He was the only child of Augustus Boyd (1679–1765), a northern Irish merchant who owned several sugar estates on the islands and later moved to London to set up trade links there with the plantations.
John went into this family business, but not before he had read theology and classics at Christ Church, Oxford and taken a Grand Tour of the continent.
Having inherited his father's estate in the meantime, he began work on the house and, in 1772, 1775 and 1776, took tours of Spain, France and Belgium to collect art to fill it.
[citation needed] Boyd was made a baronet in 1775,[2] but his plantations were beginning to fail and the final blow was the capture of St Kitts by the French in 1779.
Even after being able to repay his debts through a loan from Paul Benfield (one of Boyd's clerks who had made his fortune in India), he did not leave Danson until his death there in 1800.