Branch of Service

Army

Conflict

World War I (1914-1918)

Date of Enlistment

02/09/1915

Date of Discharge

13/10/1919

Place of Enlistment

Abbassia, Egypt

Gender

Male

Date of Birth

24/08/1891

Place of Birth

Taree NSW

Address (at enlistment)

Orange NSW (previously Canberra ACT)

Occupation

Methodist Minister

Next of Kin

Rev. Frederick Boyer (father), Bexley NSW

Service Number

668

Final Rank

Lieutenant

Final Unit

1 Battalion AIF

Queanbeyan RSL Wall of Remembrance, Crawford St, Queanbeyan NSW
Roll of Honour, Methodist Church, Queanbeyan

The Reverend Richard Boyer was born on 24 August 1891 at Taree, New South Wales. He served as the first Methodist minister for the Canberra circuit during 1914-15. He left to try and become a chaplain in the AIF but, failing to receive an appointment, enlisted in Egypt instead, serving with the 26th Battalion on Gallipoli from September 1915. In November 1915 he was hospitalised at St. George's Hospital in Malta with enteric fever and invalided back to Australia in January 1916. He attended the No.4 training school for officers at Duntroon, qualifying for appointment as a 2nd Lieutenant on 24 October 1916. He embarked for the second time on 10 February 1917 as part of the 1st Battalion arriving in Plymouth on 11 April 1917 and entering the front line in July. He was wounded in a gas attack near Glencorse Wood in September 1917, promoted to Lieutenant and repatriated home where his appointment was terminated on 13 October 1919.

In 1920 he became a grazier near Morven in Queensland and married Eleanor Underwood, who had nursed him after his return from the war. He became President of the Warrego Graziers' Association in 1934, President of the United Graziers' Association of Queensland (1941-1944) and of the Graziers' Council of Australia (1942). In 1940 he was appointed a member of the Australian Broadcasting Commission and became chairman on 1 April 1945. In 1956 he was appointed a K.B.E. and in November saw the establishment of the ABC's first television station. He chaired a committee of inquiry into public service recruitment which in 1959 recommended permanency for married women. He died of coronary thrombosis at Wahroonga on 5 June 1961. The annual Boyer lecture is named in his honour as is a street in the Canberra suburb of Casey.

Description - height 5 feet 11 inches, weight 150 pounds, chest 34 inches, fair complexion, blue eyes, fair hair, Methodist.

Jim Gibbney, 'Canberra 1913-1953', AGPS 1988
Ross Howarth, 'Civilians employed at the Royal Military College of Australia, Duntroon, from 1911 to 1931', RMC Duntroon, November 2000
James Udy, 'Living Stones: The Story of the Methodist Church in Canberra', 1974
Australian Dictionary of Biography online, http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A130271b.htm
'Dick Boyer, an Australian Humanist', by G.C. Bolton, 1967
Stories from the ACT Memorial, 'Chairman of the Board', ACT Heritage Library www.library.act.gov.au/find/history/stories_from_the_act_memorial
NAA RecordSearch - Series B2455 (First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1914-1920)