838824 Pte. Stanley Allan Boyd was born October 8th, 1894, near the small village of Rocklyn, St. Vincent Township, Grey County, Ontario, and was working as a farmer when hostilities broke out. Stanley attested to the 147th Battalion in Meaford, Ontario, on February 28th, 1916.
Billeted locally over the winter, the 147th Battalion mobilized in Owen Sound in the spring of 1916 and left for training at Camp Niagara. As the conditions in the Camp were wanting the unit moved to the new training facility of Camp Borden in late June.
In September 1916 the unit received their orders to proceed overseas, but due to an outbreak of diphtheria they were detained in Amherst, Nova Scotia, for over a month. The unit finally sailed for Great Britain on November 14th, 1916, on the S.S. Olympic, a sister ship to the Titanic.
On January 1st, 1917, the 147th Battalion ceased to exist when it became the nucleus for the 8th Reserve Battalion, whose task it was to supply reinforcements to the 58th Battalion and the 4th C.M.R. Stanley was amongst the draft of 103 men to be transferred to the 4th CMR on April 22nd, 1917, as reinforcements for the casualties taken during the Battle of Arras.
Stanley saw service with the 4th C.M.R. through the action at Hill 70 as well as taking part in the regular rotation of the unit through the front lines. It was during the build up for Passchendaele that Stanley transferred to the Brigade Trench Mortar Battery, where he served out the war.
After the war Private Stanley Allan Boyd would return to the 4th C.M.R. as part of demobilization policies and was struck off strength by them on March 19th, 1919.
Biography details credit: George Auer