Born in Shrewsbury on May 18th, 1856, the son of Major James Boyd, 86th Regiment, and Emma, daughter of Henry Newton, a burgess of Shrewsbury. He spent his boyhood with his parents at St Heliers, Jersey, where he was educated in a private school. “I can go back to the charm of his Jersey home at St Heliers”, says one of his oldest friends, Dr Harrington Sainsbury, in the *Lancet* (1916, i, 378), “and recall happy memories of a visit there when the circle was still complete, Major and Mrs Boyd, a younger sister and brother forming that circle; and I can see there, in the simplicities and integrities and unaffected enjoyment of life which prevailed, the natural source of the qualities which characterized and adorned him. It was a military home where duty figured largely and cheerfully, and it has always seemed to me that in consequence Boyd retained much of the soldier’s outlook all through life.” Stanley Boyd, having entered University College Hospital as a student in 1872, and thus living in London, came under the influence of his uncle, Henry Newton, a distinguished retired Anglo-Indian judge. Newton regarded his nephew almost as a son, and through him Boyd came much into contact with the Society of Friends. Through William S Tuke at University College he came to know Dr Hack Tuke and his family, of long-established Quaker origin and traditions. Others of his University College fellow-students were Victor Horsley (qv), Charles Stonham (qv), C T Bond, of Leicester, Dawson-Williams, Alfred Pearce Gould (qv), A J Pepper, Arthur Quarry Silcock (qv), Amand Routh, F W Mott, and Montague Murray, the last three eventually becoming his colleagues at Charing Cross Hospital, and all in time occupying high positions in the profession. He himself was a distinguished student. He was House Physician to Wilson Fox and House Surgeon to John Marshall (qv). Boyd, like others of his generation, owed much of his subsequent success to that disciple of Lister and Billroth, Marcus Beck (qv), whose teaching of the science and the art of surgery was an outstanding feature of University College Hospital. After graduating with high honours, Boyd became Demonstrator of Anatomy and then of Practical Surgery in the Medical School of his hospital. Later he was Surgical Registrar to the hospital. By conscientious devotion to the duties of this office he laid the foundation of his thorough knowledge of pathology and of its important bearings on surgical practice. It enabled him to describe precisely the details of an operation, and also of any subsequent microscopic investigation. In later life he would often refer to the great value of such an appointment to a young surgeon. He was elected Assistant Surgeon to Charing Cross Hospital in 1882, and was soon regarded as an acquisition to the hospital’s anatomical and surgical teaching. In 1891 he became full Surgeon and was Senior Surgeon from 1905 to the time of his death. He held most of the important posts at Charing Cross Hospital, being Lecturer in Anatomy (1888-1897), Pathologist (1886-1888), Dean (1890-1895), Lecturer on Operative Surgery (1899-1901), and on Surgery (1890-1905). His lectures were remarkable for their thoroughness, and as an operator he was brilliant. He was bold but always careful. He was keenly interested in the operative treatment of malignant disease, especially where the breast or mouth or fauces were involved, and his success in radical operations for these conditions was in some measure due to his sound anatomical knowledge. Boyd was Treasurer to the School of Charing Cross Hospital from 1906-1911, holding this post during a transition period. He was also a zealous Chairman of the Medical Committee of the Hospital and of the School Committee and laboured in the interest of both. He was a great believer in athletics as a means of improving the *moral* of a school. It was a critical period through which his hospital was passing. The slums to the east of it, north of the Strand, were being cleared away; one of the two adjacent hospitals was no longer needed; and King’s College Hospital moved to the south side of the river. Charing Cross Hospital got more work, for by its situation it constitutes the casualty station for that region of Central London, where its service is as much in demand by night as by day. Boyd, the foremost among the medical staff in advocating improvements, only lived through the commencement; in particular the new operating theatre was due to him. From being almost overwhelmed by debt, the hospital has come to have funds in hand; it has been largely rebuilt and has taken over the site of the older Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital. Despite his responsible position at Charing Cross Hospital, Boyd found time for much work outside its walls. Thus, at the time of his death he was Surgeon to the Hospital for Consumption at Brompton, Consulting Surgeon to the Paddington Green Hospital for Children, and to the New Hospital for Women. He was also on the honorary staff of certain hospitals in the home counties and suburbs, such as the Norwood Institute for Jews, etc. At the beginning of the Great War (1914-1918), in addition to his arduous hospital and private work, he operated daily at the 4th London General Hospital, with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel RAMC (TF). In July, 1914, he was elected upon the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons, having been previously a Member of the Court of Examiners. He was also Examiner in Surgery at the University of Cambridge. He warmly advocated the medical education of women. In the early days of the Women’s School of Medicine he was a lecturer on anatomy, and much of the success of that school was due to him. He had the courage of his convictions, and never failed to advocate the claims of women to be admitted to the examinations of the colleges and universities. Like all pioneers in this movement, he became for a time unpopular. On the difficult subject of the proper development of the University of London he had very definite views. He was among those who held that the best way to reorganize the University of London as a teaching centre, as far as medicine is concerned, would be to concentrate in a few centres the instruction in the preliminary sciences, and much of the success which has now come to Charing Cross Hospital Medical School by its amalgamation for that purpose with King’s College could have been effected years ago had the counsels of Stanley Boyd been adopted. He married in 1889 Florence Nightingale Toms, MD, from a family well known and much respected in Chard, Somerset, who had been one of his pupils at the London School of Medicine for Women and had distinguished herself in gynaecology. He died, after a short illness from previously latent gall-bladder disease, on February 1st, 1916. A funeral service, with a military escort, was held at St Pancras Church. His London address was 134 Harley Street. Publications: “Reports of Surgical Cases in University College Hospital, 1880, 1881.” Article on “Hospital Mortality and Hospitalism,” etc., in Heath’s *Dictionary of Surgery*. Article on “Diseases of the Mouth, Tongue and Veins” in Quain’s *Dictionary of Medicine*. “Reports on Surgery.” – *Year Book of Treatment*, 1891-4. “Injuries of Bones.” – Treves’ *System of Surgery*, 1895. “Aneurysm.” – *Encyclopoedia Medica*, i. Editor of Green’s *Pathology and Morbid Anatomy*, 7th ed., 1889. Editor of Druitt’s *Vade-Mecum*, 12th ed., 1887. Translation of Koch’s *Etiology of Tuberculosis* in Watson Cheyne’s “Recent Essays on Bacteria,” New Sydenham Society, 1886. “The Bhaau Daji Treatment of Leprosy,” 8vo, 1893, reprinted from *Brit. Jour. Dermatol*., 1893, v. 203. “On Enterorrhaphy by Invagination (Maunsell’s Method).” – *Trans. Med.-Chir. Soc.*, 1893, lxxvi, 345. “Oöphorectomy in Cancer of the Breast” (with W. H. Unwin). – *Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1897-1900. “On a Series of Cases of Cancer of the Tongue” (with W. H. Unwin). – *Practitioner*, 1903, lxx, 626. “On a Series of Cases of Cancer of the Mouth and Fauces.” – *Ibid*., 1904, lxxii, 397.