Boyd family

The Boyd family is an Australian family whose members over several generations succeeded in distinguished effort in their contribution to the arts in the fields of painting, sculpture, pottery, ceramics, literature, architecture, poetry and music. By the advent of the twenty-first century the Boyd family had reached a popular conception of identity as an artistic dynasty. This line of artists may be said to find its nascence in the 14 January 1886 marriage of Emma Minnie à Beckett and Arthur Merric Boyd.

Family tree

The family is descended from four diverse immigrants to Victoria:

• William à Beckett (1806–1869), lawyer and Chief Justice of Victoria, arrived in New South Wales in 1837 with his wife, Emily à Beckett (née Hayley) and three young sons. His brother, Thomas Turner à Beckett, arrived in Australia in 1850 and was the father of Eliza à Beckett who married Charles Henry Chomley, a novelist and newspaper editor.
• John Mills (c1810-1841), a convict and brewer, was transported to Van Diemen's Land in 1827 and married Hannah Hale in 1836. Arrived in Port Phillip District in 1837.
• Major Alexander Boyd (1 August 1792 – 21 August 1869), paymaster of the 11th Regiment of Foot (The North Devonshire Regiment of Foot), arrived in Van Diemen's Land in 1845, possibly with his wife, Susan Boyd, née Brown, (May 1796 – ).
• Robert Martin (1798–1874), medical practitioner and squatter, travelled by land from Sydney in 1839 to take up land at Mount Sturgeon near Dunkeld and Heidelberg. His wife Lucy Martin (née Gear) and family came from Sydney to join him soon after.

These four families were joined by marriages of their children in the young colony of Victoria in the 1850s:

• William à Beckett's son Hon. William Arthur Callendar à Beckett (1833–1901) married John Mills's daughter Emma Mills (1838–1906) in 1855, and had six children, including Emma Minnie à Beckett (1858–1936).
• Major Alexander Boyd's son Captain John Theodore Thomas Boyd (1825–1891) married Dr Robert Martin's daughter Lucy Charlotte Martin in 1857, and had 12 children, including Arthur Merric Boyd (1862–1940).

From these two families, then, Emma Minnie à Beckett (known as Minnie) and Arthur Merric Boyd married. Both were already individually established in society as painters.

They had five children, four of whom became prominent in the Australian artistic world:

• John Gilbert à Beckett Boyd (1886–1896) was killed in a riding accident.
• William Merric Boyd (1888–1959) [1], potter, married Doris Gough (1889–1960) [2], painter.
• Theodore Penleigh Boyd (1890–1923), painter, married Edith Susan Gerard Anderson, painter.
• Martin à Beckett Boyd (1893–1972) was a writer.
• Helen à Beckett Boyd (1903–1999), late painter, married Neven Read, naval officer.

When their children had matured, married or settled elsewhere, Arthur Merric and Emma Minnie Boyd set down a modest family estate within the outer Melbourne suburb of Murrumbeena where they lived for the rest of their lives.

Doris and Merric Boyd, newly married, found their home there, at Murrumbeena, naming it "Open Country" and the artistic tradition continued:

The children of (William) Merric Boyd and Doris (née Gough) Boyd were:

• Lucy Evelyn Gough Boyd (1916–2009)[3], painter, ceramic decorator, married Hatton Beck (1901–1994) [4], ceramist, potter, sculptor.
• Arthur Merric Bloomfield Boyd (1920–1999), painter, married Yvonne Lennie, painter.
• Guy Martin à Beckett Boyd (1923–1988),early poet, potter, sculptor, married Phyllis Emma Nairn.
• David Fielding Gough Boyd (1924–2011)[5], potter, painter, married Hermia Lloyd-Jones, ceramic artist.
• Mary Elizabeth Boyd (1926–2016), early painter, married firstly, John Perceval, painter, potter, and sculptor, and had four children. Mary married secondly, in 1978, Sir Sidney Nolan, painter, becoming Lady Nolan.

The children of Penleigh and Edith Boyd were:

• Pamela Boyd (b & d 1913)
• John à Beckett Penleigh (Pat) Boyd (1915–1980), gift for painting, distinguished wartime pilot, then commercial aviation pilot, married Anne Davy.
• Robin Gerard Penleigh Boyd (1919–1971), architect and writer, married Patricia Madder.

The children of Helen and Neven Read are:

• Gayner Read (1936–1988), painter. Gayner provided her parents with two lovely grandsons.
• Susan Read (1938–), children pennie beatson,ken easton,greame easton
• Andrew Read (1942–),athur read , rossie read
• Prudence Read (1947–)

It was in 1955 when David Boyd with his wife Hermia returned from a stay of several successful working years as potters in England and the south of France that the conception of this family line was popularised in a display of public relations in the press, magazines and the media (radio in 1955 but television was to arrive in 1956) that dismayed most family members. David was working full-scale promoting the circumstances of his life for the benefit of the pottery exhibitions of his and his wife's work, and magazine editors found the thick patina of past grandeur as presented to them by David irresistible and pages of glory adorned the 1955 magazines and newspaper articles. From here on, in the family's history no members could think of themselves again as quite so elite or removed although in the popular sense as an artistic family it was never greater.

The generations that followed (including those born before 1955) grew up in this imposed social and cultural circumstance. These children were:

Of Lucy and Hatton Beck:

• Laurence Hatton Beck (1940–)[6], layman, wayfarer and journeyman.
• Robert Hatton Beck (1942–), potter/ceramist, married Margot Gardner (daughter of painter Freidl Gardner) and they had two children.
• Paul Hatton Beck (1948–), musician

Of Arthur and Yvonne Boyd:

• Polly Boyd (1946–), artist and painter
• Jamie Patrick Boyd (1948–) [7][8], painter and sculptor
• Lucy Ellen Boyd, painter

Of Guy and Phyllis Boyd:

• Lenore Boyd (1953–)
• Sally Boyd
• Derry Catherine (1957–), owner-operator of a graphic, web, and multimedia business, married (1)Vuthichai Satianyot (also known as Yap Guan Soon), and (2) Michael Evans. Derry and Michael had three children.
• Kirstin Doris (1960–), writer of children's literature, married (1) John Murray, graphic designer, and had three children. Kirstin married (2) Ken Harper, drama teacher, playwright, gymnast, and circus trainer.
• Ben
• Charlotte Beatrice Magdalen (1968–), potter and ceramist, married John O'Donohue, digital technician. They had two children.
• Martin Duncan Gough (1970–), writer and Spanish translator, married Paulina Derbez, violinist, and had one child.

Of David and Hermia Boyd:

• Amanda, painter and costume designer
• Lucinda, model and painter
• Cassandra, painter and illustrator

Of Mary and John Perceval:

• Matthew, painter, married Jutta, and had three children.
• Tessa, painter
• Celia, painter
• Alice, painter, had four children.

The greatest talents remain those of the immediate children and grandchildren from the 14 January 1886 marriage of Emma Minnie à Beckett and Arthur Merric Boyd. But the widespread cousinage of what continued can be said to contain much to impress and be of delight and interest.

See also

• Nasturtiums (E. Phillips Fox) . . . Edith Anderson, as model to E. Phillips Fox, later to be Mrs Penleigh Boyd.

References

• Brenda Niall, The Boyds: A Family Biography, Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, July 2002. [9] ISBN 0-522-84871-0

External links

• The Boyds: A Family Biography
• Dynasties: The Boyd Family, ABC
• "The Boyds: A Family Biography". The Sydney Morning Herald. 18 May 2002.