Richard Boys

Reverend Richard Boys MA (23 May 1783 - 13 February 1866) was a Church of England clergyman and author, most notable for his tenure as Chaplain on St. Helena at the time of Napoleon Bonaparte's exile there. A controversial figure during his time there, he also played a part in the mystery surrounding Napoleon's death mask.

Early life Richard Boys was born in 1783, the fourth son of John Boys and Mary (née Harvey). He was educated at The King's School, Canterbury, afterward joining the Royal Engineers He was ordained deacon in 1807 and priest in 1808. He was appointed chaplain to the East India Company and made junior chaplain at St. Helena in 1811. On this occasion Boys received an official reprimand.

Boys did not restrict his eccentric behaviour to St. Helena. Chaplin recounts another occasion when, on a visit to Rio de Janeiro accompanying a Mr Thornton, a British minister, Thornton was obliged to send Boys away on account of "his indecent behaviour when a Catholic procession was passing by."

It has been claimed that Boys had one meeting with Napoleon though there is no documentary evidence of it having taken place. When Cipriani, Napoleon's major-domo died, Boys and his junior chaplain buried the man, a Catholic, according to the rites of the Protestant Church. This chair was brought back by Boys when he returned to England and was latterly bequeathed to Maidstone Museum & Art Gallery.

Boys also had a role in the mystery and controversy surrounding Napoleon's death mask. As was the custom for major leaders of the time, a death mask impression of Napoleon's face was taken shortly after his demise. Right from the start there were conflicting reports of who took the impression and when, and in whose possession it then came to be. Soon there were various and hugely differing masks appearing around Europe all purporting to be the genuine article. While the main focus of the debate ranged around whether the original had been taken by Dr Burton or Dr Antommarchi, both of whom had been physicians attending to Napoleon at the time of his death, another mask appeared in the possession of Dr J. O. Sankey, a grandson of Boys. This mask (commonly known as the Sankey mask), purported to have been taken by Joseph William Buridge, an English artist who had made a famous sketch of Napoleon on his deathbed. The providence of this item was supported by a written testimony from Boys himself.

Boys appears as a character in Brooks Hansen's The Monsters of St. Helena (2003), a fictionalised account of Napoleon's final years on St. Helena.

Post St. Helena Boys continued in charge in St. Helena until 1830, when he retired on a pension. On returning to England he held several parishes, initially at All Saints' Church, Tudeley (1830-1832), and finally settling at Loose, in Kent, in 1854. He published two works, The Elements of Christian Knowledge: Or a Compendium of the Christian Religion, in the Form of a Catechism (1838), and Primitive Obliquities; Or, a Review of the Epistles of the New Testament, in Reference to the Prevailing Offences in the Church. He died in 1866, aged 82, and is buried in Loose churchyard.