IN MEMORIAM.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 8819, 14 June 1889, Page 5

IN MEMORIAM.

JOHN COWELL BOYS.

Oeiit., -June 13; 28t., 65.

The majority of his friends and acquaintances in Christchurch itself, but more particularly in North Canterbury, whore Mr J. C. Boys was exceedingly well-known, will be greatly surprised to hear of his death at an early hour yesterday morning. Though the acute stage of the illness which caused his decease, namely, inflammation of the lungs, ran a rather rapid course, he had been suffering for some time past. An attack of bronchitis a fortnight ago had been succesefully combated, but too early exposure on recovery resulted in a relapse. Asthma and slight congestion of the lungs complicated the original disorder, and the disease rapidly became very serious. On Wednesday evening Dr Prins was called in consultation with Dr Townend, his physician. But little hope, however, was held out that Mr Boye would survive the night, and the unfavourable opinion then expressed on the *ase proved to be only too well founded. Mr Boys came of an old Sussex family, and his property at Southbrook was called Betshanger after the place in the famous County with which his earliest associations were connected. Noted for longevity and bodily strength, his family and relatives for generations have been mostly naval or military men. The story of the exploits of & certain military Captain Boys, and his daring escape from a French prison in the Napoleonic wars, forms very lively reading for those who may chance upon the little volume in which they are related. Of late years the name has been well-known in various high positions, executive and administrative, connected with the Navy.

EARLY LIFE IN NEW ZEALAND. It was as a stripling of seventeen that Mr Boys came to New Zealand, in 1812, in the capacity of a survey cadet to the New Zealand Company. Auckland was fairly established then; Wellington and Nelson were but budding settlements, Canterbury a name as yet unknown on the map of New Zealand. To Nelson Mr Boys was sent, along with other young fellows engaged for similar duties, and there he remained for three or four years, doing very rough exploring and survey work- In 1845 he went home to England to complete his education as a cosn;petent trigonometrical surveyor, returning in 1849, when his object was accomplished, to remain foe the rest of his life in New Zealand. IN CANTERBURY. •• It was just before the advent of Ur Godley. The Canterbury Colonists* Amo* ciation had purchased the rights of this moribund New Zealand Company to that block of land between the Waipara and Eangitata rivers, which was to formths nucleus of a very bold and curious experiment in the art of colonisation. Captain Thomas, the bluff and burly hero to whom we owe the Sumner road, was here, almost at the zenith of his career; he was pro* paring the country for the coming of tbs pilgrims. Looking about for men to carry out his work he picked up such surveyors and engineers as the late Mr Boys, Ur Cass, afterwards Chief Surveyor of Canterbury in the palmy Provincial days, Mr Edward Jollie and Mr C. 0. Torlesse— the latter long since dead. Messrs Torlesss and Boys were set to work on the triangulation of the Northern District—'Weimakariri to Waipara—the boundary of the Province on that side. The whole took several years to finish, but so excellent and faultless was it, as Mr Cass, their superior, reported to his chief, that that fiery individual rapped out, with a great round oath, that it must be "too ■ ■ correct to be right." Subsequently, when triangulation was over and done with, the deceased gentleman was entrusted with the road and sectional survey necessary, now that the pilgrims were close at hand. At this work, under Mr Case, he remained until 1853, when he was promoted to Colonel Campbell’s staff, and assisted that gallant officer in the adjustment of the French land claims on Banks Peninsula.

- The claims adjusted, and Mr Boys having married, he bought property near Eangiota and went to reside there. His health had suffered from the continual exposure of those early days of survey work, and Hr Cass, now become Chief Surveyor of the Province, gave him a district surveyorship. Bad health became worse, and field work had to be dropped entirely. As Inspector of Surveys, Mr Boys remained in the office nntil the abolition of the Provinces sent him and many others to the right-about. He then took up his Betshanger again. From his uncle, then a naval lord* a noted sheep breeder, hfe obtained the Romney Marsh sheep, wiw which he made a small stud flock. From that flock are descended most of the animals of (hat breed, at one time such a favourite with many Canterbury farmers, but now held In comparatively small repute. Some years back, the late gentleman let his farm, and came to town. He then began to undertake many of those small but important offices, in which, with ns. men of leisure find more employment and wear and tear of mind than public thanks. Indeed in these, as in many capacities, Mr J. C. Boys had served his adopted country well. Acclimatisation had no more ardent votary, and with the exception, perhaps, of the veteran Secretary of our Society, no man has given more time or thought to it in Canterbury. In 1884 he undertook a long tour in the neighbouring Colonies, his chief object being the collecting of information of any kind that might be of service to ns here in matters relating to his favourite hobby. He has been often wrongfully accused of having introduced the sparrow pest among us. It is true that seeing the ravages made among thegrain crops years ago by caterpillars, he advocated. the introduction of a sparrow to combat them. But it was the shy, quiet, retiring soft-billed hedge sparrow, not the noisy brazen-faced little' hard-billed villain, the house sparrow, whose pervading forces have overwhelmed the land.

Ab a member of the Hospital and Charitable Aid Boards he had been for several years an active and regular attendant at meetings. Ab a member of the Waste Lands Board and a Justice of the Peace, he hae discharged his duties with care and assiduity. As Chairman of the Bangiora and Mandeville Bond Board his technical advice was valuable, and hi* services given without grudging. They will be heartily appreciated by those who know how they were given. It was only at the last meeting of the Hospital Board that he was granted leave of absence. Few of the members suspected how grevioua was the illness that necessitated that leave, and that it would be the last they would have formally to grant him. Mr Boys was thrice married. First, to Priscilla, fourth daughter of the late James Townsend; secondly, to Sarah, daughter of Captain Andrews, E.N.; thirdly, to Edith, daughter of Albert Purchase, of Melbourne, who pre-deceased him. By his first wife he had two children, a son and daughter ;by the others no family. Hia son, Mr J. W. T. Boys, a Civil Engineer, has latterly been engaged on important public works in Tasmania. Miss Boys is the present matron of the Christchurch Hospital. The funeral is to take place at Bangiora to-morrow; friends and relative* leaving town by the mid-day train. CONCLUSION. Such is the story of John Cowell Boy*, in so far as it concerns the public. He was one of those pioneers of civilisation who have watched the Avon from its original form of a sluggish stream wandering through desert and through swamp, bordered with waving toi and clattering flax, above which the bittern winged his solemn, heavy way, grow to a trim, willowfringed river, the chief ornament and pride of a great and busy town. He was one of those who, when the pioneering was done, did not shrink into a lasy hermit’s cell and fold his hands and rest selfishly. To the end he attended care* fully and regularly to such public dutie* as fell within the grasp of His intellect* We need not point the moral mote.