Boyd Lane

Boyd Lane

Boyd Lane was named after the Boyd family who owned and operated Gippsland Hardware Company.

Reg Boyd, along with his son Jim and his two daughters Mrs Cunningham and Mrs Storer, opened the Gippsland Hardware Company in 1945.

Over the intervening years, under the shrewd guidance of Mr Boyd, he and his family built the business up to be the biggest of its kind in Dandenong. To cope with this growth a modern new building was erected in Lonsdale Street.

In April of 1954, The Argus newspaper reported that the Gippsland Hardware Company is ‘rebuilding at a cost of 50,000 pounds’ – and soon after Reg Boyd opened the newly restored shop which was considered at the time to be a thoroughly modern enterprise.  Featuring a crockery department and library, it extended all the way along the lane from Lonsdale Street to McCrae Street (now also called Palm Plaza).

The business continued to grow, eventually employing 34 staff – all of whom continued to work for the thriving business after its sale to GN Raymond Ltd in 1962.  The sale of the business was reported locally as being ‘the biggest take-over deal yet on the Golden Mile involving an undisclosed cash sum’.

Sadly Reg Boyd died in June 1963, the year after the sale of the business and his retirement.

The Boyd business was hallmark of the remarkable growth that Dandenong witnessed following the end of the Second World War, and Boyd himself was praised as ‘marching with the times’.

This sign is located on the side wall of the original Boyds Building. If you look carefully at the Lonsdale Street façade of this building you will see part of the original brick façade structure – now mostly hidden – but once clearly visible above the buildings original awning.