De Lacy O'Leary

De Lacy Evans O'Leary was born in Devon in 1872, the eldest child of Henry O'Leary (1831–1908), a Mauritius-born Anglo-Irish former captain in the New Zealand militia, and Julia Hornsey (1841–1884). On his father's side, O'Leary was descended from Irish Catholics of Limerick, and included one of the generals in Wellington's Peninsular Campaign.{{sfn|McLoughlin|2002|p=266}}{{efn|Sir (George) De Lacy Evans (1787–1870) was a British Army general who served in four wars in which the United Kingdom's troops took part in the 19th century. He was later a long-serving Member of Parliament.{{sfn|Evans|1911|p=2}}}} Brought up as a Protestant and educated at Bristol Grammar School, O'Leary converted to Roman Catholicism in about 1888 and began to train for the priesthood at Prior Park College near Bath, before returning to the Church of England in 1890.

He never married, and was an active freemason.{{sfn|First Chairman of Convocation}}

O'Leary studied at the University of London (1891–95) before becoming a minister in the Church of England, and later undertook further studies towards a Master of Arts at Trinity College Dublin (1905).{{sfn|First Chairman of Convocation}} He was awarded second prize in Trinity College’s Elrington Theological Prize (1903) for an essay on the Epistle of St James, and the following year the Elrington Theological Prize itself for the essay "An Examination of the Apostolical Constitutions and of the cognate documents, with special view to those which have recently been made accessible".

O'Leary was special lecturer at the University of Bristol from 1908 until 1957, teaching Aramaic, Syriac, and Hellenistic Greek. He was the first chairman of the Bristol University Convocation, which represents graduates of the university, between 1910 and 1928. During World War I he was Captain-Chaplain of the university's Officer Training Corps and in 1916 served as a chaplain to the British Expeditionary force in Egypt.{{sfn|First Chairman of Convocation}}

O'Leary was made Inspector of Schools in religious knowledge for the Diocese of Bristol and vicar of Christ Church in the poor Barton Hill district of Bristol from 1909 until his retirement in 1946.{{sfn|McLoughlin|2002|p=266}} Despite the large population of his parish, church attendance was poor and declined during his tenure.{{sfn|First Chairman of Convocation}} There was controversy about his curacy of the parish, which led to questions in the House of Lords in 1952 and an appeal to the Privy council.{{sfn|McLoughlin|2002|p=266}} After World War II he retired from his parish and went to live in Weston-super-Mare with his sister, although he continued to visit the university occasionally.

The church was later closed and torn down.{{sfn|First Chairman of Convocation}}

O'Leary published several Coptic liturgical manuscripts. These included:

• {{cite book|last=O'Leary|first=De Lacy|title=Islam at the Cross Roads|url=https://archive.org/details/islamatcrossroad00olea|location=London|year=1923}}
• {{cite book|last=O'Leary|first=De Lacy|title=The Coptic Theotokia |location=London|year=1923}}
• {{cite book|last=O'Leary|first=De Lacy|title=Fragmentary Coptic Hymns from the Wadi n'Natrun |location=London|year=1924}}
• {{cite book|last=O'Leary|first=De Lacy|title=The Difnar (Antiphonarium) of the Coptic Church (2 vols) |location=London|year=1926–1928}}
• {{cite book|last=O'Leary|first=De Lacy|title=The Arabic Life of St. Pisentius |year=1930}}
• {{cite book|last=O'Leary|first=De Lacy|title=The Ethiopian Church: Historical Notes on the Church of Abyssinia|url=https://archive.org/details/pts_theethiopianchurch_1687_3|access-date=15 March 2013|year=1936|publisher=Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge}}

He wrote books about Christian and Coptic literature. These included:

• {{cite book|last=O'Leary|first=De Lacy|title=The Syriac Church and Fathers|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d1ySpviy62YC|access-date=15 March 2013|year=1909|publisher=Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge|isbn=978-1-931956-05-5}}
• {{cite book|last=O'Leary|first=De Lacy|title=Studies in the Apocryphal Gospels of Christ's Infancy |location=London|year=1912}}
• {{cite book|last=O'Leary|first=De Lacy|title=Comparative Grammar of the Semitic Languages|year=1923|publisher=Routledge, Trench, Trubner}}
• {{cite book|last=O'Leary|first=De Lacy|title=Colloquial Arabic: with notes on the vernacular speech of Egypt, Syria, and Mesopotamia, and an appendix on the local characteristics of Algerian dialect|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gfUZAQAAIAAJ|access-date=15 March 2013|date=1926|publisher=K. Paul, Trench, Trubner}}
• {{cite book|last=O'Leary|first=De Lacy|title=The Saints of Egypt|location=London|year= 1937}}

He also wrote a number of books about Arabic history, including:

• {{cite book|last=O'Leary|first=De Lacy|url=https://archive.org/details/arabicthoughtits00olea|title=Arabic Thought and Its Place in History|location=London|year=1922|isbn=978-0486427621}}
• {{cite book|last=O'Leary|first=De Lacy|title=Arabic History and Culture|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OgcevgAACAAJ|access-date=15 March 2013|year=1923|isbn=9780415242851|publisher=Routledge}}
• {{cite book|last=O'Leary|first=De Lacy|title=Short History of the Fatimid Khalifate|url=https://archive.org/details/shorthistoryoffa00oleauoft|location=London and New York|year=1923}}
• {{cite book|last=O'Leary|first=De Lacy|title=Arabia Before Muhammad |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.39493|year=1927}}
• {{cite book|last=O'Leary|first=De Lacy|title=How Greek Science Passed to the Arabs|location=London|year=1947}}

Notes

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Citations

{{reflist|colwidth=30em}}

Sources

{{wikisource|Author:De Lacy O'Leary}}

{{refbegin}}

• {{Citation |last1 = Dodson | first1 = Aidan | last2 = Crossley Evans | first2 = Martin J. | author-link = Aidan Dodson

| editor-last = Dodson | editor-first = Aidan | editor2-last = Johnston | editor2-first = John

| editor3-last = Monkhouse | editor3-first = Wendy | editor-link = Aidan Dodson | date = 2014

| title = A Good Scribe and an Exceedingly Wise Man: studies in honour of W.J. Tait

| chapter = De Lacy O’Leary: historian of the ancient Eastern Church and flawed cleric of the Anglican Church

| publisher = Golden House Publications | location = London | pages = 67–88 | isbn = 9781906137335 }}

• {{cite EB1911 |last=Evans |first=Evan Herber |wstitle=Evans, Sir George de Lacy |volume=10 |page=2}}
• {{citation |ref={{harvid|First Chairman of Convocation}} |chapter-url=http://www.alumni.bristol.ac.uk/publications/convocation/about/former-chair-biogs.pdf

|chapter=First Chairman of Convocation|title=Biographies of the Former Chairmen of Convocation|publisher=Bristol University Alumni

| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140501203313/http://www.alumni.bristol.ac.uk:80/publications/convocation/about/former-chair-biogs.pdf

| archive-date = 1 May 2014 |access-date=14 March 2013}}

• {{cite web |url=http://ccdl.libraries.claremont.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/cce/id/1481/rec/1

|last=Krause|first=Martin|year=1991|title=O'Leary, De Lacy Evans (1872–1957)

|work=Claremont College Digital Library |publisher=The Gale Group|access-date=14 March 2013}}

• {{cite book|last=McLoughlin|first=Leslie J.|title=In a Sea of Knowledge: The British Arabists in the Twentieth Century

|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CoIe3cQYllEC&pg=PA266|access-date=14 March 2013

|year=2002|publisher=Garnet & Ithaca Press|isbn=978-0-86372-288-2|chapter=De Lacy Evans O'Leary (1872–1957}}

{{refend}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Oleary, De Lacy}}

Category:1872 births

Category:1957 deaths

Category:British historians

Category:People educated at Bristol Grammar School