Sir John Smith Knox Boyd

Sir John Smith Knox Boyd (1891 – 1981), Largs-born Bacteriologist

On the 18th of September, 1891, bacteriologist Brigadier Sir John Smith Knox Boyd was born at Mossbank, Largs to parents John Knox Boyd, bank agent, and Margaret Wilson Smith. The 1901 census reveals that John and Margaret Boyd were living at Mossbank, Douglas Place, off Douglas Street, Largs with their three children, Archibald, John and James in a home with nine rooms.

John was educated at Largs Academy, leaving in 1908 to study medicine at Glasgow University.  He won several class prizes and medals, and graduated MB ChB (Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery) with honours in April 1913 , receiving the Brunton medal for being the most distinguished graduate of his year.

Working first as a house surgeon at Glasgow Infirmary and then as a ship’s surgeon on a voyage to Rangoon he returned to Britain just as war was declared and applied for a Commission in the Royal Army Medical Corps in August 1914.  He served first in France, then Belgium and was there during the 2^nd Battle of Ypres when on 22 April 1915 the Germans released their first chemical warfare weapon, chlorine gas, killing over 800 men.  John was appointed anti-gas officer.  He was then appointed to Medical Officer to the Divisional Engineers and sent to Salonika, where following bacteriological training was put in charge of a Mobile Bacteriology Laboratory dealing with mass outbreaks of malaria and dysentery.  It was here that he first developed his life-long interest in tropical medicine.  Later in the war he was sent to 29 General Hospital in Salonika as a pathologist.

In September 1918 he contracted Spanish Flu, returning home to recuperate.

After the war he continued to serve with the Royal Army Medical Corps, gaining his Diploma in Public Health from Cambridge in 1924.  He took up a post at the RAMC College, Millbank, London, where he was promoted to Assistant Professor of Pathology.  He served in India from 1929 to 1936 being promoted to Assistant Director of Hygiene and Pathology in 1932 and published several papers on the bacteriology of bacillary dysentery for which he was awarded the Leisham Memorial Prize in 1935.   In 1936 he took charge of the Vaccine Department of RAMC College, Millbank working on developing a vaccine against tetanus.

In 1940 he was promoted to the rank of Colonel and as Deputy Director of Pathology was sent to the Middle East where, in addition to working on malaria and bacillary dysentery, he established an effective blood transfusion service.  In 1942 he was awarded an OBE for his work.  In 1943 he was recalled and appointed Director of Pathology for the recently established 21st Army Group where he organized laboratory and blood transfusion services for the Normandy landings.  In 1944 he was appointed Honorary Physician to HM King George VI and in 1945 he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier.

In 1946 he accepted the Directorship of the Wellcome Laboratories of Tropical Medicine where he supervised the research programme for nine years.  He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1951, became a Wellcome Trustee in 1955 and was created Knight Bachelor ‘for services to bacteriology’ in the 1958 Birthday honours. John retired in 1966, but still took an active interest in the promotion of tropical medicine. He had been widowed twice and had no children. He lived in Northwood, Middlesex, where he enjoyed birdwatching, golf and music.

He died on 10 June 1981 at a hospital in Northwood, aged 90.