Mark Boyd (1805 – 12 September 1879, in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
) was an English author.
Mark Boyd was born in
Surrey
Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...
near the
Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...
, the younger son of Edward Boyd of Merton Hall,
Newton Stewart,
Wigtownshire
Wigtownshire or the County of Wigtown (, ) is one of the historic counties of Scotland, covering an area in the south-west of the country. Until 1975, Wigtownshire was an administrative county used for local government. Since 1975 the area has f ...
, a merchant. His brother was
Benjamin Boyd. He mainly spent his childhood on the Scottish estate, which was near the
River Cree
The River Cree is a river in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland which runs through Newton Stewart and into the Solway Firth. It forms part of the boundary between the counties of Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire.
The tributaries of the Cree are ...
. He later pursued an active business career in London, becoming London director of a Scottish insurance society, and a lively promoter of the colonisation of Australia and
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
, and of other useful public undertakings. He travelled much in Europe. He published an account in the ''London and Shetland Journal'' of a journey in the
Orkney Isles in 1839. On 23 December 1848 he married Emma Anne, the widow of
'Romeo' Coates, who had been run over and killed in the previous February. He died at the Alexandra Hotel,
Hyde Park
Hyde Park may refer to:
Places
England
* Hyde Park, London, a Royal Park in Central London
* Hyde Park, Leeds, an inner-city area of north-west Leeds
* Hyde Park, Sheffield, district of Sheffield
* Hyde Park, in Hyde, Greater Manchester
Austra ...
on 12 September 1879, aged 74.
[Jennett Humphreys, rev. Dean Wilson]
‘Boyd, Mark (1804/5–1879)’
''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...
'', Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 1 Feb 2011
Works
In 1864 Boyd published a pamphlet about Australia, where
his disgraced fraudulent slaver brother had settled.
[ His ''Reminiscences of Fifty Years'' (1871) was dedicated to the Australian colonists, and ''Social Gleanings'' (1875, written from Oatlands, Walton-on-Thames) was dedicated to Dean Ramsay.
]
References
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boyd, Mark
1805 births
1879 deaths
English male writers
Writers from Surrey