Historic Boydtown set to be renamed due to ‘blackbirding’ links

The owners of historic Boydtown near Eden on the NSW South Coast are planning to change its name because of associations with the slave-trader Ben Boyd.

The move comes after Environment Minister Matt Kean said he would investigate changing the name of the 100 square kilometre Ben Boyd National Park in the same area.

Environment Minister Matt Kean is looking into changing the name of Ben Boyd National Park.Credit:Getty

Indigenous leaders led calls to drop the name last June following the Black Lives Matter protests, describing it as “a slap in the face” to have the park named after someone who wanted to have Aboriginal slaves.

A National Parks and Wildlife Service spokesman on Sunday said the agency had appointed an independent historian to evaluate Boyd’s place in 19th century history.

Mr Kean, in announcing an inquiry nine months ago, said: “Our national parks are about connecting people, not dividing them.”

Mr Kean’s office on Sunday referred comments to the NPWS.

A spokesman for the agency said it had appointed Dr Mark Dunn, a former NSW Heritage Council chairman to evaluate Boyd’s role in “19th century blackbirding”. Blackbirding involves the coercion of people through deception or kidnapping to work as slaves or poorly paid labourers in remote countries.

The spokesman said consultation with community elders and other stakeholders would start next month. A final report is due to NPWS by mid-2021.

Last month, Neutral Bay Public School renamed one of its sporting houses named after Ben Boyd after conducting a survey of parents and teachers. It decided to drop the name and change it to Waratah.

Entrepreneur Ben Boyd started the ambitious development of Boydtown on Twofold Bay as a centre for his whaling operations with cottages for 400 workmen. There was a lighthouse, and he built the Seahorse Inn, now a refurbished hotel and wedding venue.

Property development company Lyon Group Australia owns 700 hectares of land at Boydtown comprising the Seahorse Inn, a caravan park, and pastoral and residential land. It agreed last week to investigate a name change working with the Indigenous community. They will meet with Eden Local Aboriginal Land Council chairman BJ Cruse, a fierce critic of the use of the Boyd name, in Boydtown after Easter.

Lyon Group managing director Mike Milliken said it was seriously looking into a name change and had appointed a historian as a consultant.

Mike Milliken of the Lyon Group in his office in front of a map of Boydtown. Credit:Edwina Pickles

“We have reviewed the history, and we know that the name of Ben Boyd is related not just to the subjugation of Indigenous people in the area, but to ‘blackbirding’ – the use of South Sea Islanders practically as slave labour in the mid 19th century. All I can say at this point is we are highly sympathetic to local Indigenous wishes,” he said.

Mr Cruse appreciates the respectful gesture made by the Boydtown owners. “They have set an example for government to follow,” he said. “I think it is the first foot in the door. We want the name changed because of what that man represents. He caused a lot of misery amongst Indigenous and Pacific Island people. It’s a long time coming but it is well-received.”

BJ Cruse says movement towards a name change has been a long time coming and is well received.Credit:Angi High

Ben Boyd was a colonial adventurer from Scotland who in the 1840s was involved with ship and whaling industries and sheep farming. He brought two boatloads of slaves from Melanesia in the Pacific. They arrived “naked, wild and restless” with no understanding of the five-year contracts they had agreed to.

When state laws were changed making their agreements invalid, Boyd abandoned them and they were left to wander naked back to Sydney. Amid “disquieting rumours” about Boyd’s recruiting methods, the Aborigines’ Protection Society and the Anti-Slavery Association pressed the Colonial Office in London for an inquiry.

Ben Boyd brought two boatloads of slaves from Melanesia in the Pacific.

Historian Dr Marion Diamond, who wrote the book Ben Boyd of Boydtown in 1988, said there was little doubt that Boyd was a rogue. “It is all there [in the book] on pages 140 to 160. I think (NPWS) are aware that there is an issue with Ben Boyd.”

Professor Clive Moore, a historian, says he was contacted by NPWS, which wanted to hire a researcher to look into Boyd.

“They want to go and start researching again. I think they are wasting tens of thousands of dollars,” he said. “I would have thought just looking in Dr Marion Diamond’s book would be quite enough for anyone to say ,‘I don’t think Ben Boyd is character of the month’.”

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