Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/112

 Boyd escaped what appears to have been an unwelcome duty (Mitchell Papers, Add. MSS. 6860, p. 86). On 18 Sept. 1765 he exchanged from the Guards to the 39th foot, and on 6 Aug. 1766 was promoted colonel of that regiment, in succession to Lieutenant-general Aldercron, deceased. On 25 May 1768 he was appointed lieutenant-governor of Gibraltar, whither his regiment had proceeded (Home Off. Military Entry Books, vol. xxvii.) Sundry references to Colonel Boyd will be found in the Calendars of Home Office Papers for 1760-70, and a number of letters written by him whilst acting governor of Gibraltar are in British Museum, Add. MSS. 24159 to 24163. He became a major-general in 1772, and lieutenant-general in 1777. He was second in command under Lord Heathfield during the famous defence of Gibraltar from 1779 to 1783, and it was at his suggestion that red-hot shot were first employed for the destruction of the enemy's floating batteries (, p. 129). For his distinguished services at this eventful period he was created K.B. In May 1790 he succeeded Lord Heathfield as governor. On 12 Oct. 1793 he attained the rank of general, and died on 13 May 1794. He was buried in a tomb constructed by his directions in the king's bastion on the sea-line of defences, in the salient angle of which is a marble tablet, the very existence of which is now unknown to many dwellers on the Rock, with the following inscription: 'Within the walls of this bastion are deposited the mortal remains of the late General Sir Robert Boyd, K.B., governor of this fortress, who died on 13 May 1794, aged 84 years. By him the first stone of the bastion was laid in 1773, and under his supervision it was completed, when, on that occasion, in his address to the troops, he expressed a wish to see it resist the combined efforts of France and Spain, which wish was accomplished on 13 Sept. 1782, when, by the fire of this bastion, the flotilla expressly designed for the capture of this fortress were utterly destroyed.

A mural tablet in the King's Chapel, Gibraltar, also records the date of his death and the place of his burial.

 BOYD, ROBERT (d. 1883), writer on diseases of the insane, became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1830, and in the following year graduated M.D. in the university of Edinburgh. In 1836 he became a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians, and in 1852 was elected to the fellowship of the college. For some time he was resident physician at the Marylebone workhouse infirmary, and afterwards physician and superintendent of the Somerset county lunatic asylum. He then became proprietor and manager of the Southall Park private asylum, which was destroyed on Aug. 1883 by a fire in which he lost his life. In the various positions in which he was placed he utilised to the utmost his opportunities for original research. He published the annual 'Reports on the Pauper Lunatics' at the St. Marylebone infirmary and the Somerset county asylum, and contributed numerous independent papers to the literature of pathology and psychological medicine. He was the author of pathological contributions to the 'Royal Medical and Chirurgical Transactions,' vols. xxiv. and xxxii., and to the 'Edinburgh Medical Journal,' vols. lv. to lxxii.; of 'Tables of the Weights of the Human Body and Internal Organs,' in the 'Philosophical Transactions;' and of a paper, 'The Weight of the Brain at different Ages and in various Diseases.' To the 'Journal of Mental Science' he contributed no fewer than sixteen papers on 'Treatment of the Insane Poor,' 'Diseases of the Nervous System,' 'Statistics of Pauper Insanity,' and cognate subjects, the most important being that on 'General Paralysis of the Insane' in the 'Journal of Mental Science' for May and October 1871, the result of 155 post-mortem examinations of persons who had died from that disease in the Somerset county asylum. He was also the author of three papers on 'Vital Statistics,' 'Insanity,' and 'The Pauper Lunacy Laws,' published in the 'Lancet.'

 BOYD, WALTER (1754?–1837), financier, was born about 1754. Before the outbreak of the French revolution he was engaged as a banker in Paris, but the progress of events soon caused him to flee for his life, whilst the property of the firm of Boyd, Ker, & Co., of which he was the chief member, was confiscated in October 1793. On March 1793 the firm of Boyd, Benfield, & Co. was established in London. Boyd, as the principal partner, contributed 60,000l. to the common stock, and his 'name, connections,