Douglas John Byard (9 February 1859 – March 1949) 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 (it had closed due to the illness of its headmaster and proprietor T. W. Boehm), 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. 
Steer's wife was among those infected, and was sent to a private hospital in North Adelaide. Steer was then in severe financial difficulties, and Byard took over the business of the school and its liabilities. Steer then found employment in Mount Gambier, and had just opened a private school in the town when his wife contracted diphtheria, again leading to loss of enrolments and additional expenses, and Steer was forced to declare himself insolvent.
Byard started an affiliated Hahndorf College Boy Scout troop sometime in or before 1909, in which year the first Christmas camp (jamboree) 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 (previously the home of H. Rider Haggard), where he had the services of a nurse.
Family.
Byard (8 February 1859 – March 1949 at St Leonards, Sussex) married Matilda Eunice Rogers (8 April 1859 – 19 May 1932) c. November 1881 in Woolwich, Kent. Their children include:
He married again, to Isobel Anderson (26 June 1861 – 31 January 1941) daughter of General Standen.
References.
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