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Boys was a physicist and inventor of instruments. In 1881 he invented the integraph, a machine for drawing the antiderivative of a function. His work on quartz fibres in the measurement of small forces led to him to conduct Cavendish type experiments to improve the values obtained for the gravitational constant. His work on gravitation is certainly his most important contribution.
In 1888 Boys was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. The following year he became assistant professor at the Royal College of Science, South Kensington, a post he held until 1897. While holding this post he supplemented his income examining for the University of London.
He took up an applied science post of Metropolitan Gas Referee in 1897 and he held this post until the Referees were abolished in 1939. His services were retained in an advisory capacity until 1943.
His (alleged) ill-treating of his wife led to her having an affair with Forsyth and a scandal at Cambridge resulted. Boys divorced his wife in 1910 after 18 years of marriage. From 1913 onwards he lived in rooms in Westminster, going every weekend to the country where he had a workshop.
After 1939 he retired permanently to his country house where he became interested in growing weeds. He published Weeds, weeds, weeds in 1937.
References elsewhere in this archive:
Boys' teacher, Frederick Guthrie was the brother of Francis Guthrie who first posed the Four Colour Problem. You can see more about this.
References:
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