Cornell, Osborn (Private, b.? - d.1918)

Collection relating to service of 5 Private (formerly Staff Sergeant) Osborn Cornell, 3 Machine Gun Battalion, At Sea and England, 1914-1918. Collection includes photostat copies of letters and diary letter sent home to family in Australia. The collection spans the time when Cornell was Staff Sergeant and Pharmacist with 2 Field Ambulance, and later when he transferred as a machine gunner with 3 Machine Gun Battalion. Cornell spent 1918 training at Codford before transfer to France. Copies made 1928 by Australian War Memorial. Location of originals unknown. Some letters in the collection are dated 1918 in Cornell's hand. It is likely that, although they have been annotated by another hand as 1919, they relate to the time Cornell was at Codford in 1917.

Biographical note: Staff Sergeant, 2nd Fld Ambulance, Private 3rd Machine Gun Bn. 5 Private Osborn Cornell, 3 Machine Gun Battalion, was killed in action at Proyart, 10 August 1918. Pharmaceutical chemist of Ballarat, VIC; born Ballarat; educated at Grenville College, Ballarat, and at Pharmacy College, Melbourne, was a Staff Sergeant in the Light Horse Field Ambulance at Ballarat (Citizen Forces); enlisted in the AIF on 18 August 1914, and left Australia as a Staff Sergeant in 2 Field Ambulance; served Gallipoli, Egypt and England as a dispenser on transport; and later transferred voluntarily to machine gun corps, left for England, and went to France in June 1918; age at time of death, 25. Cornell was cousin of Lieutenant Harold Gordon Cornell.

• Letters from Osborn Cornell to his family, 1914-1918