Jessica Mabel Boyd/Edward Reid
I (Gilbert Boyd Reid)
was born on 13 February, 1936 at Windyway,
Warwick Road, Bishop's Stortford,
Hertfordshire, England, the first
of the two sons of Thomas
Edward Boyd Reid and Mary Reid (nee Lee).
On my birth certificate my
father is described as a bookseller of 27
Thornfield Road, Bishop's
Stortford. I was christened Gilbert Boyd
but have always been known
to family and friends simply as "Boyd".
My father was the only son
of Edward Reid and Jessica Mabel Boyd. He
was born in
England on 27 November 1876 and died in England on 8
October, 1968. His
parents were married on 29 December 1894. His
mother died in England on
25 March, 1928.
I would like to find out all
I can about my grandmother, her ances-
tors and descendants.
All I know at present about her is what my
mother has written in her
unpublished memoirs:
"When Edward married Miss Jessie
Mabel Boyd he married into a wealthy
family. Jessie had six or
seven sisters and one brother and every one
of them had
red hair. All the sisters except Jessie married into
money and they
all received what was called a Marriage Settlement
from their father....In Jessie's
case, her husband, Teddy, had only a
small position
in some London office, but the income
from her
marriage settlement was sufficient
to keep her small family reason-
ably comfortable. But
all Tom's cousins on his mother's side were
wealthy; so much
so that as time went on, he had very little to do
with them. But his mother
talked a great deal about her sister, Mrs
Courtauld, or 'my sister,
Mrs Merriman', to the confusion and boredom
of her listeners.... I don't
know where Mr. Boyd's money came from
but I do know that his wife
was a Miss Black and it was either the
Blacks or the Boyds who owned
vast tracts of land in Argentina where
they raised cattle for the
beef market ..."
The Mrs Courtauld mentioned
here married into the family that owned
the firm of Courtaulds which
was and maybe still is quoted on the
London Stock exchange. It
also established the Courtauld Institute in
London. Several members,
says my mother, "were involved in scienti-
fic operations, including
explorations in the Arctic".
Mrs Merriman had
a son, Frank Boyd Merriman, who became a lawyer,
M.P. and judge
and eventually was made President of the Probate,
Divorce and Admiralty
Division of the High Court, England. He was
knighted in 1928 and created
a baron in 1941. I am mailing you a
photocopy of Lord
Merriman's obituary in the London Daily Telegraph
newspaper from which I culled
this information.
Gilbert
"Boyd" Reid
16 Pax
Vale, Cantaro,
Santa
Cruz,
Trinidad
& Tobago, West Indies.
Email
address: boydreid@opus.co.tt