John Boyd, also referred to as John Boyd Sr., was a Canadian amateur photographer and railway official. He was also the father of Canadian newspaper photographer
John H. Boyd.
Personal life
John Boyd emigrated to
Toronto,
Ontario, Canada, with his family in the late 1860s.
[Library and Archives Canada. John Boyd Fonds Accessed February 23, 2017. http://collectionscanada.gc.ca/pam_archives/index.php?fuseaction=genitem.displayItem&rec_nbr=196034&lang=eng&rec_nbr_list=196034] The oldest of 14 children, Boyd left school at the age of 15 in 1880, to work as a messenger at the
Grand Trunk Railway's (GT) Freight Office. By 1894, he had reached the position of chief clerk. He moved to the
Canadian National Railway
The Canadian National Railway Company (french: Compagnie des chemins de fer nationaux du Canada) is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States.
CN i ...
(CN) in 1918, remaining there as a supervisor until his retirement in 1931.
[Plummer, Kevin "Historicist: The Two John Boyds" http://torontoist.com/2011/12/historicist-the-two-john-boyds/2/] In his work for both the GT and CN railways, he was given the opportunity to photograph across Ontario.
Amateur photography
In his work as an amateur photographer, his photographs were widely published across Canada. He also corresponded with
George Eastman, founder of the Eastman Kodak Company, about photographic technology, and published in photographic journals on the subject of technological innovation. He built his first camera out of an oblong box covered in black oil cloth, and went on to design and build such items of equipment as an exposure timing chart, a lens shade, and a fixing tank.
[Koltun, "Private Realms of Light", p 127.]
Between August 1914 and November 1917, John Boyd took photographs of the training activities of Canadian soldiers who would soon ship out as part of the
Canadian Expeditionary Force
The Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) was the expeditionary field force of Canada during the First World War. It was formed following Britain’s declaration of war on Germany on 15 August 1914, with an initial strength of one infantry division ...
during the First World War. His photographs depict aspects of recruitment and military training such as: parade drilling, artillery exercises, signalling, trench digging, and camp life. While most of the photographs were taken in Toronto, some images were shot in Barriefield and Kingston, Camp Borden, Niagara, London, and Guelph in Ontario, and in Montreal, Quebec.
References
Bibliography
* Desfor, Gene and Jennefer Laidley, ed. "Reshaping Toronto's Waterfront" (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011).
* Koltun, Lily, ed. "Private Realms of Light: Amateur Photography in Canada: 1839-1940" (Toronto: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1984).
External links
* City of Toronto Archives
John Boyd's First World War photographs, digitized album of Toronto home-front photographs 1914-1917.
* City of Toronto Archives
Globe and Mail fonds- includes images taken by his son, of John Boyd Sr.
* Archives of Ontario, John Boyd Fonds https://www.archeion.ca/john-boyd-fonds
* Library and Canada
John Boyd Fonds
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boyd, John
Canadian photographers
1865 births
1941 deaths
Irish emigrants to Canada
World War I photographers
People from Toronto
People from County Monaghan
Irish photographers
Rail transport photographers