When drainage works ran through his farmland near Holderness in 1880, he identified and subsequently excavated a series of Prehistoric settlements.
[2] Boynton excavated the Iron Age cemetery site of Danes Graves, alongside William Greenwell and John Robert Mortimer, in 1897–1898.
[3] Boynton served as a Vice-President of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society and as Honorary Curator of Antiquities.
[4] During his time as Honorary Curator he donated his collection of regional ceramics to the Yorkshire Museum and also acquired chariot wheels from the Arras Culture chariot-burial tradition for it.
[4] He served on the council of the Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society.