The Legacy of Boyd’s Onehunga Zoo
From
The Zoo War
(2008)
Lisa J Truttman
There is little left of Boyd’s Zoo remaining anywhere in Auckland. His son EdwardBoyd lies buried at Waikaraka Cemetery;
1
there is a sign on Symonds Street which issupposed to mark the site of the zoo (but it doesn’t), and some stuffed specimens of animals originating from the zoo remain in the collection of the Auckland WarMemorial Museum. There used to be the remains of the band rotunda, sitting on asection on Boyd Avenue for years, until it was donated to the Museum of Transportand Technology. This, however, no longer exists. And, of course, there are thelegends.
There is a commemorative sign, but …
This is a similar situation to that concerning the history of the Devonport BearGardens, in that some assumptions have become “facts”, and then are simply repeatedin later compilations until they are believed.Onehunga historian G G M Mitchell wrote an excellent multi-part article on J J Boydand the Onehunga Zoo in the
Manukau Progress
from July 1961. He did not mentionexactly where the zoo was located (except that it was on Symonds Street), nor did hetie in the zoo with the present-day school site. Just prior to the publication of hisarticle, however, a competing local paper called
Western Suburbs News
published thefollowing inaccurate piece:
“Before he brought his Zoo to Onehunga, Mr Boyd was a very successful buildingcontractor in Wellington. In 1915, he quit the building game and for some time he and his family travelled around New Zealand with a small Zoo. Later in 1915 he arrived,eventually, at Auckland and decided to settle in Onehunga, then a fast growingborough. He purchased a plot of land, upon which now stands the Manukau Intermediate School, where he opened his Zoo to the public … The house in Boyd Avenue, in which the Boyd family lived was previously owned by the Minnars, an old Onehunga pioneering family …”
2
A well-known Symonds Street resident named William Bone Suttie (1877-1964) triedto have the information corrected two weeks later:
“ … I have lived in both the streets mentioned, Symonds St. and Trafalgar St., for over the last seventy-eight years, it seems a pity for your good paper, the Western Suburbs News, to make statements which are not quite correct. To begin with the Boyd Zoowas never on any part of the Manukau Intermediate School property and as thisschool has over six hundred children, many of them, after reading your paper, will beimpressed with the wrong idea about their school being built where the old zoo stood.The school is built on a big block of good, clean, flat land, bought from Mr Whyte.The Boyd Zoo property is a different block, and I can remember away back in the year 1883 it was owned by a Mr and Mrs Ball and later owned by Mr. Pittar. In your paper you say Mr Boyd bought the house in Boyd Avenue in which he lived from the Minnars, an old Onehunga pioneering family, but I fancy you mean the “Pittars.”
3
Janice Mogford, in her book
The Onehunga Heritage
, first published in 1977, andthen 1989, wrote:
“The Manukau Intermediate School opened in 1943, thoughconstruction had begun several years earlier. Erected on the site of the old Onehunga zoo …”
4
Margaret Ashton’s
Collection of Stories of Places and Incidents inOnehunga
in 1988 perpetuated the inaccuracy by reproducing verbatim the 1961
Western Suburbs News
article.In 1992,
Tiger By The Tail
by Derek Wood was published, the history of theAuckland Zoo. It used information previously self-published by Boyd’s great-grandson Brian Boyd, called
Boyd Zoo at Aramoho
. Brian Boyd has since, in excerptsfrom a biography he is preparing on his ancestor, referred to the
Western Suburbs News
article, and corrected several points, but did not correct the inaccurate locationgiven for the zoo. No reference to the school site was made in Wood’s book, but theMaungakiekie Community Board in 1995, during a period of installation of heritagesignage around Onehunga, arranged the production and installation of the present signoutside the Royal Oak School, unveiled on 1 June 1995.
5
The sign says:
“BOYD’S ZOO“In 1912, John James Boyd, the Mayor of Onehunga, opened his zoo in SymondsStreet where now stands Manukau Intermediate School. At some expense he imported from a zoo from Hamburg, Germany, a fine lion and lioness, a tigress, a pair of bearsand a pair of black buck antelopes as well as four macaws, two vultures and twodemoiselle cranes.“At first the zoo proved very popular and crowds flocked to see the animals, but it was not long before the council began to receive complaints about the noise and smell.“Mr Boyd was finally forced to close the zoo in 1922 soon after a lion escaped, randown Symonds Street into Trafalgar Street and then to Queen Street where Mr Boyd’sson recaptured it, but not before several members of the public had received the fright of their lives.“The animals were sold to Auckland City for their zoo.“The next major use of the property was as a wartime hospital before it opened for classes as a school in 1943.”
The inaccuracies:
•
J J Boyd wasn’t Mayor of Onehunga when he opened the zoo in 1911 – hewas Mayor officially from 1917-1918, but actually only from May to August1917.
•
The zoo was not on the site of the future school.
•
The animals referred to were imported for his Aramoho Zoo in Wanganui inJanuary 1910 – and the “vultures” were two American bald eagles.
•
The lion escape is unlikely to have happened as the 1961
Western Suburbs News
article seems to have perpetuated. (see below).Hopefully, at some stage, the sign is replaced and relocated by Auckland CityCouncil.
The strolling lions of Onehunga
The
Western Suburbs News
informed its readers in 1961:
“During the latter part of 1917 a lion escaped from its cage (the gate not being shut properly) and went bounding down Symonds Street towards Trafalgar Street. A Mrs Isabella Hutchinson, the widow of Onehunga’s first Town Clerk, happened to bewalking in Symonds Street at the same time. According to her story, she becameaware of some large animal running down the road towards her, as it approached closer she thrust her opened umbrella into the lion’s face, which (the lion)immediately continued its gallop down Symonds Street. It then turned into Trafalgar Street and made its way to Queen Street. Mr Boyd’s son overtook it and succeeded incoaxing it into the Zoo’s van.”
According to Mr Suttie, trying to set the record straight:
“Anyhow, talking about the lion, it was only a young lion, not twelve months old by along way, and when it crossed over into Mr Whyte’s property, Mr. Whyte’s cow that had just calved, at once rushed the young lion, and chased it into the boundary hedgewhere it hid. Some sailors were visiting the zoo that day and when they heard about the lion being out of its cage they got ropes and lassood it properly, and led it back toits cage. That will be 44 years ago. My sister-in-law, who was then Miss Violet Gray,and lived opposite the zoo gates, nursed this same young lion in her arms when it wasa nice wee cub, and it was quite quiet and tame.”
6
This incident has been confirmed as taking place in late December 1917.
“One of the minor jokes of the week was the encounter between a young lion from theOnehunga Zoo and a cow. The cow, no doubt to protect its calf, chased the lion, and the heir-apparent of the King of the Beasts took refuge in a hedge. Is this the result of captivity on a species renowned for its bravery, or was the animal's strategic retreat attributable to youth and the fearsomeness of the cow? Put yourself in a young lion's place, and a cow would be rather a terrible looking animal. But grave doubts havebeen cast on the lion's reputation for bravery and fierceness. Do you remember theimmortal "Punch" picture of the lion-tamer seeking refuge in the lion's cage from thewrath of his wife, and the lady standing, outside shaking her fist at him and calling"Coward!"
7
It would appear that a small incident has become somewhat inflated over time.Nowhere in any of the Borough Council minutes or news articles of the time have Iseen reference to a lion escaping from the zoo and roaming loose over the OnehungaDistrict – except in stories which admit to their likely apocryphal nature.
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The Legacy of Boyd's Zoo
The remains of J J Boyd and his Royal Oak Zoo
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