Boyd was baptised on 20 April 1710 at
Richmond, Surrey and attended the
University of Glasgow before entering the army in his father Ninian's profession of civilian storekeeper. In 1756 he served at the
Siege of Minorca, and attempted to reach Admiral
John Byng's fleet in an open boat with a message from the besieged garrison commander,
William Blakeney. A memorial stone was placed within the
King's Chapel but the marble stone in the King's Bastion read: Within the walls of this bastion are deposited the mortal remains of the late General Sir Robert Boyd, K.B., governor of this fortress, who died on 13 May 1794, aged 84 years. By him the first stone of the bastion was laid in 1773, and under his supervision it was completed, when, on that occasion, in his address to the troops, he expressed a wish to see it resist the combined efforts of France and Spain, which wish was accomplished on 13 Sept. 1782, when, by the fire of this bastion, the flotilla expressly designed for the capture of this fortress were utterly destroyed. ==References==