Owen Smith was a mental health nurse who worked for the Goodna Mental Hospital for many decades. In March 1914 he was also elected to the committee of the Hospital staff’s soccer team which played in the Ipswich and West Moreton Competition. Evidence of him taking the field is scant though Goodna’s line-ups were rarely published in the newspapers. A “chatty” letter from London, however, paraphrased in the Queensland Times on 9 November 1916 gives a clue that he had played locally. “While passing a football ground he was hailed by another old ‘soccer’ player, W. Mills, who played with some success under the Ipswich and West Moreton British Football Association.”
Smith enlisted in February 1916 at Casula, NSW and was initially posted to the Field Hospital in Liverpool, Sydney. He left Australia in May and was attached to the 9th Field Ambulance as a driver. South Australian-born, he appears to have taken full advantage of several days leave to take in the sights of London, which led to the letter mentioned above. He was sent to France in late November. His service during the war was only interrupted by a short period of illness in 1917. His unit often acted as a second line of evacuation away from the lines, and was active in Messines in June 1917, and during the final battles of the war.
Two months after the armistice, Smith caught broncho pneumonia and was hospitalised. He recovered at the Mile End Military Hospital in London, as recorded in a letter home by the occupant of the next bed, and fellow Goodna resident, Private Ernest Hall. Both Smith and Hall were welcomed home by the Goodna Rifle Club on their return in mid-1919. Smith continued to work for the Mental Hospital for several decades.
In 1935 he wrote to the Base Records office asking for a reference in order to get a promotion after another reference was rejected. Smith had returned to Australia on the Karoa, a transport ship, where he looked after mental health cases under a Major Pym. Smith tried to use a written reference Pym had written for him in 1922 to try to get his promotion, but the reference was knocked back by the Public Service Commissioner. Smith was after an official statement from headquarters stating he had undertaken the work of helping to repatriate soldiers with mental health issues. While Base Records confirmed he had returned on the Karoa under Pym, they could not confirm his specific duties on the voyage.
Smith was still a Head Attendant at the Hospital as late as 1946. He was la ong-term member of the Goodna sub-branch of the Returned Sailors and Soldiers Imperial League of Australia, which undertook much work for ex-military patients of the hospital. He died in March 1967.