Now there is interest in giving Anglican priest Canon David Garland - who received an Order of the British Empire in 1934 and died in 1939 - an Australian honour.

It was Canon Garland who 100 years ago in Brisbane laid out how Anzac Day should be observed throughout the world.

David John Garland came to Australia from Dublin with his parents in 1886 and joined the Church of England in 1899, building up bush parishes in West Australia before shifting to New South Wales and ultimately Queensland.

He became a war chaplain - initially in West Australia for troops going to the Boer War (1899-1902) and then in Queensland where he served as chaplain to Queenslanders heading to WWI. He was senior chaplain to Queensland troops at the Enoggera Barracks in 1915 and served in the Middle East, setting up eight hostels for service men and women from 1917 to 1919.

Historian Peter Collins, who runs the Canon Garland Memorial Society, says Garland was both horrified by war and and yet part of the recruitment drive for young soldiers to defend the British Empire.

"He was 'agin' it, but he also understood the need for it," Mr Collins said.

"He was a priest and his sworn duty is to uphold the Ten Commandments, one of which was 'Thou shalt not kill'," he said.

"But in his lifetime, he had to put that at an equal footing to loyalty to the country.

"So his spirituality allowed for both; both as the defender of the faith and the protector of the weak and those who had served and given of their all."

In 1916 on January 10 Canon Garland was appointed the inaugural secretary of the Anzac Day Commemoration Committee Queensland at a public meeting at the Exhibition Hall, known today as the Old Museum on Gregory Terrace.

It was at this meeting that April 25 would be fixed as Anzac Day.

From that committee, Canon Garland gradually set out the format of Anzac Day observances, including the one-minute silence, which was subsequently adopted with two minutes' silence on Remembrance Day on November 11, 1919.

"The minute's silence was marked at Anzac Day first, absolutely," Mr Collins said.

Canon Garland then lobbied Queensland Parliament for a public holiday for Anzac Day, which was granted in 1921. Eventual Queensland Labor premier "Red Ned" Hanlon was his local MP and a regular visitor to his church.

"For him it was a very solemn day, not overly religious, but about mourning and devotion to duty," Mr Collins said.

"It was on a par with Good Friday and Christmas Day," he said.

"He expected it to be celebrated in the same solemn way."

According to Mr Collins, who previously was a church warden at Canon Garland's St Barnabas church at Red Hill, it was Garland who set out how Anzac Day observances would be held.

"Garland created the format for the whole event," he said.

"That included the Last Post, the reading of the ode, the national anthem, the minute's silence and the two resolutions."

He forcefully wrote to all mayors in Queensland and New Zealand urging them to take up the Queensland model of celebrating Anzac Day and used live radio broadcasts to promote Anzac Day.

Mr Collins said Canon Garland enthusiastically used the media of the day, even writing "media releases" after committee meetings to give to reporters.

"I've no doubt that had he the internet, he would be using it and I wouldn't have my job today," he said.

"He was real force of nature who used the 'theatre of the mind'."

Canon Garland was buried in Toowong Cemetery in 1939 looking over a section called the "Soldiers Portion".

"He is looking over his boys as he was in life," Mr Collins said in the cemetery on Monday as rain fell.

Of the 393 veterans of WWI and WWII buried in the Soldiers Portion, 270 are WWI veterans, according to the Australian War Graves researchers.

At that time Canon Garland was the parish priest of St Barnabas Church at Ithaca (now Red Hill) and would conduct their funerals until his death.

Mr Collins believes it is time for Australia to honour him for his role in setting the Anzac Day format.

"It is a very attractive thought, but I think it will take a much better awareness of where he fits in the whole (Anzac Day) story before there is an upswell of interest to that point.

"However we would like the people of Brisbane - and Queensland - to become more aware of Canon Garland's story."

Theatre groups are for the first time re-enacting the story of Canon Garland in Toowong Cemetery until April 29 to booked-out crowds.

"They are sold out and judging by the attention to detail at that event by Brisbane City Council, I'm sure there would be a lot more people in Brisbane who would think that would not be a bad outcome."