What we know about Kirby Cosmo Boyd

The album contains photos of a young boy named Kirby Boyd who would appear to be about the age of 12. Kirby was born in Australia on Dec. 25th 1910.

Kirby, christened Kirby Cosmo, was the son of Kirby Montague Boyd (Monty), who was born in 1873. His mother was Evelyn Newbury, daughter of Cosmo Newbury from St Kilda a suburb of Melbourne.  Both were from distinguished families.

Monty was born at Opoho, outside Dunedin in the Otago Province of New Zealand in 1873 but moved with his family to Melbourne in 1875. There he lived with his brothers and sisters at ‘Glenfern’ that stands on the corner of Hotham Street and Inkerman Road, St. Kilda, Victoria (a suburb of Melbourne). This house, a Victorian Gothic mansion at that time on 4 acres, is now owned by the National Trust and is used for art exhibitions and musical concerts and more recently has a writer’s studio set up there.

The arts emphasis at Glenfern is due to Monty Boyd’s older brother Arthur Merric Boyd being an artist whose children and grandchildren became artists as well and some of them are well-known in Australia. Arthur Merric Boyd’s grandchild and namesake, Arthur Merric Boyd Jnr became one of Australia’s top artists and was Australian of the Year 1995, Irish Australian of the Year 1988, and Australian Legend 1998.

 Monty attended Melbourne Grammar School. There exists a record of a letter written by Captain John Boyd that says that ‘Monty’ was studying at Dookie Agricultural College, where he went after Melbourne Grammar School and after that he seems to have worked on a sheep farm. At this point he married Evelyn Newbery, a very strong-willed young woman known by her family as “Missie”.  

In 1900 [?] Monty went to Shanghai to fight with the troops in the Boxer Rebellion.  Foreign forces, including a garrison from Australia, had been called upon to restore order and Missie followed her husband to China claiming she was a nurse. Rosemary Boyd writes:  

Missie had hated life and its dreary tasks on the sheep farm, and used this opportunity to leave.  While in combat, Montague was diagnosed with tuberculosis. [1]

After ten years Missie appears to have returned to Australia for Kirby’s birth.  Back in Shanghai, however, the marriage did not prosper and it seems that Missie encouraged Monty to go to a sanatorium in Switzerland to recover from the tuberculosis while Kirby was sent to school in England. Rosemary writes:

Evelyn “Missie” Newbery Boyd was way ahead of her time and would have probably fared better had she been born fifty years later.  The tight-knit community of foreigners had certain customs that needed to be religiously followed in order to be considered an acceptable member of their society–Missie didn’t fit into their mold….

She was now alone in China and needed to provide a living for herself and her young son’s education in England.  Having a strong personality and a natural penchant for business, Missie opened a curio shop in Shanghai and a second in Hong Kong.

Her flamboyant actions in Shanghai were noticeable…  She hired a handsome young Frenchman, Poinsot, to be her assistant which further fueled her rather tainted reputation.  She rode around the city with Poinsot in a large expensive bright yellow convertible she had purchased for him, adding fuel to the fire….

Missie didn’t seem to care what people thought of her and continued to enjoy her life…  Underneath her outward veneer of confidence lay an insecure woman.  In spite of many male friends, she felt alone and missed her siblings in Australia.[2] 

Missie sent Kirby away when he was eight. He was enrolled at Ardingly College, a preparatory school in England. He was accompanied on the journey by a Nanny, Babs. His father was in Switzerland. This is likely to have been in 1918 or 1919, immediately after the First World War. The album photographs suggest that on at least one school holiday he went to China.  One of his mother’s siblings was living in Peking and in the early1920s when we think the photos of Kirby were taken, it would not be unreasonable to assume that these photos recorded the occasion of a visit to Missie’s sister Katherine who was living there with her husband Edward Cockell (See “What we know about Edward Lawrence Cockell”). It seems likely that he would have been accompanied by Babs. It does seem possible, however, that the trip to Peking happened immediately before he was sent to England.

Ardingly College

By the time Kirby graduated from Ardingly [c.1927?] his parents were divorced and his father was living in Nice with Babs. At this time he developed an interest in amateur radio. He took a job as a clerk with the Royal Bank of Scotland but decided to return [c.1930?] to live with his mother in Shanghai:

A good businessman, inheriting this trait from his mother, he was offered a job in the Purchasing Department of the prominent Shanghai-based British-American Tobacco Company, fondly called BAT by its’ employees.[3]

Amid the social life on the Bund in Shanghai, Kirby soon encountered the daughters of the Tayler family and fell in love with Anita Tayler although his mother, being very possessive, discouraged all his girlfriends. Anita clearly had something of the same independent character as Missie and when BAT transferred Kirby to the city of Tsingtao she followed him. A further transfer to Newchwong in Manchuria persuaded them to marry. They married at Dairen on December 31^st, 1935. Missie, who had just returned from a trip to England with the Cockells, was reconciled to the marriage. A few years later [c.1939?] Kirby and Anita made a journey to Australia where they visited various members of their families and Kirby was reunited with his father, Monty, now living there with Babs. On their return to Shanghai Anita announced that she was pregnant but they were arriving back to a China suffering under the Japanese invasion. Missie’s shop was damaged by bombing and she decided to move to Hong Kong where she had another shop. After a brief return to Newchwong the Boyds found themselves back in Shanghai and their daughter Rosemary Evelyn Boyd was born there on April 2^nd, 1940.

An account of Anita’s and Rosemary’s escape from Shanghai and their subsequent adventures can be found in  Boyd, R. & Lubao, J. Farewell My China, unpublished doc., pp.103 et seq.

The manifest for the Yawata Maru, 1941, shows Iris Anita Boyd (26) traveling with infant Rosemary (1) from China to California. Both are residents of Shanghai and citizens of England.

Rosemary Boyd has recently written as follows: “My father [Kirby] was employed in Shanghai in the car business after the War by C.V. Starr who started the infamous AIG insurance company.  He was in cahoots also with Arthur Duff and the story goes that he and my father were smuggling cars from Canton into Shanghai. My colourful father and his accomplice had to flee Shanghai just before the Communists came in and my mother and I were left alone.” (e-mail 10/12/2009) 

The manifest for the Igadi, 1951, shows Kirby Cosmo Boyd (41) married to an Iris Anita (37) with a child Rosemary (11) again traveling from China to Canada.  Both Iris Anita and Rosemary were born in Shanghai.

The manifest for the Empress of Scotland, 8 Nov.1957, shows Kirby (47) to be an automotive executive traveling from Liverpool, England with his widowed mother, Evelyn (76) to Montreal, Canada. Both are listed as residents of Hong Kong and citizens of Canada. Their contact address in England is given as Balhurst Farm, Leatherhead, Surrey.

The manifest for the Empress of England, 14 Nov, 1958, shows Kirby Boyd (48) auto exec, traveling alone from England to Quebec, Canada. He is listed as a resident of Canada, and his contact address in England is given as CPR, London.

According to Evelyne Talbot “[Kirby] Boyd became a Managing Director of a famous tire company – I think it was Michelin – in Canada.” (see her message Mar 5 2009)

In the Papers of the Standard Motor Company Ltd (GB 0152 MSS.226/ST 1903-1973) held at the University of Warwick Library there is a manuscript (MSS.226/ST/3/O/CA/19 1962) which refers to an “Agreement w. Triumph Motor Car Distributors [Mr Kirby Boyd of Mt. Royal, Quebec].”

These indicators would suggest that Kirby was living in Quebec in 1962 and was indeed associated with the automobile industry.

Notice of Kirby’s death appears in the Victoria Government Gazette of 26 March 1980. His estate was being adminstered by the Public Trustee and they were looking for creditors or next of kin. The citation is as follows:, “Boyd, Kirby Cosmo, late of 7465 Churchill Road, Montreal, Canada, retired, died 21 June 1975.” (gazette.slv.vic.gov.au/images/1980/V/general/22.pdf)

So Kirby died at the age of 65. It was sad that he enjoyed no lengthy retirement. This notice led the researchers to assume erroneously that he left no heirs and his estate was reverting to his origins in Australia. However, very shortly after this discovery we were contacted by his son Richard and then by his daughter Rosemary, both living in the United States. Rosemary has herself written about her parents and added considerably to our knowledge making our own research in this area virtually complete, other than as it might still impact upon the story of the album itself or any connection to Wilfred Argent or the mysterious Zalewski.

[1] Boyd, R. & Lubao, J. Farewell My China, p.61 unpublished doc.

[2] Ibid

[3] Op.cit.p.57