Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/224

This page needs to be proofread.
Boyce
204
Boyd

[q. v. Suppl. II], founded the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, of which (Sir) Ronald Ross became director, a post which was soon associated with an endowed chair at the university. In 1901 Boyce took the lead in organising with an unfailing optimism a series of expeditions sent by the school to the tropics to investigate diseases in their habitat there. In six years there were despatched seventeen expeditions, which, though costly in life and money, were rich in fruitful knowledge. In 1905 Boyce went himself to New Orleans and British Honduras to examine epidemics of yellow fever.

Boyce's zealous efforts were generally recognised. He was made a fellow of University College, London. In 1902 he was elected F.R.S. In 1906 he was knighted. He became a member of the African advisory board of the colonial office, and served on the royal commissions on sewage disposal and on tuberculosis. In September 1906, after a spell of exceptionally heavy work, he suffered a stroke of paralysis, but after a year partially resumed his university work, although he was permanently crippled. In 1909 he visited the West Indies to report at the instance of the government on yellow fever, and in 1910 he went to West Africa for the like purpose. In his enforced withdrawal from laboratory work he sought to arouse sympathy with the problems of tropical sanitation by writing for the general reader accounts of the bearing of recent biological discoveries on the health and prosperity of tropical communities. His 'Mosquito or Man' (1909; 3rd edit. 1910), 'Health Progress and Administration in the West Indies' (1910; 2nd edit. 1910), and 'Yellow Fever and its Prevention' (1911) all influenced public opinion. The latest of his projects was the formation at Liverpool of a bureau of yellow fever. The first number of its bulletin was sent to press just before his death. He died of an apoplectic seizure on 16 June 1911, at Park Lodge, Croxteth Road, Liverpool, and was buried at Bebington cemetery, Wirral, Cheshire.

Boyce married in 1901 Kate Ethel, (d. 1902), daughter of William Johnston, a Liverpool shipowner, of Woodslee, Bromborough, Cheshire, and left issue one daughter.

The success of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine was the aim and reward of Boyce's later life. Besides the works mentioned, Boyce wrote many papers on pathology and tropical sanitation from 1892 onwards for the Royal Pathological and other scientific societies, and he was joint author with Dr. J. H. Abram of 'Handbook of Anatomical Pathology,' published in 1895.

[The Times, 19 June 1911; Proc. Royal Soc. obit. notices, 1911; private information.]

C. S. S.


BOYD, Sir THOMAS JAMIESON (1818–1902), lord provost of Edinburgh, born on 22 Feb. 1818, was son of John Boyd, merchant, of Edinburgh, by his wife Anne, daughter of Thomas Jamieson. At an early age he entered the publishing house of Oliver & Boyd, of which his uncle, George Boyd, was a partner; when he retired from business in 1898 he had been head of the firm for a quarter of a century. Long a prominent member of the Merchant Company of Edinburgh, he was elected master in 1869, and held the office twice subsequently. In this capacity he was chiefly responsible for the scheme by which the educational foundations of the corporation were reformed. The reforming scheme, which was described in a paper read by Boyd before the British Association in Edinburgh in 1871 and subsequently published, provided for the conversion of the buildings of the four hospitals (George Watson's, James Gillespie's, Daniel Stewart's, and the Merchant Maiden Hospital) into day schools; opened to competition presentations to the foundation; established bursaries and travelling scholarships, as well as industrial schools for neglected Edinburgh children; and endowed a chair in Edinburgh University to complete the commercial side of the education given in the Merchant schools. The scheme was approved by the government, and a provisional order was issued in July 1870, under the recent Scottish Educational Endowment Act, bringing it into operation. It worked efficiently and was taken as a model by the English endowed school commissioners. In recognition of his services a marble bust of Boyd, by William Brodie, R.S.A. [q. v.], was presented to his wife in July 1872, and a portrait by Otto Leyde, R.S.A., was placed in the Merchant Hall. Boyd was also instrumental in promoting another great Edinburgh institution, the building of the New Royal Infirmary on the west side of the Meadow Walk, the largest and best equipped hospital in Europe. He was chairman of the committee which raised for the purpose 320,000l., a larger sum than had ever been subscribed in the city for a benevolent purpose. The foundation stone was laid by King