Beryl Elizabeth King was born on 6 February 1902 in Gympie, Queensland, the eldest child of engine driver Walter Henry King and music teacher Alice Mary (née Marshall).
She attended the local school and relocated to Brisbane in 1920 to join the Queensland Public Service, working as private secretary to the under-secretaries of the Department of Labour Industry.
[1] King married solicitor Edward Francis Pender on 5 August 1939 at the All Saints Church in Wickham Terrace.
[1] King married 74-year-old grazier Daniel Matthew McLeish on 31 October 1946 at the Ann Street Presbyterian Church in Brisbane.
In the 1950s, she moved to Auchenflower, Brisbane where she found an administrative job at Building & Industrial Supplies.