Frank Boyd was the son of a Locomotive Driver. He grew up in the northern tablelands town of Werris Creek.
Frank was first recorded playing rugby league with the local Werris Creek team in 1924. He married at Quirindi in 1927, and about that time he and his family moved to Sydney and settled in the Lidcombe area. As railway employees associated with locomotives and boiler making, the Boyds were likely to have found work at the nearby Clyde Engineering Works.