William Richard BEAVER

BEAVER, WILLIAM RICHARD (b. 1854; d. North Sydney, NSW, 3 Feb 1923). Public servant.

Beaver was appointed to the office of the Clerk of the Peace in 1872 and five years later was appointed Clerk of the Peace in NSW, a position which, with the advent of the Public Service Board in 1896, entailed the responsibility for the preparation of all important criminal trials in the State. In addition to this position which he held until his retirement at 65 in 1920, Beaver was also an alderman of Ashfield for eleven years and involved with the Sydney Chamber of Commerce. He was a director of the Civil Service Cooperative Society for 31 years and its chairman for 17 years.

Beaver was one of the 'phalanx of good men' who had welcomed and supported Archbishop Wright (q.v.) in 1909 and in the early years of his episcopate and upon whom Wright relied. Beaver was secretary of the synod of the diocese of Sydney and thus a member of its Standing Committee from 1883 until his death in 1923, an unparalleled period of 40 years in that office. He was also a member of the cathedral chapter, of the Church Property Trust, of The King's School, and a diocesan representative on the Board of Nominators until his death. Beaver was also a warden of St James' Croydon where he worshipped and a prominent member of the Anglican Church League, being one of its earliest vice presidents.

One of his great interests as churchman was to seek to increase the constitutional powers of women in the church. In 1921, he secured the consent by ordinance of the Sydney synod to allow women to officiate before and to address congregations. He was also instrumental in the legislation which permitted them to vote at vestry meetings and become parish councillors.

He contemplated giving women power to become churchwardens but his more conservative fellow churchmen baulked at such radicalism and 'rested content with giving them the right to sit on Church councils' (ACR 2 Feb 1923).

Beaver's main recreation was lawn bowls, and he was one of the founders of the South Ashfield Club. It was, indeed, on the bowling green of Mosman Bowling Club that he met his death. As a member of the North Sydney Bowling Club and as skip of a rank, 'he bowled the last and winning bowl and excitedly followed it up, but collapsed on the green'. (ACR 2 March 1923, 5)

STEPHEN JUDD