A1920 July 24: Arthur Merric Bloomfield Boyd born at Open Country, 8 Wahroonga Crescent, Murrumbeena, now a suburb of Melbourne, the second child of Merric (1888 – 1959) and Doris (1888 – 1960) Boyd nee Gough, potters and painters. The house, pulled down during the late 1960’s, had been built by Merric Boyd in 1908 in an old orchard. Grows up in unorthodox Christian Scientist family where all forms of creative endeavour are strongly encouraged. Every evening, the family gathers in the Brown Room for Bible readings by both parents as well as regular ‘drawing bees’. 1923 Birth of his brother Guy. 1924 Attends a small Church of England school at Murrumbeena with his sister, Lucy (born 1916). Birth of his brother David. 1925 –30 Moves to Murrumbeena State School. During his school years, joins Cub Pack and the Boy Scouts through a family friend, Max Nicholson, later lecturer in English at the University of Melbourne. Nicholson owns a ‘sort of black spaniel’ which comes to live at Murrumbeena and is eventually incorporated into numerous artworks. Spends holidays at Sandringham, Melbourne (in a house later acquired by Guy and Phyllis Boyd), where his grandmother, artist Emma Minnie Boyd nee a’ Beckett (1858 – 1936), reads stories and lessons from the family Bible. From an early age, goes off alone on landscape painting expeditions. Builds a kiln in which he fires the small clay animals that he models. 1926 Birth of his sister Mary. 1929 Death of his maternal grandmother, newspaper owner and writer, Evelyn Gough, who had built a house (The Bungalow) at Open Country and moved there during the First World War while Merric Boyd was away on active service. The Bungalow is later used as a studio by Merric, John Perceval and Boyd himself at various times. 1931 Receives 1st Award for Art at Murrumbeena State School.