This original hand-finished print is based on a photograph taken by the Official Photographer ...

This original hand-finished print is based on a photograph taken by the Official Photographer Frank Hurley (E01202); a heavy and foreboding sky and artillery shell bursts have been added to Hurley's original negative. This photograph was owned by Father Cecil Lonergan, a Catholic priest, who served as a Chaplain in the 4th Infantry Brigade in France and Belgium during the First World War. It is possible that Father Lonergan commissioned this work as a commemoration for a friend and fellow priest, Father Michael Bergin, an Irishman who was killed in action on 12 October 1917, the date Hurley's photograph (E01202) was taken. Father Bergin, a schoolteacher at Holy Family College in Cairo, attested on the Gallipoli Peninsula and who served as a chaplain with the 5th Light Horse Regiment, was with the 51st Battalion when he was killed at Passchendaele, not far from where this photograph was taken. Father Bergin was buried in the Reninghelst Churchyard Cemetery on 14 October 1917 by his friend Father Lonergan. Father Bergin was posthumously awarded the Military Cross 'for distinguished service in the field'. This hand-finished work, by an unknown artist, has some similarities to a number of composite photographs made by Frank Hurley and also based on the same original image (E01202). However, we do not believe Hurley was responsible for this particular work. See also E01202A and B for versions of the Hurley composite photographs.