Family background & Early life

24th of August 1871

Militia Barracks, Clonmel, Tipperary.

Colour Sergeant First Tipperary Artillery.

Currently unknown.

The sixth of thirteen children, one died in infancy. Mother was born in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Clonmel Model School.

FWB was most likely a Catholic.

Adult life

 He and possibly three of his brothers, Charles J Boland, Richard T Boland and Harry P. Boland  took and passed Civil Service exams. The latter becoming a distinguished civil servant who later worked for HM Treasury and then in the Irish Department of Finance. FWB learned shorthand, a skill which he later said probably saved his life in World War I (see pp 2-3 of ‘The Lost Years’). When he moved to England he was a Clerk in Estate Office of the Duke of Norfolk.

Estate Office of the Duke of Norfolk.

54 Tynely Road, Sheffield.

FWB married Laura Mary Rickards in Laura Rickards in 1896.

Angela, Michael, Francis (Yank) and Edward.

Military Experience

In September 1915 FWB enlisted in the army at age 44.

Joined Hackney batallion it needed more numbers.

189TH Brigade, Royal Field Artillery.

Corporation Electric Power Station, Hackney. (temporary depot) Date unknown- possibly near, definitely before Christmas 1915.

Wrote a book after the war called ''The Lost Years''.