728–1807), surgeon and antiquary, born in Limerick on 31 Dec. 1728, studied medicine and surgery at the universities of Paris and Leyden. While on the continent he paid particular attention to diseases of the eye, and at Paris wrote a treatise on that organ. This he published, on settling in practice at Limerick in 1750, under the title of 'A new Treatise on the Glaucoma, or Cataract.' It was the first work of the kind that issued from the Irish press, and O'Halloran's ophthalmic practice grew rapidly, In 1752 he addressed a paper on cataract to the Royal Society, and this he afterwards amplified under the title of 'A Critical Analysis of a New Operation for Cataract.' In 1788 he communicated to the Royal Irish Academy his last essay on the eye, entitled 'A Critical and Anatomical Examination of the Parts immediately interested in the Operation for a Cataract, with an attempt to render the Operation itself, whether by Depression or Extraction, more successful.' In 1765 he published 'A Complete Treatise on Gangrene and Sphacelus, with a new mode of Amputation.' In 1791 a paper entitled 'An Attempt to determine with precision such Injuries of the Head as necessarily require the Operation of the Trephine' was printed in the 'Transactions' of the Royal Irish Academy; and he subsequently published 'A new Treatise on the different Disorders arising from external Injuries of the Head,' which displayed much original research. O'Halloran laid down the new but very sound rule that concussion of the brain, characterised by immediate stupor and insensibility, does not require the trephine unless accompanied by evident depression of the skull or extra-vasation, neither of which produces dangerous symptoms for some time after the accident which has given rise to them. Among other achievements, O'Halloran was the virtual founder, in 1760, of the county Limerick infirmary, renting three or four houses which he threw into one. His 'Proposals for the Advancement of Surgery in Ireland, with a retrospective View of the ancient State of