The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (46) Private Andrew Boyd, 18th Battalion, AIF, First World War.

The Last Post Ceremony is presented in the Commemorative area of the Australian War Memorial each day. The ceremony commemorates more than 102,000 Australians who have given their lives in war and other operations and whose names are recorded on the Roll of Honour. At each ceremony the story behind one of the names on the Roll of Honour is told. Hosted by Charis May, the story for this day was on (46) Private Andrew Boyd, 18th Battalion, AIF, First World War.

46 Private Andrew Boyd, 18th Battalion, AIF
DOW 30 August 1916
No photograph in collection

Story delivered 15 July 2016

Today we remember and pay tribute to Private Andrew Boyd.

Andrew Boyd was born in 1891, the eldest son of Andrew and Mary Boyd of Scone, New South Wales. He attended the local public school and went on to become a carpenter. He was a keen rugby player, and was described as a “cricketer of no mean order”, a sportsman who “was a popular as he was versatile, and off the field of play … an exemplary youth”. He was an enthusiastic member of the Scone Town Band, and known as a fine craftsman.

Boyd enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in April 1915. He was posted to the 18th Battalion, and after some training was sent for overseas service. He arrived on the Gallipoli peninsula in mid-August, but was evacuated in late November with enteric fever.

Private Boyd re-joined his battalion in Egypt in March 1916, and almost straight away was sent to France to fight on the Western Front. In late July the 18th Battalion was drawn into the fighting around the French village of Pozières. On 2 August he was hit by fragments of an artillery shell and evacuated to hospital in England with severe wounds to his thigh, abdomen, and chest. Despite his care Boyd was too badly wounded, and he died of his wounds on 30 August 1916. He was 24.

In 1918 Private Boyd’s father received an unexpected letter from a Mrs May Coxon in England. She wrote that she had visited his son’s grave at the Milton Cemetery in Portsmouth on Anzac Day 1918, and left flowers and a card on Andrew’s grave. The card read:
"Australia is proud of her illustrious dead who have fought a just fight for King and Country, and tenders sincere sympathy to bereaved relatives and friends."

Boyd’s name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my right, among more than 60,000 Australians who died during the First World War.

This is but one of the many stories of service and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember Private Andrew Boyd, who gave his life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Dr Meleah Hampton
Historian, Military History Section