SAPPER CECIL JOHN OSBORN
AUSTRALIAN ENGINEERS
19TH OCTOBER 1917 AGE 22
BURIED: LIJSSENTHOEK MILITARY CEMETERY, BELGIUM
Sapper Osborn's inscription comes from a hymn written by Ada Habershon at the beginning of the twentieth century. The hymn itself is based on verse 4 of the Book of Revelations Chapter 21:
And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying; neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
The hymn itself welcomes the fact that at death everyone will lay down their burdens, there will be no testing, no toiling, no weariness, no disappointments, no distress, no partings, no pain, no sickness and no weeping. Osborn's inscription forms the chorus.
Osborn, a carpenter, enlisted on 14 February 1916. He arrived in France on 27 January 1917 and was killed on 19 October 1917. His mother, filling in the circular for the Roll of Honour of Australia, tells us what happened. He was "wounded in the right knee going from the line to his dugout with piece of shell and died the same day". The records of No. 3 Canadian Casualty Clearing Station describe it as a gunshot wound, but whichever it was it caused his death.