Benjamin Boyd's Ill-Fated

"Papuan Republic"

Scheme of 1851

Expedition To Fuadalcana[?]

By A. J. Sheat

SOMEDAY a movie magnate may make millions of dollars by un folding on the cinemascope or vistavision screens of the world the 1960 or so version of “The Last Cruise of the Armed Yacht Wanderer .”

Comedy, stark tragedy, mass scenes of natives in the minimum of cloth ing, murder in the jungle and a dramatic climax as the 240-ton yacht is wrecked on the bar of Port Macquarie, NSW, should make this a “colossal, stupendous” box-office success.

Benjamin Boyd, millionaire owner of the yacht Wanderer, might well be a role to win an Academy award for some movie actor fresh from triumphs in current movies like “Round the World In 80 Days” or “Moby Dick.”

It was recently stated in the Sydney newspapers that “the oldest ghost town in Australia, Boydtown, on Twofold Bay, near the New South Wales-Victorian border, is for sale. . . The National Trust, which fosters the restoration and preserva tion of historic buildings, hopes to restore the village and re-create the atmosphere of the period. Benjamin Boyd, a London Stock Exchange millionaire, came to Sydney in his luxury yacht Wanderer, in 1842. . .”

The story of Benjamin Boyd is well known. The Pacific Islands Year Book records that he was murdered by natives in 1851 when he unwisely went ashore on Guadal canal, in the Solomon Islands.

IF ever Boydtown is restored to what it was in the eighteen forties then one of the star at tractions might well be Boyd’s Waterloo gun, salvaged from the wreck of the Wanderer and brought to Auckland, NZ, by Mr. Samuel Browning. Benjamin Boyd estab lished branches of the Royal Bank of Australia when he arrived in Sydney in 1841, and Mr. Browning came to Australia in the middle of the century as managing inspector of the bank and wound up its affairs.

No doubt the brass 12-pound cannon was of considerable senti mental value to Mr. Browning and he took it with him when he left Sydney in 1855 to reside permanently in Auckland. He died there in 1888, and some years later the gun was presented to the city of Auckland.

For several decades it was an object of interest among the flower beds in Albert Park. Then a new museum was built and the old brass cannon was moved to the museum.

Space limitations have resulted] Ben Boyd’s gun being left in storeroom. Nobody, except museum staff has seen it for gene tions.

However, Auckland museum, w one of the world’s finest collectii of Polynesian and Melanesian s and crafts, has two sketches on. walls of events in the last cruise the Wanderer in 1851.

How a hundred canoes greeted arrival of the Wanderer at Nukui or Byron’s Island in the Kingsn Group (now known as the GilU Islands) on August 5, 1851, is she in one excellent water-colour ske made by John Webster, who * sailing master of the Wanderer ; who lived on until 1912 andJ buried in Auckland.

The burning of native houses Wanderer Bay, Guadalcanal, Webster and crew as a reprisal the murder of Benjamin Boyd* October, 1851, is shown in anoti sketch.

Then, for good measure, there among the rare books in the Au land Public Library the s volume in which Webster recor the melancholy “Last Cruise of Wanderer.”

JOHN WEBSTER, a remarks personality in his own rij. teamed up with Benjamin B! at San Francisco in the early mor of 1851. Boyd had sailed Wanderer to California when nr came of the gold discoveries of I —which were so soon to be follow by the equally great gold discover in Australia in 1851 and later yer Webster had reached California* supercargo on a ship sent by enterprising Auckland merchai Brown and Campbell.

Aged 33 at the time, Webster ! come to Australia in the eighteen-thirties and worked ai cattle-drover and explorer in lx country inhabited by hostile blaj In 1841, he moved to New Zeald and spent several years running sawmill among the warlike Mai of Hokianga Harbour. So he well equipped to act as Boyd’s gut Those who have wondered t millionaire Boyd should risk life ; fortune in the Cannibal Islands 1851 will find the answer Webster’s book, where he offers following explanation: “There a definite object in view. This the establishment of a Papuan public or confederation of some ! ... a social and political organi tion on which the simple machin of an independent state might]

3ted. Had not death cut short , Boyd’s career he might have Deeded in this object. As it is task is reserved for others.” hers have succeeded in parcel ■ the South-west Pacific into the ; Protectorate, the New Hebrides idominium and so on—with re s not altogether happy for white lack men). >hn Webster’s book was printed ydney by F. Cunninghame, gen steam printer, of 184 Pitt Street, date was probably a hundred ■s ago. This book is now a coi n’s item, kept under lock and in a few libraries. It has a frontispiece showing the Merer in full sail. •YD’S expedition of 1851 was made with two ships, the Wanderer and her tender, the oner Ariel. Here is Webster’s ription of the ships: "The derer, RYS, was a fast-sailing hi schooner of 240 tons (old (urement). She had a flush Her armament consisted of brass deck guns mounted on ages, four rail guns, two on each and one brass 12-pounder rsing gun (long tom) which done service at Waterloo. In here were 13 serviceable guns, es two small guns for firing Is. These had been obtained the wreck of the Royal George hthead. le Ariel, a schooner of 120 tons, been purchased in San Fran as a tender. She carried sup for the expedition and goods *ade. was to have commanded the r, but as I preferred to sail Mr. Boyd he deputed the com of the Ariel to Mr Bradley. )st of the crew of both vessels Islanders. The crew of the were exclusively natives of the Hebrides.” ing from San Francisco on 3, 1851. the Wanderer was at Hawaii, in July, and reached lau, Gilbert Islands, 174 deg. on August 5, and Ocean Island gust 15.

September 6, the Wanderer at San Cristoval, in the on Islands. There the ship re d for a month. Boyd, who was ►f shooting, went ashore several and shot pigeons for dinner.

Eloomy foreboding, had the men on board realised it, was >tice left by a British warship ig all shipmasters that in 1847, the natives of one village in Cristoval had murdered French missionaries, and that rch, 1848, a French corvette Jstroyed two native villages in ition for these murders, to Guadalcanal (spelled with il “r” by Webster as on all maps) went the Wanaerer.

Jr went ashore on October 12. days later while the Wanderer t anchor in the bay—since as Wanderer Bay—on the west coast, Boyd went ashore

before breakfast accompanied only by an Ocean Island sailor who pulled the dinghy. Boyd took his gun, saying he would be back for breakfast and would bring some game for dinner.

Two shots were heard. Boyd did not return. Webster and the white men on the Wanderer oecame anxious.

Natives put out in canoes and surrounded the Wanderer. Webstei hurriedly distributed boarding pikes and handed up muskets from below deck. The muskets were each loaded with 10 pistol bullets.

So unexpected was the attack that followed that Webster had not loaded the ship’s guns. However he managed to load a swivel gun with grape shot and fired at the nearest canoe. This decided the battle, giv ing the crew time to run out the deck guns and open up on the savages with grape shot.

All this happened while Webster was expecting Benjamin Boyd back for breakfast. “None of us doubted”, he wrote, “that Mr. Boyd had been murdered. A native was seen run ning along the beach with Mr.

Boyd’s hat on . . . Having got long tom (the Waterloo gun) to bear on the village we soon expelled the savages who were lurking among the houses.”

Why did the natives of Guadal canal attack the Wanderer? Webster, with his wide knowledge of Maoris and Islanders was sure that the natives at Wanderer Bay wanted to get the knives and tomahawks (carried as trade goods), which in their eyes were untold wealth.

Webster and six others, well armed, went ashore and found the dinghy in which Benjamin Boyd had left the ship. From footmarks in the sand he assumed that natives had speared Boyd as soon as he landed. Wads from Boyd’s gun in dicated that he had fired both barrels at his attackers.

Webster says, “It was now sun down. Breakfast still lay on the cabin table untouched as it was in the morning, awaiting the arrival of Mr. Boyd.”

The crew, fighting for their lives and desperately trying to learn the fate of the Wanderer’s owner, had been too busy to eat.

In the next three days the Wanderer’s crew burned villages and searched in vain for traces of Benjamin Boyd. In a village Webster found a head which he thought was that of Boyd’s Ocean Island boatman. So on October 12, 1851, the Wanderer was headed south ward towards Sydney.

On November 8 came the wreck of the Wanderer at Port Macquarie.

What a sorry ending to the Pacific cruise which had started only five months previously in San Francisco! John Webster sums up with these sad thoughts: “From the moment that our gallant commander fell so suddenly and unexpectedly among the ruth less savages in Guadalcanal, it seemed as though an evil fortune brooded over the yacht; and in the short month after the death of him whose pride she had been, her frag ments lay scattered on the beach; and the wanderings of the Wanderer were at an end.”

John Webster lived for another 60 years. He spent some time on the Australian goldfields and then went to England, where he was made much of by Mr. Boyd’s friends, and also by Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort.

Returning to New Zealand Webster entered into the timber export business on a large scale. In later years he lived in retirement on the shore of Hokianga Harbour, at Opononi. He died in 1912.

The gun mentioned earlier in this story and known as Boyd’s Waterloo gun, was said to have been presented to Boyd as a mark of Royal favour. It has been stated that he had been Lord High Con stable of Scotland at the time of the coronation of Queen Victoria in 1837, and this was one reason why he was presented with the gun.

It may be that Boyd deputised for one of his relatives, but the office of Lord High Constable of Scotland is an hereditary title held

Benjamin Boyd's Waterloo gun, salvaged from the wreck of the "Wanderver" in 1851 and taken to New Zealand by Mr. Samuel Browning. After being set amid the flower beds in Albert Park, Auckland, it was removed to the museum and now lies forgotten in a storeroom.

bv the Earls of Erroll since 1315.

The chiefs of the Boyd clan had formerly born the title of Earl of Kilmarnock, but the thUe was abolished when the last Earl of that name was beheaded in 1745 fpr sup porting Bonnie Prince Charlie. One of the sons of this unfortunate Earl married into the family of the Earls of Erroll and a descendant inherited the title.