Charlie Oliver (Australian footballer)

Charles Joseph Oliver (9 September 1874 – 29 December 1917) was an Australian rules footballer who played with Carlton in the Victorian Football League (VFL). A medical practitioner, he enlisted in the First AIF, and died while in service.

Family
The son of Robert Oliver and Emily Ann Oliver, née Parkinson, Charles Joseph Oliver was born at Sofala, near Bathurst, in New South Wales, on 9 September 1874.

He married Ellen Frances Mahony (1870-1917) in 1905. They had two children, Norman Joseph Oliver (1906-), and Charles Patrick Oliver (1909-1956).

Education
He commenced his medical studies at the University of Melbourne in 1892.

Carlton Imperials
Oliver played his early football at Carlton Imperials.

Carlton (VFL)
He played just one VFL game for Carlton, against Melbourne at the MCG, on 7 July 1900 (round 10).

Selected at centre half-forward to play against Melbourne's exceptional centre half-back Jack Purse, and replacing Carlton's regular centre half-forward Bill McNamara (in the one game that McNamara did not play for the 1900 season), Oliver kicked one goal in a soundly beaten team (Melbourne 9.14 (68) to Carlton's 5.3 (33).

Medical Practitioner
He was a qualified medical practitioner, having been awarded his Medicinae Baccalaureus et Baccalaureus Chirurgiae (M.B. et Ch.B.) from Melbourne University, in absentia, in March 1903, and having been entered into the Victorian medical register on 2 October 1903.

In 1905/1907 he was serving as the health officer for the Shire of Kerang at Quambatook in northern Victoria; and in the Shire of Berwick in 1912. At the time of his enlistment he was practising in Jeparit in Western Victoria.

Military service
While serving with the Australian Army Medical Corps in World War I, Oliver was killed on his way back to the army camp in Seymour when he was thrown off a shying horse. He had never ridden the horse before; and, distressed by having to wait far too long for motor transport, he had borrowed the strange horse in his eagerness to return to camp.

He died of a cerebral haemorrhage two days later at the Base Military Hospital in Melbourne (just 12 weeks after his wife's death). He was given a military funeral.