William Boyd of Berwickshire and Hull

I was always interested in the origins of my third Christian name of Boyd. Many of the families of Roberts of Sheffield followed the tradition of using the maiden name of the mother as a Christian name. Boyd was the surname of my great grandmother Ellen, wife of Vincent Littlewood Roberts and the daughter of William James Gibson Boyd of Hull (see posting of 3rd February). She died at the age of 30 and her maiden name continues through some of her descendants to this day.

The father of William James Gibson Boyd was William Boyd. I found him through the younger William's christening in Drypool, Hull on the IGI. I then received some help from the Hull History Centre who traced the family on the 1841 and 1851 census. William, the father, is shown as being born in Scotland in 1780 and his occupation is given as Millwright.

I had previously found the website of Clan Boyd International, and the same Boyds from the census appear on their database. So I emailed the originator, Brian Boyd living in Melbourne, Australia. His reply was fascinating. He has carried out extensive research into our Boyd family history. He is descended from the brother of William James Gibson Boyd, and therefore we have a common ancestor in their father William.

William Boyd was born on 23rd February 1780 in one of the two adjoining villages of Stitchel and Hume in Berwickshire, Scotland. In 1810, William and his brother George (both Millwrights) moved to England and set up business over North Bridge in Hull. They made and fixed thrashing and corn machinery and built many windmills in the surrounding area for the grinding of grain into flour. Brian goes on to describe the visit he and his wife made to East Yorkshire and the mill they found that the brothers had built.

Added the following extract from "A biography of  George King Boyd and Jemima Smith" by Janet Moseley on 13th November 2012.

By 1823, William was an established businessman in Hull.  Edward Baines’ ‘History, Directory and Gazetteer of the County of York’, 1823, lists a business called ‘George and William Boyd’ on Witham under the headings ‘Millwrights’ and ‘Millstone Makers’.  George Boyd was clearly not William’s son, George King Boyd, as he would have been only five years old in 1823.  If George had been William’s father, it is likely that the business would have been called ‘George Boyd and Son’ rather than ‘George and William Boyd’.  It is more likely that George and William Boyd were brothers, and later circumstantial evidence lends weight to this theory.  Their business was on Witham, a main street near the centre of Hull, east of the River Hull, about a kilometre north of the Humber, between North Bridge over the River Hull and Holderness Road.

The business ‘George and William Boyd’ appears in several more trade directories.  It was listed under the same headings in Pigot and Co.’s National Commercial Directory for 1828-9 and for 1834.  White’s 1840 Directory lists ‘George and William Boyd’ under the same headings ‘Millwrights’ and ‘Millstone Makers’, and additionally lists ‘William and George Boyd’ (opposite way round) under the headings ‘Iron Founders & Engine and Boiler Manufacturers’, and ‘Brass Founders and Gas Fitters’.  All these businesses were carried out on Witham, but as ‘Brass Founders and Gas Fitters’ they also operated in South Parade, which later became known as Williamson Street.  Pigot’s Directory of 1841 doesn’t distinguish between the order of the names, but lists all the businesses on Witham as ‘George and William Boyd’, under the headings ‘Millwrights’, ‘Millstone Makers and French Burr dealers’, ‘Iron Founders’ and ‘Brass Founders’.  Lack of annotation in the Brass Founders entry makes it clear that the business did not include Gas Fitters.
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Going back in time, Brian Boyd's researches have found William's father George Boyd born 1751 at Earlston, Berwickshire, his father George born 1729 in the same county, his father John Boyd born 1693 in Ednam, Berwickshire and his father John Boyd born around 1670, possibly in Ayr.
Clan Boyd is also a lowland clan, so it all makes sense that these Boyds would be members of the same clan.

I am indebted to Brian Boyd for the wealth of information he has provided, far too extensive to repeat here. One of the first things I learnt at my genealogy class was "has it been done before". When you find a contact like Brian, the answer is, it certainly has.