[Chalmers's Biog. Dict. vi. 374-5; Masters's Hist. Corpus Chr. Coll. (Lamb), p. 353; Granger's Biog. Hist, of England, 2nd ed. iii. 295-6; General Hist. of Norfolk, ed. J. Chambers, i. 249, ii. 1336.]
BOYS, EDWARD (1785–1866), captain, son of John Boys (1749-1824) [q. v.], entered the navy in 1796, and after serving in the North Sea, on the coast of Ireland, and in the Channel, was in June 1802 appointed to the Phoebe frigate. On 4 Aug. 1803, Boys, when in charge of a prize, was made prisoner by the French, and continued so for six years, when after many daring and ingenious attempts he succeeded in effecting his escape. On his return to England he was made lieutenant, and served mostly in the West Indies till the peace. On 8 July 1814 he became commander; but, consequent on the reduction of the navy from its war strength, had no further employment afloat, though from 1837 to 1841 he was superintendent of the dockyard at Deal. On 1 July 1851 he retired with the rank of captain, and died in London on 6 July 1866. Immediately after his escape, and whilst in the West Indies, he wrote for his family an account of his adventures in France; the risk of getting some of his French friends into trouble had, however, made him keep this account private, and though abstracts from it had found their way into the papers it was not till 1827 that he was persuaded to publish it, under the title of 'Narrative of a Captivity and Adventures in France and Flanders between the years 1803-9,' post 8vo. It is a book of surpassing interest, and the source from which the author of 'Peter Simple' drew much of his account of that hero's escape, more perhaps than from the previously published narrative of Mr. Ashworth's adventures [see Ashworth, Henry]. Captain Boys also published in 1831 'Remarks on the Practicability and Advantages of a Sandwich or Downs Harbour.' One of his sons, the present (1886) Admiral Henry Boys, was captain of the Excellent and superintendent of the Royal Naval College at Portsmouth 1869-74, director of naval ordnance from 1874-8, and second in command of the Channel fleet in 1878-9.
[O'Byrne's Dict. of Nav. Biog.; Berry's Kentish Genealogies.]
BOYS, JOHN (1571–1625), dean of Canterbury, was descended from an old Kentish family who boasted that their ancestor came into England with the Conqueror, and who at the beginning of the seventeenth century had no less than eight branches, each with its capital mansion, in the county of Kent. The dean was the son of Thomas Boys of Eythorn, by Christian, daughter and coheiress of John Searles of Wye. He was born at Eythorn in 1571, and probably was educated at the King's School in Canterbury, for in 1585 he entered at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where Archbishop Parker had founded some scholarships appropriated to scholars of that school. He took his M. A. degree in the usual course, but migrated to Clare Hall in 1593, apparently on his failing to succeed to a Kentish fellowship vacated by the resignation of Mr. Coldwell, and which was filled up by the election of Dr. Willan, a Norfolk man. Boys was forthwith chosen fellow of Clare Hall. His first preferment was the small rectory of Betshanger in his native county, which he tells us was procured for him by his uncle Sir John Boys of Canterbury, whom he calls 'my best patron in Cambridge.' He appears to have resided upon this benefice and to have at once begun to cultivate the art of preaching. Archbishop Whitgift gave him the mastership of Eastbridge Hospital, and soon afterwards the vicarage of Tilmanstone, but the aggregate value of these preferments was quite inconsiderable, and when he married Angela Bargrave of Bridge, near Canterbury, in 1599, he must have had other means of subsistence than his clerical income. The dearth of competent preachers to supply the London pulpits appears to have been severely felt about this time, and in January 1593 Whitgift had written to the vice-chancellor and heads of the university of Cambridge complaining of the refusal of the Cambridge divines to take their part in this duty. The same year that the primate appointed Boys to Tilmanstone we find him preaching at St. Paul's Cross, though he was then only twenty-seven years of age. Two years after he was called upon to preach at the Cross again, and it was actually while he was in the pulpit that Robert, earl of Essex, made his mad attempt at rebellion (8 Feb. 1600-1). Next year we find him preaching at St. Mary's, Cambridge, possibly while keeping his acts for the B.D. degree, for he proceeded D.D. in the ordinary course in 1605; the Latin sermon he then delivered is among his printed works. Whitgift's death (February 1604) made little alteration in his circumstances; Archbishop Bancroft soon took him into his favour, and he preached at Ashford, on the occasion of the primate holding his primary visitation there on 11 Sept. 1607.
Two years after this Boys published his first work, 'The Minister's Invitatorie, being An Exposition of all the Principall Scriptures used in our English Liturgie: together with a reason why the Church did chuse
