# Hugh Wilson O'Neill person Hugh O’Neill (1897–1960) was born at Unley, South Australia on November 21, 1897, the son of Arthur O’Neill and Maud Everline O’Neill (nee Williams). He appears in examination lists in the Adelaide press as a student at Unley District High School and Adelaide High School, and in the Archives of the University of Adelaide as ‘hardly any attendance.’ On February 15, 1919, Hugh O’Neill, medical student, married the 62-yr-old widow Margaret Wilson Hume (nee Bell) in the Registrar General’s Office, Sydney. Both ages on the marriage certificate are inaccurate. Hugh’s age is given as 25 years and Margaret’s as 45 years. Hugh’s father, who did not die until 1936, is stated as deceased. Hugh appears to have adopted Wilson as a middle-name after this marriage. On March 5, 1919, the newly wed couple sailed for the United States. A brief notice in the Sydney *Evening News* stated that Mr. H. Wilson O’Neill was departing to take a three-year medical degree at Columbia University. Hugh W. O’Neil, 21, medical student, and Mrs. Margaret O’Neil, 45, housewife (“wife” added in pencil above her name) arrived at San Francisco on March 24, 1919, destination New York. Sometime thereafter, Hugh Wilson O’Neill applied for admission to Harvard College. He reported being educated at Unley High School 1910–1911, Adelaide High School 1912–1915, University of Adelaide 1916, and University of Sydney 1918. He wished “to enter Harvard Medical School having already the necessary qualifications,” and gave his home address as Box 757, G.P.O., Sydney with another address in Glasgow. The application was written at Harvard University and is undated. The Harvard Catalogue for 1919-1920 lists him as an unclassified student, a term used to refer to a student admitted to Harvard from another college. The standing of unclassified students was determined after the completion of their first year at Harvard. Hugh Wilson O’Neill re-entered the United States at Newport Vermont on October 28, 1919 at which time he reported being previously in the United States at Boston, April 19–September 12, 1919. At his re-entry, he is recorded as of Irish race, 21 years, married, born Adelaide. The immigration officer noted that he was returning from Glasgow where he gave his contact as Queen Margaret’s College \[a women’s college, perhaps an allusion to his wife\] and was in transit to Australia via San Francisco, intended stay in the United States for one month. He gave Mo. \[mother\] Margaret, Box 757, Bega, New South Wales as an Australian contact address. On October 31, O’Neill wrote a letter to the Harvard Admissions office stating “I entered the Medical School in July 1919 but was called to England on urgent family affairs. Owing to lack of shipping accommodation I was unable to reach the United States in time to begin my first year in Medicine and finally arrived here by a very circuitous route.” His provisional registration was confirmed on November 7, 1919. Hugh O’Neill withdrew from Harvard College as of February 9, 1920, on account of “Finances.” Margaret O’Neill must have returned to Australia because in July 1921 she travelled alone from Sydney to Vancouver, and then across Canada by rail. She entered the United States at Newport, Vermont, on August 7 1921, en route to Boston. After her arrival, Hugh O’Neill sent letters from Quincy House Boston, dated August 23 1921 and September 17 1921, requesting the return of his ‘bundle of certificates,’ from Adelaide High School and the University of Adelaide, that had been deposited at the Harvard Admissions Office in October 1919. The documents were returned September 22, 1921. Hugh Wilson O’Neill entered Yale as a freshman in October 1921. In his application he lists his mother’s \[sic\] maiden name as Margaret Wilson Bell and used Box 757 G.P.O. Sydney as his home address. He became a member of Sigma Xi and Phi Beta Kappa, graduating in three years (A.B. 1924). He was enrolled at Yale Medical School in 1924–25, received an S.M. (Zoology and Anatomy) at the Yale commencement of 1925, but did not re-enrol at Yale in 1925–1926. Instead he was admitted to the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (1925–1926) as a student in English. Professor Tinker of Yale responded to a request for a reference: “a man of first-rate intelligence. Original and independent — perhaps a little restive under routine. An Australian who seems occasionally ill at ease in a New England environment. If you are looking for sheer ability, however, here it is.” O’Neill does not appear to have revealed his prior attendance at Harvard College to the Graduate School. He reported travel to England 1910–1912 (when he was attending high school in Adelaide according to his 1919 application) and 1918–1920 (part of which time he was at Harvard College), and Egypt. He described himself as single. During this year he took courses in English, Comparative Literature, German, and French. His enrolment lapsed at the end of the year. The Harvard Alumni Directories of 1923 and 1926 give Hugh W. O’Neill’s address as Kalkabarana, via Oodnadatta, South Australia. Only one use of ‘Kalkabarana’ was found by Google search. Mortimer Graves (Harvard Class of 1920) wrote in 1930: “The satirically minded spectator might be inspired to carry such a philosophy of education to its logical conclusion and conjure up a picture of a meeting between a highly educated gentleman who knew no history except that of his own dear native Ouachita County in the more or less sovereign State of Arkansas, and another equally highly educated gentleman whose historical information centered entirely around Kalkabarana, between Algebuckina and Oodnadatta, in South Australia.” There is nothing between Algebuckina and Oodnadatta but desert. In the directories for 1929 and 1934, Hugh W. O’Neill’s address is once again Box 757, General Post Office, Sydney. Requests for information from the Yale Alumni office to Box 757, G.P.O., Sydney went unanswered. In 1929, the Yale Alumni Registrar obtained the addresses of Hugh O’Neill’s father and brother from the University of Adelaide, but requests for information to these addresses also went unanswered. Hugh Wilson O’Neill obtained a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1929. In the 1930 U.S. Census (April), he is a doctor living alone in Philadelphia but listed as married for ten years. Later that year, he was appointed assistant physician at Danvers State Hospital, Massachusetts, and appears in a Danvers Street directory as living with a wife Loretta. He held that position for just over a year. Following his resignation from Danvers State Hospital he attended Harvard Summer School, belatedly receiving his A.M. from Harvard in February 1932. Margaret W. O’Neill died at Petersham, Sydney, September 21, 1933. On learning of her death a month later, Hugh immediately sent a letter to her executors: “Since I am an interested party and since my wife has drawn a will in my favour would you be good enough to forward me a copy of the will.” He wrote that he was unable to come to Sydney immediately because he was taking a postgraduate surgical course in Philadelphia. Hugh’s hopes were disappointed because the will contained a clause: “I desire to place on record that my reason for not leaving Hugh O'Neill any interest in my estate is owing to the fact that I have given him money during my lifetime and I have never been maintained by him and also owing to the treatment I have received from him during my lifetime.” Hugh then wrote to Margaret’s executors requesting a search of her papers for his Yale diplomas but received a letter saying the diplomas could not be found. In March 1934, Hugh wrote to Yale from the Episcopal Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, Washington, D.C., requesting duplicate diplomas saying the originals had been left ‘in care of a relative’ on a visit to Australia in 1926. He is listed as a physician near Washington, D.C., in the Harvard Alumni Directory for 1937. Hugh Wilson O’Neill was registered as a physician in California in 1937. The Harvard Alumni Directories from 1940 until his death described him as a physician at Santa Ana, California. In Santa Ana, he lived with the widow Nita R. Johnson who is listed as his wife in street directories after 1949. A note in the Yale archives from 1943 states “Omit for all Alumni fund solicitations … He must either have had a poor time here, or else inherited an unusually bilious disposition.” A further confidential note in the Yale archives from 1948 states he was suspected of arson in California. He died in California on 2 January 1960. An obituary mentions two children living in Massachusetts. *\[Special thanks to Edmund and Janet Perrin for a visit to the New South Wales probate archives.\]* - ## Harvard Institutions [Harvard College](/harvard-institutions/harvard-college) - ## Graduation Year [1919](/graduation-year/1919)