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Senate House Library, University of London

Boyd, Walter


IDENTITY STATEMENT

Reference code(s): GB 0096 MS 898

Held at: Senate House Library, University of London

Title: Boyd, Walter

Date(s): 1797

Level of description: Collection (fonds)

Extent: 2 items

Name of creator(s): Boyd | Walter | [1754]-1837 | financier and politician

CONTEXT

Administrative/Biographical history:

Walter Boyd (1754-1837) worked as a banker in Paris previous to the French Revolution, which led him to flee for his life, leaving the assets of his firm Boyd, Ker and Co to be confiscated in October 1793. He established another banking firm, Boyd, Benfield and Co, in London in the same year, and was for a time very successful. Boyd and his partner Paul Benfield were elected to parliament for Shaftesbury (1795-1802). However, the permanent loss of his Paris properties eventually led to the liquidation of the firm and Boyd's financial ruin. Boyd visited France during the brief interval of peace (March 1802-May 1803), and was detained when war broke out again. He was not released until the fall of Napoleon in 1814. On his return to England Boyd recovered some of his former prosperity, becoming MP for Lymington from 1823-1830. He also wrote several pamphlets on financial subjects.
See also S.R.Cope, Walter Boyd : a merchant banker in the age of Napoleon (1983).

CONTENT

Scope and content/abstract:

Two letters written by Walter Boyd:
1. Letter to Henry Dundas, wrriten from New Broad Street on 23 Mar 1797, concerning Walter Boyd's difficulty in raising money as '£70,000 which Mr.McDowall's house had applied for to the Grenada Board' was not available. [Half the money had been promised to him by the Commissioners appointed under the act of 1795 (35 Geo.III c.127) to make loans to such persons in Great Britain who were in difficulties because of the Civil War in Grenada and St Vincent, and who were in a position to provide proper security. See Ragatz, L.J. The Fall of the Planter Class in the British Caribbean (New York, 1963).]
2. Letter to 'My dear friend', dated 23 Mar [1797] and unsigned, concerning Boyd's financial difficulties. Mentions William Pitt and Henry Dundas.

ACCESS AND USE

Language/scripts of material: English

System of arrangement:

Conditions governing access:

Access to the items in the collection is unrestricted for the purpose of private study and personal research within the controlled environment and restrictions of the Library's Palaeography Room. Access to archive collections may be restricted under the Freedom of Information Act. Please contact the University Archivist for details.

Conditions governing reproduction:

Copies may be made, subject to the condition of the original. Copying must be undertaken by the Palaeography Room staff, who will need a minimum of 24 hours to process requests.

Physical characteristics:

1. 2 leaves; 2. 4 leaves.

Finding aids:

Collection level description.

Detailed catalogue

ARCHIVAL INFORMATION

Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information:

Accruals:

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

Given by Dr. S.R. Cope in 1981.

ALLIED MATERIALS

Existence and location of originals:

Existence and location of copies:

Related material:

There are facsimiles of other letters of Boyd in the University of London Library (Ref: MS/F 178 and 225). The Library also holds S.R.Cope, Walter Boyd : a merchant banker in the age of Napoleon (1983), shelved at 63 MUFL/Cop.

Further material relating to Walter Boyd is held at Trinity College Library, Cambridge University.

Publication note:

DESCRIPTION NOTES

Note:

Archivist's note: Compiled by Sarah Aitchison as part of the RSLP AIM25 Project.

Rules or conventions: Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions: Feb 2002


INDEX ENTRIES
Subjects
Public finance | Finance

Personal names
Boyd | Walter | ? 1754-1837 | financier and politician
Dundas | Henry | 1742-1811 | 1st Viscount Melville | Scots statesman x Melville | 1st Viscount
Pitt | William | 1759-1806 | Prime Minister, known as Pitt the younger

Corporate names

Places
Grenada | Caribbean
London | England | UK | Western Europe | Europe
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines | Caribbean