[3] He was 35 years old, and a second lieutenant in the Scots Guards, British Army, (Special Reserve, attached to 1st Battalion) during the First World War when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the VC.

At 2 a.m. on 3 August 1915 in the trenches between Cambrin and La Bassée, France, a German trench-mortar bomb landed on the side of the parapet of the communication trench in which Second Lieutenant Boyd-Rochfort was standing, close to a small working party of his battalion.

Instead of stepping back into safety he shouted to his men to look out, rushed at the bomb, seized it and hurled it over the parapet where it at once exploded.

The first German trench was no more than fifty yards away, and their mortars and rifle grenades were simply spilling into us.

"[5]Later Boyd-Rochfort was wounded in a single-handed fight with two Germans; he knocked one down with the butt-end of his empty revolver and the other with his fist.

[citation needed] He was buried in the Church of Ireland graveyard in Castletown Geoghegan, County Westmeath.