his wife Myra Elizabeth (nee Macdougall). Edward Boyd had been born on 10th October 1839, the son of Henry Fawcett, of Broadfields, York, when he was staying at Poona, the Victorian resort in the Himalayan foothills to which the upper echelons of the Raj regularly retired to escape the heat of an Indian summer. E. Boyd Fawcett had gone to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he won a Blue for cricket, going on to play for Sussex and the Gentlemen in 21 matches between 1859 and 1863. On leaving Cambridge, Boyd joined the Royal Cumberland Regiment and went east to help run the Empire. While out there, he met and married Myra Macdougall, the daughter of Col. Macdougall of the Bengal Army.

When their first-born was expected, they moved backto Blighty and Edward Douglas was born in Hove, Brighton in 1866. For whatever reason, their time in the orient was cut short, as by the time a second son was born the following year, they had moved to a house in Ashbury Dale, in the parish of St. Marychurch, Torquay. Quite why this radical change in residence and career is not clear, but in the1871 census Boyd is described as a “Share Holder”, which suggests he may have come into some money which he invested on the stock market.

The following year, a brother was born, Percy Harrison Fawcett, who later became famous as Colonel Fawcett, who, in 1925, led an expedition into the Amazonian rainforest in search of a fabled city, but was never seen again. In