D. J. Byard


Douglas John Byard was proprietor and headmaster of Hahndorf College, South Australia.

History

Byard was born in Madras, India and educated at Clifton College, Bristol, then Exeter College, was awarded BA degree by Oxford University, admitted to a similar degree ad eundem at Adelaide University in 1888.
Byard arrived in South Australia sometime before 1885, when he started teaching at Whinham College, and took evening classes in Senior Latin at the University of Adelaide.
The following year, he and Herbert S. Steer ran evening classes at Whinham College and was elected president of the Collegiate Schools Association. In July 1886 he reopened Hahndorf College, with himself and Steer as joint principals.
He also served as honorary lay reader at St Paul's College, Hahndorf.
Byard and Steer had borrowed £1,200 to purchase the college building, and prospects appeared rosy when a typhoid epidemic struck the school and many potential students stayed away.
Byard started an affiliated Hahndorf College Boy Scout troop sometime in or before 1909, in which year the first Christmas camp was held at Milang.
Byard closed the school at the end of 1912, citing ill-health.
In later years Byard lived in Reynella. His wife died in 1932 and in April 1935 Byard left on the Orama for England, never to return, living in "North Lodge" or Winstowe Lodge, Charles road, St Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex, where he had the services of a nurse.

Publications

Byard married Matilda Eunice Rogers c. November 1881 in Woolwich, Kent. Their children include:
He married again, to Isobel Anderson daughter of General Standen.