John Frederick Boyes

Who was John Frederick Boyes?

John Frederick Boyes was an English scholar of classics.

Boyes grew up in Charterhouse Square and entered Merchant Taylors' School in the Northwood area of London in the month of October 1819. After a very creditable school career extending over nearly ten years, he went began studying law at St John's College, Oxford in 1829. He graduated B.A. in 1833, taking a second class in classics, his papers on history and poetry being of marked excellence.

After graduation he was appointed second master of a school in Walthamstow and eventually succeeded to the head-mastership, which he filled for many years. He proceeded M.A. in due course. At school, at Oxford, and among a large circle of discriminating friends, he enjoyed a high reputation for culture and scholarship. 'There was not an English or Latin or Greek poet with whom he was not familiar, and from whom he could not make the most apposite quotations. With the best prose authors in our own and in French, and indeed other continental literature, he was thoroughly acquainted'. The closing years of his life were largely devoted to practical benevolence, in the exercise of which he was as humble as he was liberal. He died at Maida Hill, London.