In 1929, Harriot Rose Margaret Boyce (née Hill, known as Margeret or Margie) and Leslie Atherton Gerard Boyce purchased adjacent plots on the northern outskirts of Toowoomba.
The house was built in 1930 with ground floor additions in 1940 and the upper story added in 1955.
Margaret designed the first garden featuring hedges of cypress, laurels and camellias. They lived and gardened on this property for the rest of their lives, gradually creating the magnificent landscape now known as Boyce Gardens.
In 1969, the Boyces donated the estate to The University of Queensland to serve as a trial garden and educational resource. Today, the heritage listed gardens remain a benchmark plantation and a public space for study and enjoyment, preserving the Boyces' legacy and commitment to native Australian flora.
Born at Burketown on the Gulf of Carpentaria on 20 June 1897, Leslie was the elder son of John Gerard Rodney Boyce (known as Gerard) and Margaret Annie Boyce (nee Griffiths) both of Toowoomba, with young siblings Colin and Nancy.
Early life
The family circumstances were frugal. Gerard worked as a bank manager, hospital secretary, and a tinned meat business owner before becoming a professional conjurer. His stage name was Jean Hugard, and he invented several ingenious new illusions and edited a popular conjurors' magazine.
Gerard deserted his wife and young family in 1912. To survive, Margaret sold off land and took in boarders. In time, the family finances became a little easier, when Margaret inherited a legacy from her mother.
Leslie attended East State School in his primary years, and won a secondary scholarship to Toowoomba Grammar School (he was later to serve as Chairman of the Board of Trustees at the school). In 1914 Leslie joined the Toowoomba Foundry Company as an engineering cadet, gaining experience in the drawing offices and attending night school at the Toowoomba Technical College.
Career
In World War I, Leslie was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant. He fought in the battle of Messines and the Battle of Broodseinde Ridge near Paschendaele before being wounded and awarded the Military Cross. He returned to action and was seriously wounded on the Somme suffering machine gun wounds to the hip, groin and thighs.
By 1919 he was fit enough to return to rejoin the Toowoomba Foundry as Assistant to the Managing Director. He was appointed a Director in 1922 and sent to mange the branch office in Rockhampton, where he remained for 3 years.
Returning to Toowoomba in 1925 he was appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Toowoomba Foundry, a position he held until he retired on 31 December 1957. He continued as a Director of the company until 1976, helping to create Southern Cross Superannuation Fund, and was an Associate Director until the age of 90 in 1987.
A long-term interest in politics firmed into active participation in the 1930s, when Leslie joined the Country and National Party of Queensland. He stood for the seat of Toowoomba in 3 state elections and contested the Darling Downs Federal seat at a by-election, all with no success.
In 1936 Leslie organised the Queensland branch of the Metal Trades Employers Association, and served as president from 1949 to 1951. In 1942 he was a founding member of the Australian Metal Industries Association. He was president of the Toowoomba Chamber of Commerce in 1938.
Leslie's contribution to the Second World War included ensuring the foundry undertook 3 shifts per day on the production of munitions, and priority orders for machinery for primary production of foodstuffs.
Marriage
During the 1920s Leslie began wooing Harriot Rose Margaret Hall (known as Margie) younger daughter of Edgar Hall, of Silverspur and his wife Rose Helen (nee Cullen).
Margie was a contemporary and close school friend of Leslie's sister Nancy, the 2 girls having been boarders together at the Glennie Memorial School.
Before their marriage in 1930 Leslie bought the 7.5 acres of dairy farm and scrub remnant on the (then) north east boundary of Toowoomba, and together they planned the house they moved into immediately after the wedding.
The gardens
Over the decades the Boyces turned the sloping hillside into one of Australia's best known great gardens. The landscaping plans and choice of plants were almost entirely in Margie's hands, but in the early days they both shared the considerable physical chores of terracing, planting, maintenance, and even building the swimming pool terrace out into the rainforest canopy.
Read more about how the garden grew
Later life
Concerned for the future of the magnificent garden they had created, and having no direct heirs, Leslie and Margie both revised their wills in 1958 leaving the property to UQ as a "garden for the enjoyment, edification and education of the people of Australia".
The Boyces were appointed "curators for life" and started a trust fund so that the property is now more than adequately endowed.
In 1973, Leslie was admitted Honoris Causa to the Degree of Doctor of Laws by the Chancellor of The University of Queensland.
In the New Year's Honours of 1975 Dr Boyce was appointed a Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George by Queen Elizabeth II.
Leslie passed away in 1988, just 4 years after Margie.
Harriet Rose Margaret Hall (known as Margaret or Margie) was born at 'Winsted', Stanthorpe, the home of her maternal grandmother, on 3 December 1906.
Early life
The youngest of 6 children, her father, Edgar Hall, was a mining engineer and part owner of a mine at Silverspur, a mining town with a population of about 800, situated near Texas. Her mother, Rose Helen Hall (nee Cullen), was the daughter of Archibald Kennedy Cullen of Undercliffe Station, NSW.
Margaret attended the Silverspur State School, and learned music and French from her mother at home.
In 1920 she went to the Glennie Memorial School, Toowoomba, as a boarder holding a State Government Extension Scholarship. Here she formed a lifelong friendship with Nancy Boyce, sister of her future husband. Margaret passed the Queensland University Junior Public Exam, and in her final year she was awarded the 5A Form Prizes for Geology and Geography and the School Prize for Music.
After her schooling, Margaret returned to Silverspur where she helped in the family business and tended to the household chores and farm animals. She continued to practice her music and took to designing and sewing her own clothes combining current fashions with considerable individuality.
Marriage
Harriet Rose Margaret Hall and Leslie Atherton Boyce were married at Silverspur on 29 April 1930, and spent the first night of their honeymoon at 6 Range Street. The house had been built for them during the year of their engagement on a piece of virgin bush and rainforest land on the north eastern outskirts of Toowoomba.
The gardens
Both the house and garden were very much Margaret's personal creation. She chose the site and aspect of the house and decided the preliminary layout and design of the garden. From then on the garden extended step by step to include a tennis court (1937) and a swimming pool terraced out into the rainforest (1947).
The whole garden stands today as a monument to her conception of tranquillity and beauty. She was before her time in appreciating the beauty of native Australian trees — from the earliest days her ideal was to preserve the natural beauty of the bushland site and its setting on the mountainside.
Read more about how the garden grew
Community involvement
In the early 1950s Margaret was the inaugural convenor of the local Red Cross "Chelsea" Flower Show. She continued as convenor for 5 years and the show became an annual city attraction as well as a major fund-raising event.
Abroad, Margaret was a member of the National Trust and the Royal Horticultural Society, visiting many of the great National Trust homes and gardens and the Royal Horticultural society's headquarters in Wisley.
She was a great concert-goer, an active member of the Chamber Music Society in Toowoomba and a subscriber to ABC Concerts in Toowoomba as well as Musica Viva, the Elizabethan Trust Opera and the Lyric Opera in Brisbane. For local concerts, Margaret would supply cut flowers from Boyce Gardens for decoration.
Later life
In 1969, fulfilling plans dating back to 1956, Dr and Mrs Boyce gave the whole estate of approximately 15 acres in Range Street, Mackenzie Street, Wendy Court and Jellicoe Street in Trust in Perpetuity to The University of Queensland.
Margaret remained active until her death in 1984, still enjoying a full social life, driving herself to do the weekly shopping, adding to her extraordinary knowledge of flowering plants, and creating the beautiful bowls of flowers for which she was famous in Toowoomba.
She passed away, aged 77, following a severe cerebral stroke. Her ashes were scattered over one of her favourite spots in the garden and a simple tablet erected to her memory.
Contact us
Boyce Gardens and Rainforest
6 Range Street, Toowoomba
Open to the public daily 9am—4pm