Francis (Bede) Royan

FRANCIS (BEDE) ROYAN was born in 1910. His father had migrated from County Mayo, Ireland in 1880, the same year that Ned Kelly was hanged.  He received a land grant at Hannan Vale, near Taree where he started farming and settled his family. When he was 16 Bede left home and managed to get an apprenticeship with Littlejohns Garage at Lidcombe , a suburb of Sydney, as a motor mechanic.

The great depression arrived not long after Bede had finished his apprenticeship and, like thousands of others in Australia, he lost his job. Times were hard and with little work available he made do delivering bread by horse and cart until a job came up at Balmain Bros, the Ford Distributor in Cooma, NSW.  He packed up his family and moved to Cooma. Bede was eventually put in charge of the workshop and stayed in Cooma with his family until the Second World War started. He left Cooma and went to live in Parramatta, where he worked at a munitions factory for the duration of the war.

As the War came to an end, Bede was working shift work. This enabled him to do mechanical repairs on old cars and trucks as the army was using the newer vehicles. When the war finished there was big demand for vehicle repairs so Bede moved on to a wood and coal yard in Parramatta that one of his customers owned. After many years of  struggling and hardships Bede finally managed to get ahead and purchase the Parramatta property.

In 1948 his son Ron joined him in the business and a few years later his son in law Don Andrews joined him in the office. The business was in safe hands and retirement had begun for Bede. Ron and Don got on well and formed a partnership that lasted for many years until they too retired and passed the business on to the next generation. 

Today The Royan Group is the largest Truck & Trailer accident repair business in Australia with branches in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Wagga Wagga, Dubbo & Newcastle.