HISTORIC BELL

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 108, 16 February 1935, Page 8

HISTORIC BELL

*, , 1 STORY OF BEN BOYD. RELIC NOW IN! SYDNEY. ✓ At a Christmas party given recently by Mr Henry Perdriau' on his ninetieth birthday at Mosman, Sydney, many reminiscences of old Sydney were recalled and a bell which pealed to, bring the numerous guests to luncheon took their memories back to the last century.

The bell was originally installed in the yacht Wanderer on which the famous Ben Boyd first visited Australia as a ! passenger in June, 1842 and through which he was destined' to meet his doom nine years later in the South (Seas. This creator of Bbyd Town, the owner of flocks of sheeps, the director bf a lai’ge shipping business, and one of the keenest bonds associated with Australian whaling, had established a whale oil industry at Mosman and lost practically everything. His shareholders permitted him to the Wanderer after deposing him from every otheJ position of affluence he had held. Mr Perdriau purchased the bell for £5. He was subsequently’ offered £6OO for it,'’but refused to part with it. In an interview, Mr Perdriau said 'that the bell was inscribed with Ben Boyd’s crest, said to be worked* by Oswald Briei’ly, a fellow passenger on Ben Boyd’s first ship to Sydney and who later was appointed marine painter to Queen Victoi’ia. His first recollection of the bell was in 1852, when it was purchased by his father for a ferry steamer after the wreck of the Wanderer at Port Macquai’ie, .following Ben Boyd’s unlucky gold fossicking ti’ip to the Californian diggings. Boyd was clubbed to death in the Solo--snons and the Wanderer was being navigated by her crew when she was wrecked. ,

Mr Perdriau’s father promised him rthat the bell would one day be his if he earned enough money to pay for it. How young Perdriau achieved his ambition might be realised by particulars of the ferry services he helped f© make efficient and the rubber industry he pioneered.