Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/227

 friend, preserved him from partisanship (cf. his recollections of Shairp in Principal Shairp and his Friends, 1888). Ordained deacon in 1853 and priest in 1854, Boyle was from 1853 till 1857 curate of Kidderminster under Thomas Legh Claughton [q. v. Suppl. I], and from 1857 to 1860 of Hagley. In 1860 he 'had three offers of new work at once' and he chose the incumbency of St. Michael's, Handsworth, Birmingham (Recollections, p. 203). He entered into the public life of Birmingham, especially on its educational side, was a governor of King Edward VI's school, and numbered amongst his friends men differing as widely as John Henry Newman, George Dawson, and Robert William Dale. In 1867 Boyle became vicar of Kidderminster, where he won universal confidence. He was chairman of the first school board for Kidderminster, acted as arbitrator in an industrial dispute, promoted the building of an infirmary, and greatly developed the church schools.

In 1880 Boyle was appointed dean of Salisbury. A sum of 14,000l. was spent on the cathedral under his direction. His love of literature and his acquaintance with men of affairs continued to widen his interests (cf., Notes from a Diary, 1886-8, i. 119-21). On ecclesiastical controversy, in which he took no active part, he exercised a moderating influence. He died suddenly of heart failure at Salisbury on 21 March 1901. He married, in 1861, Mary Christiana, daughter of William Robins of Hagley, and left no issue. A mural tablet and a window to his memory are in Salisbury Cathedral, and a portrait in oils in the Church House, Salisbury. Boyle edited with notes 'Characters and Episodes of the Great Rebellion, selected from the History and Autobiography of Edward Earl of Clarendon' (1889), and also published a small volume on 'Salisbury Cathedral' (1897). In his 'Recollections' (1895, with portrait) he gives a full account of his intercourse with men of letters and affairs.

 BOYLE, RICHARD VICARS (1822–1908), civil engineer, born in Dublin on 14 March 1822, was third son of Vicars Armstrong Boyle of that city, a descendant of a branch of the Boyles of Kelburn, Ayrshire, who had migrated to the north of Ireland in the seventeenth century. His mother was Sophia, eldest daughter of David Courtney of Dublin. After education at a private school and two years' service on the trigonometrical survey of Ireland he became a pupil to Charles Blacker Vignoles [q. v.]. On the expiration of his articles he was engaged on railway construction in Ireland, at first as assistant to William Dargan [q. v.], who employed him on the Belfast and Armagh and Dublin and Drogheda railways. In 1845, under Sir John Benjamin Macneill [q. v.], he surveyed and laid out part of the Great Southern and Western railway, and in 1846-7 was chief engineer for the Longford and Sligo railway. In the autumn of 1852 he laid out railways and waterworks in Spain as chief assistant to George Willoughby Hemans (son of the poetess).

In 1853 he was appointed a district engineer on the East Indian railway. At first he was stationed at Patna, and was thence transferred to Arrah (Shahabad). At the outbreak of the Indian mutiny, Boyle honourably distinguished himself. When, towards the end of July 1857, the native troops in the cantonments at Dinapore, about twenty-five miles from Arrah, mutinied and deserted, Boyle fortified a detached two -story house fifty feet square standing in the same compound as his own private residence, and provisioned it to withstand a siege. Here on Sunday, 26 July, sixteen Europeans and about forty Sikhs took refuge, and the following morning the mutineers, having crossed the river Son and taken possession of Arrah, besieged the little garrison. But, thanks to the courage and fidelity of the Sikhs, the inmates defended the house successfully against about 3000 men until sunset on 2 August, when the approach of the relieving force, under Major (Sir) Vincent Eyre [q. v.], from Buxar drew off the rebels and left the besieged free. Boyle was thereupon appointed field-officer to Eyre's force, and was engaged in restoring broken communications and bridges. A few days later he was disabled by a kick from a horse. When somewhat recovered he was summoned to Calcutta, and travelling down the Ganges in the steamer River Bird was wrecked on the Sunderbunds. After a sea-trip to Penang and Singapore to recruit his health, he returned to Arrah early in 1858. For his services Boyle received the mutiny medal and a grant of land near Arrah. In 1868, after leaving the East Indian railway company, he became a first-class executive engineer in the Indian public works department, but was soon recalled to England by private affairs. He was made C.S.I, in 