[1] His siblings included Joyce, Keith (who also became an Anglican clergyman)[2] and Bruce (who donated a significant collection of Aboriginal artefacts to the National Museum of Australia).
Three weeks after the declaration of war in 1939, he founded The Peacemaker, a monthly paper to inform and assist those who conscientiously objected to military service.
[12] Also in 1939 Fr Gerard Tucker recruited Coaldrake to the Brotherhood of St Laurence to work in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy as a community worker.
[15] Coaldrake was president of the Federal Pacifist Council of Australia from 1943 to 1946, which was viewed with concern by the Church hierarchy and the Commonwealth Security Service.
[16] He offered to serve as a missionary in Japan, initially in 1943 at the height of the war to Dr H. V. Evatt, the Minister for External Affairs and which was declined,[17] but which was accepted by Bishop George Cranswick, Chairman of the Australian Board of Missions in 1946.
[18] He spent 15 months studying Japanese at the University of Sydney and was assistant priest to Fr John Hope at Christ Church St Laurence.
[34][35] His widow was subsequently a history academic at the Universities of Sydney and Tasmania, and then on the staff of St Hilda's Anglican Girls School, Tokyo.
[38] The University of Sydney awards a scholarship each year from the Frank Coaldrake Memorial Fund to support post-graduate students in Japanese or East Asian Studies.