Sir Clarence Roy McKerihan (6 May 1896 – 28 December 1969), also known as Roy McKerihan or C. R. McKerihan, was an Australian banker who served as a commissioner and President of the Rural Bank of New South Wales for 27 years from 1933 to 1961.
Early life and career
McKerihan was born on 6 May 1896 in Tenterfield in the Colony of New South Wales, the son of Ulster Scots Irish-born draper Edward McKerihan and the Australian-born Elizabeth Jane Gillespie of Inverell. His name was chosen by his parents for the Clarence River, in a tribute to his family that had settled in the region. Edward McKerihan was a shopkeeper, and McKerihan received his education from state schools in Tamworth, Tenterfield, and later at the Superior Public School in Casino, where his father had set up business and became a prominent citizen through his service on the councils of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church Grafton, the Casino District Hospital, and the Casino Cricket Union. While at school McKerihan undertook six years' of service in the Casino brigade of the Australian Army Cadets.
In 1912, McKerihan began work as a junior clerk in the Casino branch of the Government Savings Bank of New South Wales, passed his NSW Institute of Bankers examination, and later moved in 1913 to the branch in Grafton, where his parents had moved. With the outbreak of war in 1914, at the age of 19 McKerihan enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force at Grafton on 26 May 1915, and was assigned to the 4th Battalion as a private departing Australia for Egypt on 16 June 1915. McKerihan was deployed to Gallipoli with the 4th Battalion and served during the Battle of Lone Pine. Following evacuation back to Tell El Kebir, Egypt, McKerihan was transferred to the 56th Battalion and promoted to lance corporal (29 September 1915), corporal (1 January 1916), and lance sergeant (14 February 1916). His brother, Harold George McKerihan, also served in Gallipoli as a lieutenant in the 2nd Battalion, where he was wounded and later died of his wounds in hospital in Alexandria.
In March 1916, he transferred to the Australian War Records Section, and saw service in France and Britain, being promoted to staff sergeant and then Warrant Officer Class I in 1917. While on leave in September 1917 he undertook a trip to scale Mont Blanc in the Alps with a fellow soldier. In 1919 he was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal, and returned to Australia on 15 May 1919 aboard the HMAT Orontes.
Following demobilisation and discharge in Australia on 7 September 1919, McKerihan returned to work at the Government Savings Bank, being appointed a loans officer at the bank head office at 11 Moore Street (later known as Martin Place) in Sydney, and later transferred to the rural department on its creation in 1921. On 17 August 1921 he married Dorothy Juanita McCallum at St Stephen's Presbyterian Church, Sydney. The marriage would produce two daughters, Dawn and Dell. After initially living in Bondi, from 1930 the McKerihans moved to a house, "Wingadee", 1 Davidson Parade, Cremorne, before moving to a flat in the Spanish Mission style "Silchester" building at 4 Trahlee Road, Bellevue Hill, from 1937. From 1943, the McKerihans were living in a house at 895 New South Head Road, Rose Bay.
By 1925 he had become president of the Government Savings Bank Officers' Association and in 1926 was vice-president and later president (1928) of the United Bank Officers' Association. In 1928 at the age of 32, McKerihan was appointed as chief clerk of the Rural Bank Department and was appointed a Justice of the Peace (JP) in November 1929.
Rural Bank
By early 1931, the Government Savings Bank was in financial trouble in the midst of the Great Depression, and on 22 April 1931 the Bank suspended payments after a drain on its cash resources. On 15 December 1931, the majority of the Government Savings Bank was amalgamated into the Commonwealth Savings Bank. The Rural Bank and Advance Homes Departments of the Government Savings Bank were not taken over by the Commonwealth Savings Bank, and continued to operate. In late 1932, the NSW Government led by Assistant Treasurer Eric Spooner introduced legislation to reconstitute what remained of the Government Savings Bank into a new "Rural Bank of New South Wales", with a specific mandate to support primary industries and not to operate as a traditional general lending bank, governed by a board of three commissioners.