GB White, surveyor of Maitland and Hunter

He had been ordered by Sir Thomas Mitchell, the colony's Surveyor General, to 'lay out' a town on the hill to the east of Wallis Creek.

The intention was to encourage future urban development not on the low lands of Wallis Plains (later West Maitland), which were subject to frequent, damaging floods, but on higher ground free from inundation.

Mitchell's goal was not immediately achieved, and West Maitland grew steadily for years while East Maitland languished. It did not outstrip West Maitland in terms of population until well into the 20th century.

Nevertheless, Boyle's plan laid the basis for a planned town with ordered streets and provision for public land uses including a school, parks, a church and a gaol.

Boyle was born in County Cork, Ireland, of English parents, and educated in England. He joined the navy, gaining skills in navigation, before arriving in New South Wales in 1826 on the Cawdrey.

He became a clerk in the Office of the Colonial Secretary and before long was appointed Assistant Surveyor in the Surveyor General's Department.

Mitchell must have been impressed by his young charge, not yet 30 years of age, because he gave him the task of designing a town at East Maitland. Then Mitchell selected Boyle for an expedition to the Barwon River.

Eventually, in 1838, Boyle was appointed as Surveyor, Hunter River District.

He surveyed Muswellbrook in 1833 and Raymond Terrace in 1835 and carried out like work at Rothbury, Paterson, Gosforth and Newcastle. He recorded flood levels on the river and surveyed it in 1844 prior to dredging operations.

Boyle was a committed diarist and his diary entries provide fascinating insights into life in the Hunter in the mid-19th century.

Some of the entries are those of an angry, frustrated man who recorded people's faults in harsh and sometimes libellous terms.

He once wrote that when Maitland flooded again "many who deserve hanging will be drowned" for not discouraging growth there.

Apart from surveying, Boyle became a farmer and landowner. He had properties adjoining Singleton (Greenwood), on Glendon Brook (Mirannie) and at Lochinvar, on which he ran cattle, and a cottage in East Maitland.

His farming activity was unsuccessful, though, and he was twice (in 1847 and 1867) declared bankrupt.

He appears to have been embittered by the reduction in social position and influence these setbacks caused.

Boyle had a brief career in politics, elected in 1858 to represent Northumberland and Hunter in the Legislative Assembly. He did not re-contest in the election the following year.

In 1857 Boyle wrote a letter to the editor of the Maitland Mercury, raising his "warning voice" against further development in flood-liable West Maitland.

He railed against the "chimerical [meaning fanciful] notions of others that [future flood events] might never occur again".

Here he understood that floods should not be seen as singular events but as part of normality and certain to recur.