Maud Rachel Boyd (1 February 1867 – 23 February 1929) was an English actress and singer known for musical theatre and principal boy roles in pantomime.
Boyd was born in 1867 at Chorlton-on-Medlock in Manchester, the daughter of James Boyd (1840–1870) and Elizabeth Montgomery née Hodgson (1834–1921). In 1881 aged 13 she was a boarder at Adelphi House Convent, a Catholic girls' school in Salford in Greater Manchester that was run by nuns. On the curriculum was music.[1]
As a pantomime principal boy she played Prince Charming in Little Red Riding Hood at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin in December 1893,[2] the title role in the panto Robin Hood,[3][4] while over Christmas 1894 she was in Babes in the Wood in Liverpool.[5] Christmas 1895 found her in pantomime at the Theatre Royal in Hull[6] From December 1897 she played Alice in Dick Whittington at the Alexandra Theatre in Stoke Newington.[7] In Dublin in 1899 she recorded "The Golden Isle" from A Greek Slave for the Gramophone Company, but it was not released.[8] In Manchester in February 1900 she appeared in The Forty Thieves at the Theatre Royal.[9]
She was Sir Peterborough Court in Cinder Ellen up too Late at the Gaiety Theatre (1891),[10] Kitt in Kitty Grey at the Apollo Theatre (1901),[11][12] Lady Chaldicott in The Belle of Mayfair at the Vaudeville Theatre (1906),[13] Madame Poquelin in The Belle of Brittany at the Queen's Theatre (1908), and Friedrike in A Waltz Dream at Hicks Theatre (1908).[14]
Boyd died in a nursing home in Manchester in 1929 aged 61.[15] She was buried in the Southern Cemetery in Manchester.[16] She never married, and in her will she left £302 7s 8d to her half brother.[17]