Index: 
Photographs by John Boyd 

Table of Contents

John Boyd was only a few years old when his family emigrated to Canada from Ireland in the late 1860s.  Settling in Toronto’s west end, John was the eldest of seven brothers and six sisters.  At 15, he left school to become a messenger in the Freight Office of the Grand Trunk Railway.  By 1894 he had been promoted to Chief Clerk and worked for the local Manager.  Boyd became Superintendent of the Weighing Department of the Canadian National Railways in 1918, holding this position until he retired in 1931.

Boyd’s hobbies included boating and photography.  Using an oblong box covered in black oilcloth, he fabricated his first camera.  Boyd pursued photography throughout his life and was quick to avail himself of new techniques and processes.  He recorded nature subjects, prominent buildings and street scenes of Toronto and vicinity, as well as trains and boats.   He was among the first in Canada to use the new Dufaycolour film, introduced in the 1930s.

More than 30,000 Boyd negatives are in the National Archives of Canada.  Boyd’s second child, John Harold, became a noted professional photographer, and many of Boyd Jr.’s images are in the City of Toronto Archives’ Globe & Mail collection.

Index of works in this exhibit:

Boys on a raft at Sunnyside Beach. National Archives of Canada, PA 088011 6 April 1928

Flying kites in Earlscourt. National Archives of Canada, PA 69937 14-Oct-16

Canoeing in Wychwood Park. National Archives of Canada, PA 69865 17-Jun-16

Gathering lupines in High Park. National Archives of Canada, PA 15036 1-Jun-18

Outside a Dundas Street movie theatre. National Archives of Canada, PA 086228 3-Sep-23

Boy Scout troop and physical training club, High Park. National Archives of Canada, PA 083872 8-Jun-19

Aboard the free bathing ferry "Elsie". City of Toronto Archives, SC 548-3-14348 1-Aug-17

©2001. City of Toronto