Robert Boyd was an officer of Irish origin in the army of the British East India Company, who was persuaded by his cousin, John Sterling, son of the editor of The Times, to join a group of young intellectuals called “The Cambridge Apostles” who were engaged in collaborating with the Spanish general José María de Torrijos, exiled in London, to overthrow the Spanish King, Ferdinand VII.
After the failure of the conspiracy, he was shot with the rest of his comrades on the beach of San Andrés, here in Malaga, on 11 December 1831.
Boyd was buried by the British Consul William Mark here in the English Cemetery, which had been completed just four months earlier. He was in fact the second person ever buried here, but the first to be buried within the walls of the primitive cemetery.