Dr. Neil Benjamin was International Bowling Board president in 1966. He was the individual that was instrumental in getting the first World Men’s Championship approved by the IBB in 1962 and raising the funding necessary to host it at the brand-new New South Wales League Club Bowling Club at Kyeemagh in Sydney, Australia. 

Bowls was not included in the Commonwealth Games in 1966 due to the unavailability of greens in the host city Kingston, Jamaica. This is the first and only time that bowls has not been part of the Commonwealth Games, or its antecedent Games, having been one of the original six sports at the first Empire Games in 1930, that was played at Roselawn Bowling Club, Gage Park in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Neil took the opportunity to establish the inaugural Men’s World Bowls championships as a replacement event to the Commonwealth Games that year, thus creating a legacy for the sport replicated with multiple World Bowls events since then. The inaugural 1966 event held between October 10 – 23 featured 16 teams from countries or colonies that were members of the IBB. 

To Neil’s delight, Australia won the WM Leonard Trophy for the best team overall. David Bryant (England) won the gold medal in the singles, Australia’s Bert Palm and Geoff Kelly won the pairs and John Dobbie, Athol Johnston, and Don Collins won the triples, and New Zealand’s Bill O’Neill, Gordon Jolly, Ron Buchan and Norm Lash won the fours gold. 

This inspired the newly incorporated International Women’s Bowling Board to hold their first Women’s World Bowls championships which were held in 1969, at the Elizabethan Bowls Club, Rockdale in Sydney, Australia from 4-12 December. The British Isles nations had not yet joined so six nations took part, South Africa, Australia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Canada and USA. 

South Africa dominated the event and secured the overall Taylor Trophy, with golds in the pairs from May Cridlan and Elsie McDonald, triples from Kathy Bidwell, Yetta Emanuel, and Sara Sundelowitz, and fours from Cridlan, Bidwell, Emanuel and Sundelowitz. Gladys Doyle from Papua New Guinea won the singles gold medal. 

For his services, Neil Benjamin was made a life member of the International Bowling Board, having been involved as a member of the IBB from 1958 until 1968.  He was from Wagga in New South Wales where he served as club president of the South Wagga Club. Neil was a Royal New South Wales Bowling Association delegate to the Australian Bowling Council in 1958 and first rose to international prominence when he managed the Australian team at the 1958 Commonwealth Games in Cardiff.