Exonian Benjamin Garniss O’Rorke added to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Exonian Benjamin Garniss O’Rorke has been added to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Born in 1875, Benjamin O’Rorke came to Exeter in 1894 to read theology and went on to become a clergyman in the British armed forces. He served in the Boer War and the First World War, rising to chaplain to the forces second class (equating to a lieutenant-colonel). He became a prisoner of war in 1914 and was returned to England in 1915 as part of an exchange of prisoners. Soon after his return he published a book about his experiences, In the Hands of the Enemy: Being the Experiences of a Prisoner of War.

O’Rorke died of influenza and pneumonia on Christmas day in 1918. His biography was included in the latest edition of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, published September 2015.

You can read the entry in the Oxford DNB here.