P_10433_2927 – Edward Boyd

D.O.B: 03/09/1770 D.O.D: 27/08/1846

London merchant and slave-trader, partner with Alexander Caldcleugh (q.v.) and brother and business associate of William Boyd of Charleston (q.v.).

Edward Boyd is shown as the co-owner of five voyages (in one of which he is recorded as Edward Bryde), but in addition he probably had an interest in seven voyages recorded under only Caldcleugh between 1799 and 1805, and a further two voyages recorded in TASTDB for William Boyd in conjunction with Alexander Caldcleugh were conceivably Edward Boyd’s. The two brothers were the son of Rev. Dr William Boyd of Myrton and Joanna Maitland. Edward Boyd was bankrupt in 1826.

Edward Boyd had complex colonial legacies through his sons William Sprot Boyd (1799-1844), Political Commissar of Gujarat; Mark Boyd (1805-1879), a colonial promoter; and Benjamin Boyd (1801-1851), after whom Ben Boyd National Park in New South Wales was named.  In 2021 a report on Benjamin Boyd’s involvement in ‘blackbirding’ – the forced extraction of labour from the indigenous peoples of Oceania by white colonists –  was commissioned by the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service as part of the considerations around the renaming of the national park. Both Mark Boyd and Benjamin boyd have entries in the ODNB. Edward Boyd’s grand-daughter Blanche Mary married Henry Paget, 4th Marquess of Anglesey. His great-grandson Alan Tindal Lennox-Boyd was made 1st Viscount Boyd of Merton.