By Mal Nolan
On Sunday 30 July 2023, Bishop Shane presided at a ceremony at Bendigo Cemetery to mark the erection of a tombstone on the grave of Fr Gleeson, previously unmarked, although he had died in 2003.
Arthur Gleeson was born in Adelaide on 20 September 1915. It was during the First World War and it appears that his early life was a period of much difficulty. He attended school at Kapunda, a small town north of Adelaide until he was fourteen, by which time the Great Depression was commencing and it was a case of taking any sort of work available for the next ten years or so. When the general mobilisation of manpower occurred in 1941 during the Second World War, he had been working as a barman in a Sydney hotel. He formally enlisted in the Second Australian Imperial Force in April 1941 and was assigned to the Army Medical Corps. For the remainder of his service, he worked as a medical orderly and operating room assistant in a variety of military hospitals in New South Wales, Victoria, West Australia and Queensland, attaining the rank of Corporal.
In March 1945, he joined Australian and American troops en route to Morotai, an island then part of the Dutch East Indies and located south of the Philippines and east of Borneo. This was a major battle area involving the recapture of the Philippines. In July, Arthur was involved with medical units associated with the invasion of Borneo. During this time he became ill and was evacuated to Australia in late December 1945. He was discharged from the Army in March 1946.
Arthur was involved in a variety of jobs after the war. He worked selling religious books and operated a mobile service through many areas of New South Wales and Victoria for some twenty years. In that era, it was the custom for many Catholics to buy missals and devotional books. There were also many small convents and religious houses in country areas that he served.
About mid 1975, Arthur became a seminarian, later joining the Diocese of Sandhurst and, at the age of sixty-five was ordained a priest on 22 October 1980 at Sacred Heart Cathedral. He spent periods at St Kilian’s, Wangaratta South and Beechworth. While in Bendigo, he was chaplain at Bendigo Prison. He was very successful as a prison chaplain, probably assisted by his wide experience of life before becoming a priest.
Fr Arthur died at Bethlehem Home for the Aged, Bendigo on 24 July 2003.
Monsignor Frank Marriott initiated the move to place a headstone on his grave and collaborated with the Bendigo Branch of the Returned Services League in doing this. RSL officials attended the ceremony along with about thirty people and local priests to pay tribute to their returned colleague. The Last Post was played by a bugler. The event was reported in the Bendigo Advertiser but Catholic readers may have been puzzled by confusion at some terminology used in the report.
Mal Nolan, was a St Vincent de Paul worker at Bendigo Prison when Fr Arthur Gleeson was Prison Chaplain.
